Sounds about right.
Being a mother is the hardest job you will ever have to do. Don’t get me wrong – it is also the most amazing – by far – but by goodness is it full on.
Motherhood means planning and worrying and carrying and comforting and caring.
All this, of course, comes on top of cooking dinner, getting the shopping done, changing bed sheets, folding laundry, cleaning marker stains off the walls, playing hide-and-seek, policing screen time and all the other million trillion things we mums do around the clock.
And if you are feeling like you don’t have enough hours in your days too, you are probably correct.
According to a new study, which looked at 2,000 mums of kids between five and 12 years old, the researchers found the average hours mums work per week is 98.
Yep. That’s right. Mums work the equivalent of two-and-a-half full-time jobs. And so it really is no wonder we are all wrecked.
According to the survey, the average mum gets going around 6:23 a.m. and the work doesn’t stop until 8:31 p.m. (And, let’s be honest, for many of us, that sounds like a good day.)
“The results of the survey highlight just how demanding the role of mum can be and the non-stop barrage of tasks it consists of,” said Casey Lewis, MS, RD and Health and Nutrition Lead at Welch’s, told Yahoo! News.
The researchers found that on average, mums are lucky to get about an hour and seven minutes to themselves each day. And four out of 10 of the mums surveyed said their lives feel like never-ending series of tasks all week.
As for what gets us through, the mums surveyed said they do – luckily – have helpful lifelines. The top items on the sanity-saver list include baby wipes and wet wipes, iPads, kids’ TV shows, drive-thru meals and coffee, Netflix and the help of grandparents and babysitters.
“Busy mums may identify with the list of ‘lifesavers’, which highlights not just a rigorous workload but a constant requirement to feed and fuel the family, week in and week out,” said Lewis.
Tell us – what are YOUR lfie-savers, mums?
