Struggling with motherhood as a neurodivergent woman? You’re not alone. Learn why “quiet quitting motherhood” is a good thing, and how to take the first steps.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m writing this article to the majority of mothers, who have a living husband. If you are a single parent, please modify the information according to your world.)
Quiet quitting motherhood: how it began for me.
Tapping the broom against the floor of my son’s bedroom, I scowled. Why was I doing this? I never did like housework, and there was nothing wrong with my son’s arms and legs.
After I finished sweeping, I waited for my twelve-year-old child to come back inside from where he’d been playing. “You’re old enough to clean your own room,” I announced calmly. “From now on, I want you to sweep the floor once a week and dust everything once a month. You pick which day you want to sweep.”
He stared at me a moment, then blinked. “Okay,” he agreed mildly. Then added, “Saturday.”
I haven’t been into his room to clean since.
What is “quiet quitting motherhood”?
“Quiet quitting” is a term that became popular in 2022 among employees who decided to rebel against doing extra work for no extra pay. They began to do only the job they were required to do, and work only the hours they’d been hired to work.
Then, some mother or other woke up one day and realized this philosophy could change her life. She began refusing to be the default parent, household manager, and family servant.
In many modern households, both parents have jobs outside the home. Or one works outside the home and the other runs a small business from home. Or perhaps the husband works part-time while the wife works an equal amount of time on an online business. Cases such as these are what make women raise one eyebrow and ask, “So, why do I have to do everything?”
Quiet quitting motherhood: part of autistic mothers’ self-care and ADHD mom burnout prevention.
The concept of quiet quitting motherhood resonates especially deeply with neurodivergent women. Many of us, being late-diagnosed with autism or ADHD, arrive to our thirties and forties experiencing neurodivergent burnout. Even if we’ve not yet hit that wall, we have enough stress to deal with outside the home without having to deal with unnecessary stress within our home.
But deal with it, we have, losing energy, autonomy, and a sense of well-being in the process. All because we’ve become sucked into the vortex of societal norms, particularly the ones that insist that female humans were born with a natural affinity for pushing vacuums, changing diapers, and preparing meals.
Even if we never so much as self-diagnose, most of us get to an important point. It’s the point where we realize that we’ll likely live longer and our marriage will likely last longer if we back away from those expectations.
- Our executive dysfunction and sensory sensitivities make the typical maternal roles feel like a prison sentence.
- We’re losing the ability to mask exhaustion and maintain unsustainable routines.
- We’ve developed a heightened awareness of energy limits.
- Our neurodivergent brains are great at pattern recognition, therefore can more easily see the iniquity between us and the other members of our family.
- We also might notice that we’re running out of compensation strategies that allowed us to keep up the Supermom façade.
That’s all a huge mental load for neurodivergent moms.
If you’re nodding your head in recognition right now, it’s time for you to reclaim your autonomy, energy, and well-being that you inadvertently allowed to get swallowed up by your family.
“But what if my husband is the primary breadwinner?”
I believe in fair share of division in a household, but what that looks like is different for every couple. If one parent is the primary breadwinner in a family, and the other parent stays home, the couple needs to consider the strong possibility that whoever is staying home is doing their fair share by taking on most of the household tasks. Especially if both parties are neurotypical.
If at least one of them is neurodivergent, however, the definition for “equal” has to change. For example, even if the woman stays home, it might be better for her to stop being the family manager if she has ADHD, but her partner does not.
Due to living in an unplumbed house (our decision; more on that in a later post) and living on five acres, there are various “heavy lifting” jobs that need to get done at least occasionally. One of them, bringing in three-gallon jugs of water from our rainwater storage tanks, needs to be done several times a day.
Since my husband is a lot stronger, those duties fall to him. In return, I’m happy to do the housecleaning, including doing laundry by hand.
That said, I work a part-time online business, while my husband spends most of the day entertaining himself. Between that fact and our son hitting his late teens, I’ve gradually released a few of my burdens over to them.
More on that shortly.
First, let’s take a closer look at this path to maternal burnout prevention.
What quiet quitting motherhood looks like.
If you’ve followed the trend of quiet quitting jobs, then you have a good idea as to what constitutes quiet quitting motherhood. Actions include:
- Stopping unpaid labor other family members can do themselves.
- Refusing to manage everyone else’s schedules and emotional needs.
- Letting go of Pinterest-perfect standards for your home.
- Saying “no” to excessive extracurricular activities and overscheduling.
- Prioritizing genuine connection over performative parenting.
- Delegating and letting the results be “good enough.”
Basically, you’re setting boundaries as an autistic mother. You’re figuring out how to stop doing everything as a mom with ADHD.
The invisible labor neurodivergent mothers carry.
For neurodivergent women, quiet quitting motherhood isn’t just about backing away from menial labor. Due to our executive dysfunction and sensory sensitivities, we have to deal with other kinds of stress as well.
Mental load.
A typical maternal role involves planning, remembering, and coordinating everything from meals to special trips. It’s a nightmare for someone with limited executive function.
Emotional labor.
Because we neurodivergent mamas tend to be hypersensitive, we don’t like it when someone around us gets upset. Because we get upset. So when one of our children is upset, we do our best to calm them.
That can take a lot of energy. On top of that, we feel that it’s “illegal” to show our own emotions. That breeds a situation where Mom is often trying to keep the peace while masking her own struggles.
And the situation is no joke, as “Mom rage” often simmers just beneath the surface.
You might call it the “keep everyone happy” tax.
Constant context-switching and interruptions.
When my son was little, this part of parenting was especially difficult for me. And I only had one child. Though I often reminded him not to interrupt, his poor working memory prevented him from retaining my request for more than a minute.
If you have more than one child, frequent abrupt changes and interruptions are likely to happen. This kind of situation makes your head spin if you have ADHD tendencies.
Sensory management.
Children make noise. They can produce nasty smells. They say hurtful things. Children are demanding. If you have sensory sensitivities, you’re going to carry an extra load of stress due to your brain’s difficulty in filtering out all of the incoming information.
Breaking free: What quiet quitting enables.
Quiet quitting motherhood for neurodivergent women eventually leads to the following healthy-family results:
- More energy for parenting relationships.
- Modeling of boundaries and equity for your children.
- Better mental health and reduced burnout.
- Space for your neurodivergent needs, such as special interests, hobbies, and quiet times.
- More authentic connections without performance.
- Teaching children life skills through natural consequences.
You simplify life with kids as a neurodivergent parent, stop being the default parent, and enhance your relationship with your spouse by working together to figure out how everyone can get their needs met.
Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? But how do you get there? Let’s look at that next.
Practical strategies for neurodivergent moms.
There are five main steps for quiet quitting motherhood.
#1: Identify what you can stop doing. In our family, all three of us eat smoothies for breakfast. But we all have different caloric needs and different tastes, so that equates to three completely different smoothies. Each one takes a good ten minutes to put together – and that doesn’t include the time to blend and pour it into jars or bowls.
That meant that I used to spend about forty-five minutes fixing breakfast, including on days when I had to do the laundry. And all I want to do in the morning is relax.
Making breakfast made me feel like a slave. I finally put my foot down one day when my son was in his mid-teens and told both him and my husband that I was going to teach them how to make their own smoothies, and they were going to do it from now on.
My quality of life has gone up since then, thank you very much.
Take a few minutes to jot down all of the duties you’ve put upon yourself. Which ones can be pared back? Are there any that can be eliminated altogether? Your quality of life might go up if you clean less frequently, take shortcuts on food prep, and stop running errands that aren’t yours to run (e.g., dropping off and picking up your husband’s dry-cleaning).
Speaking of your husband’s dry-cleaning…
#2: Communicate boundaries with partners (and enforce them). These boundaries can include things like not doing extra work that by all rights is his responsibility, how much quiet time you need in the evening before you’re willing to engage, and how frequently you’re willing to host social events – if at all.
Tread lightly here, and don’t throw everything into your husband’s lap all at once. Make a list of where you feel like his expectations are draining you. Then, bring one issue up per month.
Speak kindly and calmly, keeping all blame and accusation from both your tones and words. Begin the conversation something like, “Sweetheart, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when I get home from work I’m totally zonked. I really need more time to decompress than I usually have. I’d love it if we could move dinnertime to a half hour later, or if you wouldn’t mind taking over fixing the main course three times a week. I’ve got some super-simple recipes that don’t take that long.”
Giving him a choice makes him less likely to get defensive. In addition, putting your thoughts in writing, and asking him to respond to you in kind, might make for a clearer – and much calmer – method of communicating the changes you want to make.
#3: Create age-appropriate responsibility charts for children. Have a family meeting where you explain that everyone will be pitching in with household chores from now on, and you expect all chores to be completed with a good attitude and the best they can. Take the time to train everyone on each chore or task until they can do a sufficient job alone.
#4: Simplify routines and reduce commitments. Can you have fewer laundry days? Organize your admin tasks so you only have to sit down and do them once or twice a week? Also, set rules in place about how many things can be going on per week among the various family members.
#5: Embrace “lazy” solutions. For example, on days when you’re feeling tired or low, use paper plates for dinner. Simplify meals. Use minimal décor. And so on.
Handling the pushback.
Setting boundaries with your spouse is the trickiest part. He may feel like you’re shirking responsibility.
If so, go ahead and come down with a bad virus for a week so that he has to do all of your chores.
Seriously.
Hopefully, you married a guy who really loves you and listens to your concerns. If you’re reasonable, logical, and calm with your requests, there’s a strong chance he won’t fight you on them.
The best way to handle pushback against your quitting, however, is to prevent pushback altogether. How do you do that?
Be stealthy and move slowly. And couch your requests in as undemanding a way as possible.
I didn’t sit down with my son one day and command him to take over cleaning his room, making his own smoothies, and do XYZ outside chores, or else. No. I slowly eased him into each task, one at a time, each spaced out by several months to a year. (If he wasn’t level 2 autistic who struggles with change in routine, I would have gone through the process much more quickly.)
And when I spoke to him, I would say something along the lines of, “Hey, Son, you’re old enough and mature enough to be doing X. It’s a great habit to get into for when you’re older, and it would really help me out a lot. I’d like you to take over X, if you think you’re ready.”
Of course your children want to think of themselves as “mature” and “ready,” so they’re unlikely to turn you down. When they do start taking over a chore, be sure to thank them periodically, maybe even occasionally show them appreciation by baking them a favorite treat and telling them why you made it.
By the way, this same tactic will make your husband more willing to take over certain chores, too. 😉
No more Mommy Martyr!
Quiet quitting motherhood is a great way for us neurodivergent moms to improve both our mental and physical health. It’s an awesome way to teach our children the skills they need for when they grow up and leave the nest. It can even improve our marriage relationship, in that we have more energy to give, and less resentment toward our spouses.
Remember: motherhood does not equal martyrdom. Nurture and care for your children when they are small. Give them the attention they need. But once they’re old enough to take on small responsibilities and learn to handle their emotions, help them to do both.
You’ll be amazed at the time, energy, and – best of all – joy that you’ll gain.
