I fully expected that mornings would be stressful after becoming a mother. Do I have to take care of others as soon as I wake up, get them where they need to go, and at the same time prepare for the day when I have to concentrate while they go to school or daycare? That’s a lot.
But afternoons as a mother prove to be the time when things get really confusing. And I’m not just referring to the “witching hour” before dinner, when everyone is overstimulated and exhausted. School ends at 3pm, but I have work until 5pm, after-school care ends at 5:30pm, and soccer starts at 6pm. That’s where the real confusion occurs.
And while we’re all running around like crazy, trying to imitate every “sports mom” hack we’ve found on TikTok, we promise ourselves that a crockpot dinner will always be the solution (but oh, I forgot to do that before going to work, I think it’s McDonald’s) Also (after ballet class), we blame ourselves. we are doing something wrong. It shouldn’t be this hard. Surely there is a solution, right?
*screams into the void* Right?
As with many other things that plague mothers in our society today, we can blame outdated settings built in a time when things were very different. And in this particular case, it is called “institutional lag.”
What is “systemic delay”?
The term “institutional lag” has been around for some time and can be used to describe a variety of situations. A rough definition is “trying to ‘adapt the old’ when it is no longer appropriate,” or a time when socio-economic norms lag behind technological advances. Basically, it’s trying to maintain the system that was created except for some of the more modern things we have in place now, such as a system where there’s always a parent at home looking after the kids.
Melissa Panzer, whose account focuses on discussing the “mental load” of working mothers, says in her Instagram Reels that the current system of academics, work, and extracurricular activities feels impossible to cope with because everything is still based on early 20th century models. She said that at the time, children were expected to go home to care for younger siblings, work, and help with domestic labor, and that a parent was always expected to be at home to care for the children. “And that unpaid work was built into the system,” she says.
This way, men knew they could go to work without worrying for a millisecond about their children’s schedules, wants, and needs. That’s why the 9-to-5 working day feels effective and solid, allowing school to start and end earlier.
But as Panzer points out in the video, society began to change when dual income became necessary for many families. In addition, as we move into a more modern society, rising rates of single parenthood (and ditching all husbands with nowhere to go), and larger, more time-consuming, and more expensive child care for children all represent a new way of life that current school classroom settings do not match.
“It’s a mid-century school day superimposed on a modern work day,” Panzer says.
Unfortunately, the call is coming from inside the house.
Can “institutional delays” be corrected?
And the real problem is that there is no incentive to fix this. We’ve seen it done for decades. The United States remains the only developed country in the world and one of seven members of the United Nations without federally mandated maternity leave. And what is the reason? Is it because American mothers seem to be doing everything the best they can, even without government assistance?
of course. of course. But that’s why we’re all stressed out, why we’re all reading a million guides on gentle parenting, why we spend hours cooking meals in the freezer on Sundays, why we’re losing our minds to “weaponized incompetence” and why one night a week when our partner “forgets” to load the dishwasher is enough to send us over the edge.
But hey, please stop panicking. You will be late for baseball practice.
