Why Summer Is So Exhausting for Working Moms
Summer is supposed to be a season of slowing down.
The days are longer. You get more time outside. There are family vacations and making memories, late nights around campfires. Maybe some idealistic lazy mornings and running through the sprinkler in slow motion, right?
But if you’re a working mom, summer can feel like anything but a break.
Instead of one predictable childcare routine, you may be piecing together camps, babysitters, grandparents (if they’re into that sort of thing), vacation days, playdates, and backup plans. One week looks completely different from the next. You’re still working, but your kids’ schedules have changed completely, and everything is running on fast forward.
And somewhere in the middle of all that planning, you may realize that you aren’t actually getting much of a summer.
The Summer Mental Load Is Real!
During the school year, there is often at least some predictable structure.
School starts at a certain time. It ends at a certain time. There are routines around before- and after-school care. You know what most weeks are going to look like.
Summer can blow all of that up.
There might be camp this week, no camp next week, a shortened camp the week after that, and then a family vacation. Maybe your child needs to be dropped off somewhere different every morning. Maybe you have to coordinate transportation with your co-parent. Maybe your work schedule has very little flexibility.
And you’re still expected to do your actual job.
The logistics alone can be exhausting.
But there is another layer that can be even harder: the pressure to make summer meaningful.
You’re Working, But You’re Also Supposed to Be Enjoying Summer
There can be a strange expectation that summer should be magical.
You should take the kids swimming, have adventures, eat picnics outside (love that one). Make memories!
But you’re also working.
So instead of relaxing into summer, you may find yourself trying to squeeze every possible experience into the hours you aren’t working.
You finally have an evening free, but instead of resting, you think:
We should do something. We haven’t done enough this summer. We need to take advantage of the weather. I want the kids to remember this.
And suddenly, even your downtime has become another responsibility.
Overfunctioning Makes It Harder to Enjoy Your Life
This is where overfunctioning can show up.
If you’re used to being the person who makes things happen, you may respond to the chaos of summer by trying to manage it even more carefully.
You research the camps in the dead of winter, already preparing for the chaos of summer.
Then June arrives and you’re coordinating the schedules, making every sport, annual gathering, family vacation, work deadline, and girls’ night fit.
You may even find yourself managing your children’s experience of summer, needing it to be so memorable.
Are they bored? Are they spending too much time on screens? Should we plan something for this weekend?
It can become another version of the same pattern:
If I can just manage everything well enough, maybe everyone will be okay.
This is your overfunctioning shapeshifter, and she also sounds a lot like mom guilt.
Managing everything is not the same thing as enjoying your life.
Hear me: You Don’t Have to “Maximize” Summer
One of the hardest things for an overfunctioner to practice is letting something be enough.
Maybe a day at home is perfectly fine.
Maybe everyone watching a movie together counts as family time.
You don’t need to turn every evening into an outing.
You are allowed to spend a Saturday doing almost “nothing.”
Your children can be bored. They might even be okay.
Or, dare I say, thrive?
Kids need unstructured time. Boredom can create space for creativity, imagination, and figuring out what to do without an adult organizing the experience for them.
And I’m going to tell you something as an aside: so do you.
We don’t developmentally stop needing “white space” for our brains just because we’re grown-ups.
There is a difference between being intentional about summer and moving through it with Energizer Bunny-level anxiety and management.
You don’t need to optimize every free hour.
You have permission to set that down.
If you’ve spent the summer juggling work and childcare, you may be arriving in September feeling more relieved than nostalgic. Enter another mom guilt moment.
That doesn’t mean you did summer wrong. It doesn’t mean you failed to make enough memories.
You were working, parenting, and coordinating an enormous amount of logistics.
Of course you’re tired.
As fall approaches, it may actually be worth noticing what you want to do differently rather than simply jumping back into the next routine.
Ask yourself:
What parts of this summer were genuinely enjoyable for me?
What did I do because I wanted to, and what did I do because I felt like I should?
Where did I take responsibility for things that didn’t actually need to be mine?
What could be simpler next summer?
What would it look like to leave some space instead of filling every available day?
What do I need, not just what does everyone else need from me?
Working motherhood already requires an enormous amount of coordination. You don’t have to turn summer into another project to manage.
You are allowed to have a summer that is ordinary.
You are allowed to say no to another activity.
You are allowed to sit outside while your kids play and not organize anything.
And you are allowed to enjoy your life without first making sure everyone else is taken care of.
If you recognize yourself in the constant planning, anticipating, and taking care of everyone around you, it may be worth exploring where that pattern comes from and what it is costing you.
Being capable doesn’t mean you have to carry everything.
And being a good mom doesn’t require you to make every season magical.
The season already has magic.
If you’re finding it difficult to incorporate these strategies into your life or need more personalized support, please feel free to reach out.
Share your thoughts in the comments, or get in touch with me directly. We can work together to create a practical, easy-to-use toolkit of coping skills tailored just for you.