Feeling Overwhelmed by the Comparison Trap
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Well, parenting is challenging, and you know that if you've got children. I think one of the biggest layers, Danny, that people have to work through these days is social media and the impact of it. So I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta. He leads our parenting team. Talk about social media and what that does for you.

to a mom who might be struggling with confidence and some self-doubt? It creates a tremendous pressure to measure up to a certain standard that you're seeing on social media. And

There was a recent study that came out, and John, it says that moms who look for parenting advice on social media are more stressed than moms that don't. Don't you think it's like most moms are looking for... I would think so. Okay. So that means most moms are probably more stressed than they need to be. Yes, that's right. It creates an overwhelming...

feeling that I need to be doing all these things that the influencers are doing or other moms are doing. I'm somehow falling short. If I'm not doing that, I am missing out on something I could be doing for my kids. These are well-intentioned moms that want to bring the best to their kids. And when you see on social media, there's so many creative ideas, great ideas, and people responding saying, man, I love it. And I had this great time with my kids. And it takes away the simple moments.

And for moms, they can find incredible joy in the simplicity of life with their kids. Social media has complicated that and made it so that moms feel the pressure to create bigger and better moments and this fear of missing out on that. And I just want to simplify it for you, mom, as you're listening.

Enjoy the simple moments. Squeeze it for what it is. Have contentment in those. And the more present you are with your kids, you will enjoy that. It doesn't mean you're not intentional, but you don't have to be super mom bringing every single thing you see on social media into their lives. That's really good advice. And we're going to turn now to a conversation from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. On his show, Jim spoke with Christy Clover,

She echoed some of your sentiment, Dani, and offered some insights on how to slow it down and live in the moment. Christy, welcome back. It's good to have you. Thank you. It's such a joy to be back. You got that million-dollar smile. Well, thank you. How much did that cost your mom and dad? Oh, nothing. No braces? Actually, well, it didn't cost them anything. I've had braces since...

Well, that was a smart move on mom and dad's part, right? It's good. Well, it paid off, but it's so good to have you back. Let's go there. You're a blogger, so you hear from many, many stressed out people, probably mostly MOMs. Mostly MOMs. And tell us what you're hearing in their frustrations just generally. Mostly everyone's just overwhelmed. They're overwhelmed by the busyness. They're overwhelmed by the chaos of stuff. Yeah.

And just overwhelmed by life in general. I think it's really easy to play, especially with social media these days, we start playing the comparison game. And so that's what I think kind of gets stuck in people's brain. But what I see is that people are having a hard time distinguishing their identity in Christ.

versus their identity in what people perceive. So your home environment, your motherhood, and all of those things. So we can, I'm sure, unpack all of that as we go. But yeah, really it is busyness and clutter. Let me ask you this because we always have that perception that it's far worse right now than it ever was before. Do you think women...

I mean, think about it. 50 years ago, 100 years ago, were women stressed out? They were doing a lot then. I mean, going outside and scrubbing laundry. Oh, goodness. I know. I mean, think of the load and cooking from scratch everything because there wasn't a Costco. Oh, yeah.

There was not a Costco. We have been going through The Little House and the Prairie books, and Farmer Boy in particular. The whole time I'm reading it with the kids, I'm like, oh my word, thank you, Lord, that I live in this world, and I have a washing machine, and I have a real oven, and I have a refrigerator, and I can go to an appliance store and actually buy something if I need it. And I know men can do these things too, so it's not a gender thing. I get it, but a lot of it does fall on mom typically. But in that regard, it's interesting because it comes down to more attitude than...

Because our circumstances, they may change. But what's our attitude about these things? Well, the attitude changes, I think, overall. I think a lot of times, I think what our attitude needs to be is kind of going back to why are we doing this? And that helps us with our attitude because we become over... Otherwise, we're overwhelmed. Right. And we're stressed out. And what's interesting is...

that you have procrastination and getting to organizing things is often a symptom of stress. Busyness in our schedules because we're trying to put up with some perception or some feeling that we have to do something, some expectation we're trying to meet. So our attitude, I feel like we need to go back to what is Christ calling us and our attitude to be? And so I try to

pause and really take a deep breath and think, you know, when I'm approaching my home, when I'm approaching how I'm mothering, I want my attitude to be tied to Christ. And I want that to be an attitude of love and joy and peace and then kind of start right there. But oftentimes it gets a little skewed and that's easy to do too. Well, that is really a profound question to ask and a very deep one. You know, why am I doing this? How

How does Christ call me to be different? Asking those deeper questions can sometimes center us in a really tough time. When things are kind of collapsing, instead of letting it overwhelm me, if I go deeper and I start to ask God things or I start to find my source of life in Him, that settles things. It simplifies the chaos of the mind, John. The soul needs that why. Hmm.

And when we allow our soul to grapple with that, we're able to have our soul have a conversation with our Heavenly Father. We're able to say, hey, the why is...

We get to serve Christ. We get to be his child, and we can start from there. So it simplifies life into the important things rather than the urgent things. The urgent things will always be pressing, and sometimes the urgency is created by what we find pleasurable, what we find exciting. When we feel overwhelmed or bored, we go to whatever is the lowest hanging fruit because our brain's designed that way.

But when we're able to simplify life, get rid of certain things that clutter our lives, and then answer that deeper question as to why am I doing what I'm doing today with my kids? Why did God give me these kids? Why am I a mom or why am I a dad?

man, that simplifies it to a very specific plan that, Hey, I'm here to love and shape these kids. And there will be imperfect moments. There'll be special moments. There'll be boring moments and plain moments, but they're all moments. Look for those micro connections with your kids. And, uh, those will begin to shape the why, because you'll begin to experience connectedness rather than this anxiety to be perfect. And, uh,

Hopefully that's a good reminder for you moms, dads, as you're listening to this. You don't have to be perfect. As you understand the why, God has given you this stewardship of these kids in front of you. Enjoy it. Yeah, that's really good advice. And we have so much available for you to encourage you, to help you understand those deeper why questions.

Stop by our website, Danny. You and the team just are trying to put as much great content as you can find. I mean, it's very purposeful, very robust in terms of all that's addressed there at the website. The parenting assessment is a really cool tool that's free, and tens of thousands of people have taken this. John, I love the assessment. I was just going to ask you, give me a snapshot of that. This is a tool we designed for you as moms, dads to consider your relationship with each of your kids.

Before, when we first designed the assessment, it was for you as a parent. But we realized that you're going to parent differently with each of your kids because they're different. They're different. They draw different things out from you. And so it's based on research. It's valid. It's reliable. It's short, five to 10 minutes, depending on how slow you take the questions. And how many interruptions you have from the kids. That's right, how many interruptions.

But you'll have about seven pages of content that will help you have starting points, consider your strengths, how you can give that as a gift to your kids, and then points or opportunities for growth and how you can grow in those. It's a great starting point with our content here at Focus on the Family. And did I mention free? It's a free parenting assessment. The link is in the show notes. Invest in your parenting journey.

And that's going to be a great way to get going on some things. And Christy Clover has such encouragement for you in her book, MOM, Master Organizer of Mayhem. If you're in a season, mom, of feeling overwhelmed, this is going to be a supportive resource. You're going to find so much in here. And we're making that available for a donation to the Ministry of Focus on the Family today.

Be generous as you can. Pay it forward, if you will, and help families thrive in Christ when you donate. We'll say thanks by sending this book to you. All the details to donate and get the book are in the show notes. Next time, we'll hear from Carrie Kempakis about having hope for the future. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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