The Self-Care Lie You’ve Been Sold

You’ve been told self-care is the answer.

So you bought the planner. You set the alarm for 5 a.m. to journal before the kids wake up. You tried the meditation app (until your toddler climbed on your head mid-Om). You even attempted that 10-step skincare routine everyone swears by.

And now? You’re exhausted from trying to find time for self-care on top of everything else you’re already failing at.

Here’s what nobody’s telling you: most self-care advice for moms is just another thing on your to-do list.

Another performance. Another place to fall short. Another optimization strategy built on a man’s system—for people with 24-hour hormone cycles, not 30-day ones. For people who don’t carry 35% more of the caregiving and education load at home.

The daily planners you’re buying? The AI schedules you’re generating? 93% of productivity advice is written by men. Not for nursing bodies. Not for working moms drowning in the impossible math of being present for your kids AND your job.

You’re not failing at self-care. Self-care is failing you.

What This Blog Is Really About

In this blog, I’m explaining why traditional self-care advice doesn’t work for working moms—and what actually does when you have no time, no energy, and no capacity for one more thing to do perfectly.

This isn’t about bubble baths or “just take care of yourself” platitudes that ignore your reality.

This is about understanding what your brain and body actually need—and finding ways to get it that don’t require more time, more money, or more mental load.

Real self-care for moms isn’t addition. It’s replacement.

If you’re feeling like you’re failing at everything—including self-care—start here →

1: Why Traditional Self-Care Doesn’t Work for Working Moms

Let’s start with the truth: you know how to take care of yourself. You’re smart, capable, and strong.

The problem isn’t you. The problem is that most self-care advice was designed for people whose lives look nothing like yours.

Self-Care Advice Adds to Your Load

“Wake up before your kids for quiet time.” “Meal prep on Sundays.” “Create a morning routine.” “Schedule time for yourself.”

Cool. With what time? With what energy?

You’re already running on fumes. Your alarm clock is a toddler. Your calendar is a battlefield. And someone just decided they don’t like the lunch you packed.

Traditional self-care treats rest like another task to accomplish. And when you’re a working mom, you don’t need more tasks—you need actual recovery.

Self-Care Advice Ignores Your Body’s Reality

Most wellness advice is built on research done with men. Men whose hormone cycles run 24 hours, not 30 days. Men who aren’t nursing. Men who aren’t carrying the mental load of everyone’s needs, schedules, and emotional regulation.

Your body is working overtime. Your brain is trying to track 47 things at once. And self-care advice tells you to just… try harder? Be more consistent?

It’s not about competence when smart, capable moms think they’re failing.

Self-Care Advice Makes You Perform

Here’s the kicker: most self-care has become another place you have to show up perfectly.

The perfect morning routine. The perfect skincare. The perfect meditation practice.

And when you can’t do it perfectly—because you’re human and exhausted—you feel like you’ve failed at self-care too.

Which is the opposite of what self-care is supposed to do.

2: What Your Brain and Body Actually Need (And It’s Not a Bubble Bath)

Here’s what’s really happening:

You’re in survival mode even though you’re high-functioning. The demands on you are relentless. You’re carrying the mental load, the physical load, and the emotional load—often all at once.

Your instinct to seek rest is right. You DO need care.

But what you need isn’t more activities or routines. What you need is:

1. Your Brain’s Rest System to Actually Activate

When you’re constantly “on”—checking your phone, responding to notifications, scrolling for a break—your brain never gets to rest. It’s always processing, always consuming, always performing.

Research shows that tech-free activities like looking at art or reading poetry activate your brain’s rest mode in ways that scrolling can’t. You’re not just zoning out—you’re allowing your nervous system to actually recover.

Art engagement can reduce cortisol (your stress hormone) by up to 32%—and at hyperspeeds compared to how stress hormones naturally decrease on their own throughout the day.

2. Validation Without Performance

You’re drowning in the impossible math of being present for your kids AND your job. You feel like you’re failing at everything.

What you need isn’t tips on how to do it better. What you need is someone to say: “This IS hard. You’re not making it up. And you’re doing a better job than you think.”

Real self-care validates your experience without asking you to fix it, optimize it, or perform it perfectly.

3. Recovery That Doesn’t Add to Your Mental Load

Your brain is already maxed out. You’re tracking pump schedules, work deadlines, who needs what permission slip signed, and whether there’s milk for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Self-care that works doesn’t give you more to track, schedule, or execute. It replaces habits you’re already doing with ones that actually restore you.

4. Connection to Yourself (Not Disconnection Through Distraction)

Scrolling feels like a break, but it’s actually disconnecting you from yourself. You’re consuming everyone else’s life, comparing yourself to their highlight reels, and coming away feeling more inadequate.

What you actually need is something that helps you feel like YOU again—the person underneath all the roles you’re playing.

3: The Replacement Approach to Self-Care for Working Moms

Here’s the shift that changes everything: self-care isn’t about adding more things to your life. It’s about replacing the things that aren’t working with things that do.

Replace Scrolling with Something Tangible

You’re already taking breaks. You’re already hiding in the bathroom for a minute of peace. You’re already reaching for something when you’re overwhelmed.

The question isn’t “How do I find time for self-care?”

The question is “What am I currently doing that’s NOT giving me the recovery I need?”

If you’re scrolling 4.8 hours a day (the average for Americans), that’s 4.8 hours you could be getting actual rest instead of spiking your anxiety by 20% (Journal of Affective Disorders).

Learn exactly how to set boundaries with your phone (without going cold turkey) →

Replace the scroll with something that fits in your pocket:

• A small book of poems you can read instead of Instagram
• A journal where you can write about your day instead of consuming everyone else’s
• Even just closing your eyes and noticing what you hear, what’s beneath you, what your body feels like

Replace Optimization with Permission

You don’t need another routine to follow perfectly. You need permission to stop trying so hard.

Replace “I should” with “I am”:

• Instead of “I should be more present” → “I am doing the best I can with what I have”
• Instead of “I should enjoy every moment” → “I am allowed to say this is hard”
• Instead of “I should be grateful” → “I am grateful AND exhausted—both are true”

Self-care for working moms isn’t about doing more. It’s about being kinder to yourself about what you’re already doing.

Replace Performance with Presence

Real self-care doesn’t require you to do anything perfectly. It just requires you to show up for yourself the way you show up for everyone else.

This looks like:

• Reading one poem instead of scrolling before bed
• Looking at art on your wall during a work break instead of checking your phone
• Taking 30 seconds to breathe and notice instead of pushing through

You can’t fail at this. There’s no perfect way to look at art, read a poem, or take a breath. You just… do it. And your brain gets the rest it’s been begging for.

Replace Isolation with Validation

One of the hardest parts of being a working mom is feeling like you’re the only one who can’t figure it out. Everyone else seems to have it together.

Self-care that works connects you to truth:

• You’re not the only one hiding in the bathroom
• You’re not the only one who loves your kids and wants them to go away sometimes
• You’re not the only one who feels like a failure at work, at home, or both

When you read words from another mom who’s been in the thick of it—who gets the pump sessions between meetings, the guilt, the exhaustion, the beautiful mess—you’re reminded: you’re not alone. And you’re doing a better job than you think.

4: What Tech-Free Self-Care Actually Looks Like

Let’s get practical. What does self-care look like when you have no time, no energy, and no capacity for perfection?

It’s Pocket-Sized

Real self-care fits in your pocket or your bag. It goes wherever you go—the bathroom, your car, your office, the pick-up line.

You don’t need a special space, a quiet room, or 30 uninterrupted minutes. You need something you can grab in the 30 seconds you have.

This looks like:

• A small book you keep with your phone
• Art on your walls that reminds you who you are
• A breathing practice you can do standing in your kitchen

It’s Tech-Free

Your phone promises rest but delivers anxiety, comparison, and fragmented attention. It blocks your brain’s rest system while making you feel worse about yourself.

Tech-free self-care removes the screens that are stealing your recovery. No algorithms deciding what you see. No notifications interrupting. No battery to charge.

This looks like:

• Reading instead of scrolling
• Looking at physical art instead of Instagram stories
• Writing by hand instead of typing notes in your phone

It Requires Zero Performance

You can’t fail at real self-care. There’s no right way to read a poem, look at art, or take a breath.

Self-care that works meets you exactly where you are—exhausted, overwhelmed, drowning—and says: “You’re doing enough. You ARE enough.”

This looks like:

• No tracking, no streaks, no perfect consistency required
• No “doing it right” or executing a method perfectly
• Just showing up for yourself however you can, whenever you can

It Validates Your Reality

Real self-care doesn’t tell you to “cherish every moment” or “they’re only little once.”

It tells you the truth: this season is hard. The demands are impossible. And you’re doing a remarkable job even when it doesn’t feel like it.

This looks like:

• Words that say “this is hard” instead of “you should be grateful”
• Permission to love your kids and need space from them
• Reminders that you’re more than your productivity or your motherhood

5: How to Start (Without Adding One More Thing to Your To-Do List)

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life. You just need to replace one habit at a time.

Start Where You Already Are

You’re already taking breaks. You’re already reaching for something when you’re overwhelmed.

Next time you reach for your phone, pause:

Ask yourself: What am I actually looking for right now?

• Rest? (Try closing your eyes and taking three breaths)
• Validation? (Read something that reminds you you’re doing a good job)
• Connection? (Text a real friend instead of scrolling strangers’ lives)
• To zone out? (That’s okay—but know scrolling won’t actually give you recovery)

Replace Just One Thing This Week

Pick one moment in your day where you usually scroll:

• Before bed
• During your lunch break
• In the bathroom
• While waiting in the pick-up line

This week, replace it with something tech-free just once.

Read a poem. Look at art. Close your eyes and notice your breath. Write three sentences about your day.

That’s it. You’re practicing self-care.

Keep It Accessible

The reason your phone wins is because it’s always with you. Fight back by making other options just as accessible.

Make tech-free options easy to grab:

• Keep a small book in your pocket, your bag, or on your nightstand
• Put art on your walls where you take breaks
• Save a breathing practice on a sticky note where you’ll see it

Self-care isn’t something you have to travel to or schedule. It’s something you can access right where you are.

Self-Care That Actually Works Replaces, It Doesn’t Add

You’ve been told that self-care is the answer—and then handed a to-do list of activities that require time, energy, and perfect execution you don’t have.

That’s not self-care. That’s another performance.

Real self-care for working moms recognizes your reality: you’re drowning in demands, running on fumes, and you don’t have capacity for one more thing.

So self-care that actually works doesn’t add to your life. It replaces what’s not working with what does.

It replaces:

• Scrolling with something tangible
• Optimization with permission
• Performance with presence
• Isolation with validation

You don’t need another routine, another app, or another thing to fail at. You just need something you can grab instead of your phone that reminds you who you are underneath all the roles you’re playing.

Your brain needs rest. You deserve recovery. And self-care that works gives you both—without adding one thing to your to-do list.

Start With What Fits Your Season

Step 1: Find out where you actually stand

Before you change anything, get clarity on how you’re really doing as a working mom.

Take the Working Mom’s Hope Score Assessment™—a free, research-backed tool that gives you your “YOU ARE HERE” arrow in the chaos. It takes 6 questions and 2 minutes.

You’ll get personalized results showing where your wellbeing actually stands (not where it feels like when you’re drowning in Goldfish crumbs and pump parts).

Take the Free Hope Assessment →

Step 2: Get self-care that fits in your pocket

Ready to replace the scroll with something that actually works?

Grab Poems of a Burned Out Toddler Mom—small enough to keep in your pocket, designed to replace the doomscroll with real recovery and lower stress hormones.

No performing, no algorithms, and no literature degrees required. Just 25 poems from a mom in the thick of her burnout season, reaching through to say: this is hard, you’re not alone, and you’re doing a good job.

Get the Book →

Step 3: Put self-care on your walls

If you need your space to remind you who you are (not what you haven’t finished), check out The Burned Out Toddler Mom Art Collection.

Professional-grade prints designed for offices, boardrooms, and pump rooms. Science-backed to lower stress hormones just by looking at them. Ready to hang and impossible to mess up.

Shop the Art Collection →

This season is hard. You’re drowning in the impossible math of being present for your kids AND your job.

But underneath all that chaos, you’re still you. You’re still a whole person who deserves rest that actually works.

Self-care isn’t another thing to add to your list. It’s permission to finally get your brain back.

You’re doing such a good job, friend. People are in awe of what you’re accomplishing.

The world’s a better place because you’re in it.

And I’m so glad that you’re you.

Start with the Free Hope Assessment →