You Can’t Bubble Bath Your Way Out of a Broken System

Motherhood, burnout and the impossible juggle

*disclaimer: i have a very supportive husband who is not a "babysitter parent". He is an active parent and equally parents alongside me. But he has an important sometimes dangerous job that has unplanned, unavoidable overtime. This is from the perspective of that.

There is a particular kind of advice mothers receive when we say we are exhausted.

“Make time for yourself.”“Ask for help.”“You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

Lovely. Who is looking after the children while I refill it?

Because somewhere between the school emails, paid work, appointments, washing, meals and remembering which child needs what tomorrow, “self-care” becomes another job on the list. Another thing to organise. Another thing to feel guilty about not doing properly.

I am all for a quiet bath. But a bath does not organise reliable care, make a workplace flexible or arrange someone to help at tomorrow’s appointment.

The impossible job description

Recent reporting about millennial mothers’ overwhelm has put the work-and-parenting juggle back in the spotlight.

The conversation matters because motherhood can come with an impossible job description: work as though you have no children, parent as though you have no job, and somehow remain calm, present and grateful throughout.

Be involved at school. Be financially independent. Keep up with appointments. Have a social life. Maintain your relationship. Exercise. Rest.

And please do it all without looking overwhelmed, because someone will suggest a better planner. A planner can tell you that three things need to happen at once. It cannot turn you into three people.

There is also the work that barely registers as work: noticing, anticipating, remembering and following up. Knowing a permission slip is due. Remembering that a referral needs chasing. Working out who can collect a child if an appointment runs late.

That responsibility does not disappear when you sit down.

Twelve weeks of holidays. Four weeks of leave. Who fills the gap?

Children have roughly twelve weeks of school holidays each year, with dates varying by school and state. Queensland’s 2026 calendar lists four ten-week terms. The standard annual leave entitlement for full-time and part-time employees under the National Employment Standards is four weeks, based on ordinary working hours. Some workers receive more; casuals do not receive paid annual leave. So how is a parent supposed to cover the difference?

Even in a household with two parents each receiving four weeks, taking every week separately would cover only eight weeks. That assumes both can get leave approved exactly when they need it, and uses up their entire annual leave without a shared family holiday or any leave held back for other needs.

For a single parent, the gap is greater again. And too often, the person expected to solve it is Mum.

She rearranges her hours, turns down work, takes unpaid leave or gives up the idea of getting ahead professionally. The family still needs an income. The children still need care. Somehow, she is expected to make both happen.

“Just book holiday care” is a very easy sentence to say when appropriate care is available.

When you cannot find a service able to safely and appropriately support your disabled child, the problem is far more than a booking inconvenience. Care might exist locally while still being inaccessible to your family because the staffing, training, environment or support arrangements do not meet your child’s needs.

A place on a booking system is only useful if your child can actually attend safely.

Meanwhile, the workplace calendar keeps moving. Bills keep arriving. The school holidays were predictable, but that does not mean a mother can personally create the missing service.

This gap can push mothers out of paid work, reduce their income and leave them with less time to recover from caring responsibilities. There is a cruel irony in calling those weeks “holidays” when a mother spends them providing care without a break, worrying about money and trying to keep her employment afloat.

Four weeks of annual leave cannot cover twelve weeks of school holidays. A mother’s exhaustion should not be the solution to the missing eight.

When “ask for help” assumes help exists

“Ask for help” sounds simple when someone imagines there is a willing, available person just waiting to be asked.

But who?

A friend who is working? A relative who lives interstate? Someone who loves your child but cannot safely provide the support they need?

Having people in your life and having practical help available are different things.

This distinction is especially important when a child has disability-related support needs. Someone may happily spend time with your child while still needing training or additional help to provide particular care safely.

That is not a criticism of the child. It is an honest description of what good support requires.

Families need to be able to say that without being treated as ungrateful or difficult.

A family tree is not a care roster

This is where I want to talk about the NDIS and the language of formal and informal supports.

Broadly, formal supports are organised services, such as paid support workers. The NDIS describes informal supports as unpaid help from family, friends and the community. Its guidance requires consideration of what it is reasonable to expect those people to provide. For children, it also considers disability-related needs beyond those of children the same age and risks to the wellbeing of people providing informal support.

Those distinctions matter. So does the way they are applied.

My position is that when assessing what reliable care is in place, the starting question should be about the formal supports a family actually has. Relatives should not be added to that care provision simply because their names can be written on a form.

My mother lives in NSW. She is not in the same state as me.

She may offer love, encouragement and a listening ear. Those things matter enormously. But she is not an available day-to-day, hands-on support.

She cannot pop over to help with an appointment, take over care when I am sick or give me a regular break from physical caring responsibilities.

Writing “grandmother” on a document does not change the distance between us.

Emotional support cannot automatically be treated as a substitute for practical care.

If informal support is recorded, it needs to describe the actual arrangement: what the person does, how often, whether they can do it safely and whether they can keep doing it.

A phone call should be recorded as a phone call. An occasional visit should be recorded as an occasional visit. Neither should be inflated into reliable weekly care.

Love is not an unlimited supply of labour

I value the people who show up for families. Friendship, extended family and community can make an enormous difference.

But kindness is not a service agreement.

A friend helping once does not establish an ongoing roster. A grandparent’s willingness does not establish their physical capacity. A partner’s presence does not make every caring task manageable.

Support also needs to be sustainable for the people providing it.

The NDIA’s guidance acknowledges carers’ capacity and risks to wellbeing. That recognition needs to be visible in the questions families are asked and the decisions that follow.

Instead of stopping at “Do you have family?”, ask:

• What formal support is currently available, and what does it cover?

• What practical unpaid help is actually being provided?

• How often is that help available?

• What responsibilities remain unsupported?

• What happens when the usual carer is sick or unavailable?

Those questions describe a life. A list of relatives describes a family tree.

Stop treating endurance as evidence that everything is fine

A mother can keep things going while the arrangement is becoming unsustainable.

She can attend appointments, fill out forms and keep everyone fed while sacrificing sleep, work, relationships and her own health.

The fact that she completed those tasks does not tell us what it cost her.

I want us to question the assumption that because a mother has managed until now, she can continue indefinitely. We should be able to identify gaps in support before a family reaches crisis.

For families raising disabled children, the aim must include the child’s safety, dignity, participation and independence. Reliable disability support can also help make family care sustainable. That is compatible with loving your child deeply.

Mothers should not have to prove their love through exhaustion.

What would help?

Practical support has to match the actual circumstances.

That means accessible care, workplaces that account for caring responsibilities, services that coordinate rather than repeatedly pass families elsewhere, and disability planning grounded in the support a participant can genuinely access.

It also means believing a mother when she explains that an arrangement is no longer manageable.

Self-care can be lovely. It should be possible to enjoy it without first organising a small military operation.

But when a mother says she needs support, listen to what she is asking for. She may need someone trained to provide care. She may need reliable cover for an appointment. She may need a service to stop assuming an interstate relative can step in.

My mother being alive in NSW does not put another pair of hands in my house.

And if we are serious about supporting mothers, our policies, forms and conversations need to reflect that reality.