Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family’s weekend broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey.

Guest (Female): It’s not that I don’t like being a mom, it’s just that I wish someone would appreciate what I do around here.

Guest (Female): Let’s just say one word: diapers. Ugh.

Guest (Female): Honey, a woman’s work is never done.

John Fuller: If you’re a busy mom, especially with younger children, you can probably relate to those comments. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we’ll explore some of those day-to-day challenges of motherhood, and we’ll have lots of encouragement and insights from moms who are going through the same thing.

Jim Daly: Right from the outset, let me say we know moms do work at home, and some moms work outside the home and at home. More dads are doing more things around the house too. That’s just the way the modern family operates. So if we say something and you’re going, "Oh, that's stereotypical," that’s not our intention. It’s just our experience.

I want to open with that kind of story because I got home from work when our boys were probably six and four, and Jean literally met me at the door and pushed the boys right into me. I had one foot in the door and she said, "I am kind of tired of some of the shenanigans that have gone on today. You need to take over."

Jean’s an awesome mom, but she kind of ended up at the short end of that rope for that day. I said, "Can I just change? Can I just change my clothes?" And she’s like, "Yeah, do what you need to do, but engage these guys because I’m through today." It was so fun. She’s a great mom, and that's what we want to talk about today—for the moms that feel like you’re at the end of your rope on days, especially with the little ones.

Because there’s so much activity, so much kinetic activity going on—chasing them down, changing diapers—whatever can be done with the other things on your list, it feels overwhelming. But we want to give you hope today that you can do this.

John Fuller: It’s a privilege and a wonderful role and a demanding role. We have three moms in the studios with us. We’re excited to have Kristen Roche, Ashley Durand, and Dr. Jenny Coffey. Kristen and Ashley have two young children and they’ve coauthored a book called—and it’s published by Focus on the Family—it’s called *Mothering on Empty: How Moms Like You Found God’s Joy*. Jenny’s the mom of four. She’s a marriage and family therapist and she works on our counseling team here. She’s been in the booth and also in the studio with us.

Jim Daly: Well, let me say welcome to all of you. It’s great to have you two for the first time and Jenny, good to have you back. Was that a fair description of motherhood? What does it sound like to you to be the mother of young children? Give me the noise.

Jenny Coffey: It’s interesting now because some of mine are getting older, which is weird. My oldest is 14 and then my youngest is nine. So the young years are the physically exhausting years, and the older years are the emotionally exhausting years. That has proven to be so true because especially with my job, it’s like I come home and my sensory is out. My hearing is like, "Oh my word, I’ve been listening all day."

Jim Daly: So you can relate to Jean in that little story there.

Jenny Coffey: Yes. And then they want to tell me stuff of course. And I’m like, "Yes, okay, got to find it. Got to find it."

Jim Daly: Moms are wonderful. Moms are always there. So what’s your animal noise for the busy time of the season?

Ashley Durand: I was laughing because that’s a very relatable story. I feel like as a mom with young children, there are days when I wake up and I have the best plans for the day of all the activities that the kids are going to do and love and the chores that are going to happen.

Then as the day unfolds, somebody colors markers on the hard floors, the neighbors pop by, the toilet overflows. I didn’t get a chance to brush my teeth and it’s 3:00 p.m. One day a skunk showed up in our yard when we were outside, and it didn’t spray us but it sprayed the yard. The whole house and the car, everything smelled for weeks.

Anyway, there was one day like that where I was completely overwhelmed by how the day had unfolded and I had managed to make dinner and it was on the table and everyone was just picking at their food. Nobody was eating it and I just burst into tears. I said, "Don’t you know how hard it was for me to get this meal on the table? I put my heart into it and you guys don’t even care."

Jim Daly: We’re hitting all the high notes here. All the moms are going, "Yep, yep, check, check, check."

Ashley Durand: Exactly. And then she just starts spoon-feeding everyone.

Jim Daly: All right, Kristen, I need yours. I’m not going to let you escape here.

Kristen Roche: Oh man, I am not good at sound effects. What am I going to do? Okay.

Jim Daly: Oh, that's good. You could be the calm mom. "Honey, everything will be fine." Are you in that category?

Kristen Roche: I would like to be that mom. Let me ask you though, I mean you kind of opened this can because it is expectations. You have it all laid out, especially if you’re a list maker and organized in your thinking and this is how 9:00’s going to roll and 10:00 and noon’s going to be just like this. It doesn’t work that way, does it?

No. I didn’t realize how controlling I was until I had kids and they totally threw the rulebook out the window. I was like, "Oh, okay, this is how it’s going to be. All right, I’m going to have to learn how to be flexible and roll with it and be okay with it."

Jim Daly: Let me start in that spot because I think when you look at what is God teaching us as we are the adults in the room, so often reflects what we’re trying to teach our kids, right? But that idea of control, control’s an illusion. Don’t you think?

Kristen Roche: Yes, absolutely. Motherhood has been such a journey of learning to surrender not only my kids to the Lord but also surrender myself to the Lord and say, "Wow, I’m so inadequate for this job."

Jim Daly: Well, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. I think we just nailed it right there. Jenny, as a counselor, I do want to have you pitch into that a little bit because that is true. When your kids are young and that’s the theme of our discussion today, control is natural. We want to control their environment. Oh my goodness, did you guys buy all the stuff? All the electrical, the cabinet—can't open the cabinet door without pushing it down thing.

I had a weekend where Jean said, "Okay, they’re getting into stuff. It’s time." And that’s the safety-ization of your home. That’s good control because you want to keep your young children safe. But if you maintain that into later years, even later like 7, 8, 9, it starts to become a problem.

Jenny Coffey: Right. And I would say to your point of control’s an illusion, I would say ultimate control’s an illusion. I think it’s okay to control in the sense of have some autonomy over self to say, "If there’s only a few things I can get done today, these are the things I’m going to try to get done," like the meal. Okay, the meal happened. That’s a sense of control because she could have picked a couple other things.

As they get older, even one of the things that we know is from about zero to eight or nine depending on maturity, children are completely others motivated. Around eight or nine to about 16, we hope that they are a mix of self and others motivated. That’s the normal growth pattern.

Maybe you forgot your lunch and I let you forget it today—those types of things. Then hopefully by 16 they’re completely self-motivated. So to your point of the control, if we’re still doing some of that stuff at 10, 11, 12, we’re actually keeping them back when they’re older.

Jim Daly: Ashley, you get all the good questions here because I’m thinking of the time Jean and I before we had kids and we're at Sam’s Club or something. We see this kid melt down and mom’s struggling to get control and of course those without children go, "You know, when we have kids, that will never happen."

Until I got a phone call from Jean getting out of a Walmart line and she said, "Oh, Trent went crazy over a candy bar. I kept saying no and he had this meltdown." This army guy in his uniform came over and said, "Son, you need to listen to your mother." It freaked Trent out. He was probably three. But he already made the connection—this dude in a uniform has authority. I don’t know who that was, but thank you because I was traveling and I wasn’t there to help. What was your meltdown experience? Was it you or your children?

Ashley Durand: Well, one leads to the other. Before I had kids, I also was very much like, "I have this idea that I was never going to be disciplining my kids in anger. I wasn’t going to be a yelling mom. I was just always going to be so graceful and patient." Then I had a child that was exactly like me and that triggered me in ways I didn’t know were possible.

One day we were at the library. My son was about three at the time and I’d given him a five-minute warning—we’re going to be leaving in five minutes so finish up your coloring. Well, the five minutes went by and he was not ready to leave. He threw a huge meltdown, threw himself on the floor, screaming.

Everyone—I felt the library’s quiet—everyone’s staring at me. I had a new baby at the time. I was holding a bag of books, so I’m holding the baby, the books, and I’m trying to pick up this toddler off the floor. He screamed, "Don’t touch me!" My inner pressure is building and I start sweating a little bit. Everyone’s watching me. I felt like they all were thinking, "What a terrible mom. She can’t control her kids."

Finally, it was like an Olympic sport. I got the baby, the toddler, the bag of books out to the car and he’s screaming the whole entire way. When we get to the car suddenly, Mount Vesuvius erupts. I just started screaming back at him. I instantly felt this shame of "this is not the kind of mom I wanted to be."

As I reflected on it later, why was I so angry? It wasn’t because he wasn’t wanting to leave the library. It was because I was putting too much of my identity in what the random library patrons thought of me and feeling like a failure rather than what did my son actually need? In response, I threw an adult-sized tantrum and that wasn't going to bring about the Gospel change in him or in me. It was just going to make me feel more like a failure.

Jim Daly: You’re touching on something that’s important for all of us as parents, whether you’re a mom or a dad—this idea that we derive our sense of worth out of how our children behave. Especially as Christians, I think we in the Christian community put a lot of value on that. We love to hear "Your children are so well-behaved. What have you done?" "Well, I pray four hours a day and God honors that and has given me wonderful children." But Jenny, talk about that idea of seeing too much of us in our children’s behavior.

Jenny Coffey: I think that that’s probably one of the hardest parts of parenting is to what Ashley was saying—you see something in them that is a reflection of something that you don’t love about yourself and you were hoping that they wouldn’t have to do it.

Jim Daly: So how do you let the air out of that? Somebody that has three and four-year-olds and she’s struggling in that spot right now because she just had the meltdown in the library. What is the prep for her to say, "Okay, next time you’re in that situation, here’s some things to think about"?

Jenny Coffey: Well, one of the things I like to remind people is that more often than not, if you have a child that’s pretty compliant at school—the public thing is hard especially when they’re toddlers—but at school, in church, at other places, and they tend to melt down at home, what that actually means is that they feel super safe at home. They feel emotionally safe to be able to do that because nobody can keep it all together all the time.

So that’s actually a lot of moms or dads will get into this place where they’re like, "They’re so nice for Mrs. So-and-so. Why are they terrible to us?" It actually shows that they feel like you’re emotionally safe enough to completely lose it. It is our job to help them self-regulate.

In those moments, what I try to remember is it’s hard to not reactively parent. That’s typically what happens in those moments. I have tried to remember Jane Doe library patron doesn’t necessarily matter. You probably never see her again. So you kind of sit in that place and you say, "I have to care in this moment more about what my kid needs than what this 60-year-old woman thinks or this 50-year-old man thinks. I have to care more about what my kid needs in the moment because they do at that age absolutely need you to help them co-regulate. They cannot do it on their own."

Jim Daly: It’s always good to try to be the adult. I mean, just be telling yourself that whole time because it’s so easy to tip into the emotionalism of going toe-to-toe. "I’m a lot bigger than you, I can take you." You’re going, "What am I thinking?"

Kristen, I’m not going to let you out of this thing. You’re just the perfect mom. There’s a story in the book where you had something unusual—an ungrateful child. I say that tongue-in-cheek. But what was your situation that expressed itself to you?

Kristen Roche: Talk about a mirror moment. My son had outgrown his previous scooter and I was able to find another scooter that was in my opinion excellent. "I am such a good mom. Look what I got for him. He’s going to love this. He’s going to be over the moon. I cannot wait to give him this scooter."

I show him this scooter and he yells at me, "It’s not as fast as my other scooter! What did you do with my other scooter?" I was like, "Are you kidding me right now? We spent money on this new scooter. Your other one was falling apart and you want your old scooter? And you’re not grateful at all that I went out of my way to find you this new scooter?"

I had no response. What do I even say to this? Then in my spirit I could hear the Lord telling me, "You also do this by the way." It was just one of those convicting moments where I realized, "No, it’s so true."

John Fuller: This Focus on the Family broadcast will continue in just a moment.

Guest (Male): I feel like I blinked and now my newborn can walk and talk. Kids change so fast, don’t they? It can be hard to keep up with each new phase. That’s why I love Focus on the Family’s Age and Stage newsletter. Each week I get an email with resources curated by experts. They’re full of biblically and clinically based tips tailored to your child no matter what age they are. You can sign up today at MyKidsAge.com. That’s MyKidsAge.com.

Guest (Male): This is John Fuller and Father’s Day is a time to honor those men who lead their families with courage. On the new seasonal podcast from Focus on the Family, *Legacy of Courage*, we uplift dads with real stories sharing humor, tender moments, and lessons that’ll stay with you. Hearing from first-time dads to adoptive dads to seasoned pros, you’ll be reminded about the power of a father rooted in God’s strength and why showing up matters. You’ll find it at CelebratingFathers.com.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let’s resume now with the balance of today’s programming.

Jim Daly: Jenny, I want to direct this to you. Your husband Blakeley is a firefighter. That’s awesome. Tell him thank you. I hope he never has to come to my house. But one of the difficulties is schedule. His schedule, my brother-in-law, Jean’s brother, was a firefighter and you’re on for certain hours then you’re off and then you have a week of a different set of hours. It’s very erratic in that profession. How did you learn to manage that solo parenting concept? The idea that I feel like I’m all alone.

Jenny Coffey: I think I have it a little bit easier because this is all I’ve ever known. We’ve been married 18 years this year and he’s been a firefighter since he was 19. So I have empathy for the people where it switches because that’s rough. But I was kind of thrown into it, so it’s like this is just the way it is.

A big part of it, and I do think a lot of young Gen X, millennial, Gen Z dads are more involved in the day-to-day than maybe the older generations were. So having him help is a normal thing. But when he is gone, I think one of the hardest things for me is the pivoting when you have, "Okay, I’m going to work today." Now all of mine are in school so it’s a little bit easier to kind of plan, "All right, I’m going to do these things today and then I’m going to pick them up."

Then a kid gets sick, or there’s some wrench thrown in like yesterday—he didn’t get let out at 8:00 like he was supposed to. He had an hour where he had to wait for his relief. It’s like, "All right, now he—if I was planning on him to be able to help, he can’t help now."

Jim Daly: Let me ask you specifically because that’s where a lot of tension can crop up in the marriage. Forget the parenting for a minute. Disappointment on expectations. When it’s thoughtless, I get that. There may be a need to obviously voice those concerns where he didn’t get home on time because he stopped to linger and talk to friends or something like that. But when it’s that kind of thing where it’s work-related, "I couldn’t get out of the office," whatever it might be, what’s a better mechanism for a stressed-out mom of young kids who thought, "This is when I could go take a bath"? Just as a thought, that would be a dream, wouldn’t it? Or just getting that break so that Blakeley would take the kids so I can get some things done around the house that I need to get done. What’s an adult attitude rather than to pounce on him?

Jenny Coffey: Well, that is the instinct. I tell people that in couples therapy all the time. Your brain, when it goes into fight or flight or when you’re stressed like that, it’s scanning for threat. What’s right in front of you is the biggest threat in the moment.

The biggest part of it is the pause. It’s so simple and yet so practically difficult to actually do. But the biggest part of it is the pause. So what I tell people is to remind them—because I hear often people talk about the somatic or the physical. They’re like, "But I was so triggered." Once you are, you have to just let your body go. Once the body’s been flushed with chemicals, you have to just let it process the chemicals out because that is a natural thing the Lord put in us.

What you can do is create space between the physical reaction and the mental spiraling, rumination, or reactivity. So I say let the physical body do what it needs to do and at the same time pause, step back, and allow—take a brain break and say, "Let me just pause for a second before I pounce on any of this," knowing that I might still be angry.

Jim Daly: That’s a great first step. Just slow down, take a deep breath. It’s the only thing to do. I actually have started doing that at work. Are you proud? It took many decades. But I’m better at it now. I feel better. I’m more patient in the home, that kind of thing.

Kristen, again I’m not letting you out of this thing. You have a verse in Acts 26: "Kicking against the goads." A lot of people may not know what a goad is. Tell us what a goad is and what the scripture’s getting at when we’re kicking against the goads.

Kristen Roche: I also had to look it up because I didn’t know what a goad was. So picture oxen and you are trying to guide this ox down a certain path. It’s a poky stick. If the ox starts to veer out of the path, you poke it with the goad and they’re supposed to go back onto the path.

Some animals do not like being poked with the poky stick and so they will kick at the poky stick—kicking at the goads—which is actually more painful because they are putting force against the poky stick, thus hurting themselves rather than just going back where they are supposed to be going, the best path for them.

I had this experience where I was honestly angry with God and I was having kind of a pouting session. I said, "God, I don’t like this. This is so uncomfortable. Why are you letting me go through this really challenging season? I don’t feel like I deserve this. Are you really good?" Those kinds of questions that come to your mind during prolonged seasons of struggle and challenges.

He just brought this verse to mind. He’s like, "Why are you kicking against the goads?" I had to look it up—what are you talking about, Lord? I realized, "Oh, I’m making this harder on myself because of the way I’m reacting to the situation. I’m making it more painful for myself."

God is ultimately doing good for me. He’s ultimately doing good for our family. But I’m seeing it through the lens of "this is hard, this is uncomfortable, I don’t like this, I don’t want to go in this direction." So I’m fighting it, I’m pouting about it, I’m having a bad attitude. God is saying, "If you’ll just shift your attitude, this will be so much more pleasant for you, so much more pleasant for your family." It was just kind of an "aha" moment for me.

Jim Daly: Much of life seems to point in that direction, right? If you just adjust your attitude, daughter, son—I mean the Lord, He must have that speech with different people thousands of times a day in different circumstances because this is just the human condition—the sinfulness of humanity.

Ashley, I want to read a quote from the book *Mothering on Empty*. In the book you wrote: "I realized that if my identity was based solely on my role as a mother, then I would come up short every time. My kids would never be perfect and neither would I." That’s a good billboard. Guess what everybody, you’re never going to be perfect and your kids will never be perfect either. They might be great kids, but if they’re perfect they’d be Jesus. So how did that minister to your heart? How do you embrace that and believe it?

Ashley Durand: Well, that’s the challenge that I’ve wrestled through. I feel like when you put your identity in people, no matter how good they are and no matter how well-behaved they are or how kind they are to you, at some point they will let you down. At some point you’ll be feeling like you’re at rock bottom because you aren’t feeling loved, basically.

When I realized that and realized that I needed to have my identity in Christ first, that really changed everything. Nothing has helped me form my identity more than spending time reading the Bible. As simple as that sounds and if you’re a Christian, you’ve heard that so many times, but it really is true.

As a mom you feel like you don’t have time because you’re so tired and you’re always caring for other people, so you feel like you should put it off until later. But the more that you don’t feed your soul, the more empty that you are.

Jim Daly: Well, that certainly is true and that's why we’ve been encouraging moms today. Your role is so important. Here at Focus on the Family, we want to equip you to be the best parent you can be. I’m so thankful for our panel of moms: Ashley, Kristen, and Jenny. I’m looking forward to more of their insights next time. This is such good stuff. John, I think you’re going to agree there’s a lot here for us dads as well.

John Fuller: I was taking notes, so absolutely. If you’re a mom or you know a mom who needs this kind of help, please share this program with them. You can get the download or look for the YouTube version or get our app and you can access this great content anytime you want.

We’re also going to recommend Kristen and Ashley’s book, *Mothering on Empty: How Moms Like You Found God’s Joy*. Make a gift of any amount to the ministry today and we’ll say thank you for your support by sending the book. Your financial gifts help families in tremendous ways. A grandmother named K contacted us recently with this message. She said, "Our family has received so much encouragement while raising our own kids, and now our grandchildren are being influenced in a positive way because of your ministry."

Well, that’s the kind of impact we can have together—working to strengthen and support families. Please donate today so we can continue to be a source of godly encouragement to families around the world. We’d love to hear from you. Just call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or donate and get a copy of *Mothering on Empty* at FocusOnTheFamily.com/weekend.

We’ll also post information about our Age and Stage program. You sign up for this free service, you tell us the ages of your children, and each week we’ll send helpful advice and relevant insights about parenting your child in that particular stage of development. Everything you get is going to be biblical, practical, and personal. You can learn more about Age and Stage at our website.

Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, and finding you back for more encouragement for mom next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

John Fuller: You're listening to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We’ll take a quick break and then return with the second half of this program for your family. Stay tuned.

Guest (Male): Chat GPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can’t listen with compassion, pray with you, or offer biblical wisdom. Real connection is what brings true hope. Focus on the Family offers a free confidential consultation with a Christian counselor to guide you and help you find hope with whatever you’re facing. Go to FocusOnTheFamily.com/GetHelp or call 1-800-A-Family. That’s 1-800, the letter A, the word Family.

Kristen Roche: God is ultimately doing good for me. He’s ultimately doing good for our family. But I’m seeing it through the lens of "this is hard, this is uncomfortable, I don’t like this, I don’t want to go in this direction." So I’m fighting it, I’m pouting about it, I’m having a bad attitude. God is saying, "If you’ll just shift your attitude, this will be so much more pleasant for you, so much more pleasant for your family." It was just kind of an "aha" moment for me.

John Fuller: That’s Kristen Roche describing a very common challenge that many mothers face, especially in those early years of parenting. Maybe you’re experiencing something like that right now or you know a mom who struggles. If so, stick with us for today’s Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We have a lot of encouragement from women who have been there and done that. I’m John Fuller and we’re glad you’ve joined us.

Jim Daly: John, we had a great conversation last time with our panel of moms: Kristen Roche, Ashley Durand, and our colleague Dr. Jenny Coffey, who’s a member of our counseling team. We covered a lot of ground—the chaos of motherhood, child meltdowns, the illusion of control, and how perfect families, perfect kids, and perfect moms are all impossible.

It was really good stuff, and if you missed last time, get the download or watch it on YouTube or get the Focus on the Family app so you can review the great content anytime you like. The basis for the conversation last time and today is a wonderful book written by Kristen and Ashley called *Mothering on Empty: How Moms Like You Found God’s Joy*.

With that, here’s how we began part two of our conversation on today’s Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

One of the statistics that shocked me was the amount of depression in moms of newborns and infants. It’s anywhere from 50 to 80 percent. That is shocking to me. I didn’t realize it was that steep. Jenny, what’s happening?

Jenny Coffey: I think it’s probably lack of community. I was even talking to my husband last night about just how different stages and it really doesn’t—I don’t know if it gets easier through parenting. I will say I have more acquaintances through my kids' sports. "Oh, I see these parents all the time, they’re familiar, they’re comfortable." But deep friendships are just really hard no matter what stage you’re in. So the number is surprising, but I think for a lot of people they just kind of trudge along and assume that that’s normal.

Jim Daly: Ashley, I would think especially for the new mom—your firstborn—that is a big transition socially. You’ve been doing a lot of outings with other couples that don’t have kids. It’s your network. Then you have a child and socially it’s very different. It could be isolating because your friends just keep doing what they’re going to do and you really don’t fit in with an infant.

Ashley Durand: Absolutely. Like I said, for me our son was colicky. We felt like we couldn’t go out anywhere because he was crying all the time. It was like we were taking turns outside the restaurant holding the crying baby while the other one was in with the other people. It definitely was an adjustment and a bit isolating at first until we realized that it’s okay for your baby to cry in public and a lot of other parents understand and that your real friends will be there for you no matter if they’re going through a different stage of life or not.

Jim Daly: It sounds like the big issue there is just relax. This is a phase. You don't have to worry so much. Don't get emotionally worked up that it’ll never be better. It does get better. Those social structures need to reconnect and you’ll find other new moms, especially hopefully through church.

Ashley Durand: Yes. I think joining a moms' group was a game changer for me—to hear other moms say, "Oh yeah, my baby does the same thing," or "I haven’t—I didn’t sleep for a certain period of time" and to see that they survived that and that they were thriving. MOPS—Moms of Preschoolers—is a great organization. That was great for me.

Jim Daly: Kristen, did you find that isolation difficult?

Kristen Roche: I did. I don’t know what gave me this expectation, but I thought I could just carry on with normal life after having a newborn. Again, I had to shift my expectations when that didn’t happen. "Is it something wrong with me? Am I doing this right? Or is this just how motherhood is?" I think I had a very romanticized view of motherhood. It’s going to be all sunshine and rainbows and I’m going to cuddle with my baby all the time and they’re going to wake up smiling. When it doesn’t go like that, it’s kind of a shock.

Jim Daly: Ashley, describe why rest for moms is so important and how moms can prioritize rest.

Ashley Durand: It does feel like you can’t rest. It feels like you need to take care of everyone else around you. There’s always more "to-dos" than "dones." When you have a baby that just needs to be fed every two hours or wants to only sleep when you’re holding them, it can just feel like you can’t take a break.

But when you don’t take a break and when you don’t sleep, your mental health goes downhill quick. You’re not able to effectively love your family as well as you can otherwise. I remember a season where I hadn’t been sleeping because my baby was awake all night, and I read the verse in Isaiah that says, "Come to me you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."

And every mom said, "Amen!" I realized that not only was I physically tired, I was spiritually and emotionally tired. I hadn’t been taking a rest for my soul and spending time with the Lord. It’s okay to ask somebody for help. Say, "I really need a rest and I need you to come sit with my baby for an hour or two hours." It’s okay to go get your hair done, get your nails done, spend time reading the Bible or take a nap or whatever you need.

Jim Daly: You know, it strikes me again, Jean and I did foster care. In foster care you do training and then they encourage respite families. Respite families are families that will come around a foster parent and help them by doing a chore or taking the kids for a weekend so the foster family can have a break. I kept thinking, "Every family needs respite families."

To your point, especially new moms. That’s where that friendship group again or family, if you can structure it that way—even where grandparents can take the little ones for a weekend to give you and your husband a 24-hour break, a 48-hour break if that’s doable—that’s a good thing to do. A little space, a little connection time, a little rest for you.

Ashley, you had a difficult first pregnancy. Describe what you went through and then help us understand how that led into a faith struggle for you. What was the difficulty?

Ashley Durand: I had hyperemesis gravidarum. It’s where you’re throwing up all the time through the whole nine months. Most people are better through after the first trimester, but I was throwing up nine times a day or more for nine months. I had to get fluids at the ER and it was rough. I mean, driving in the car I had to pull over and throw up in random yards.

Jim Daly: That’s a hard way to experience pregnancy.

Ashley Durand: It was. It was very hard. I was just so sick. Then when I had—I felt like as soon as I have the baby it’ll be better. But then I had a really traumatic birth. There was an unplanned C-section and the pain medication, the epidural, didn’t work and so I felt the C-section operation. I passed out. Then I had an allergic reaction to the medications afterwards. It was really, really hard.

Then when we left the hospital, my baby had colic and he cried all the time. He was awake all night every night for probably the first year of life. I really wrestled with God on "why?" Why do some people have the easiest pregnancies and they have home births with no medication and their babies are happy and smiling and then this was my story?

I just kept saying, "Why, God, why? I don’t see any lesson that you’re supposed to be teaching me here." You always look for the lesson. But I felt like God was telling me, "You don’t need to know why. You just need to be faithful to me and trust me."

The fact that it was such a hard pregnancy and birth has made mothering my son so powerful and makes it worth so much because it cost me so much to get there. If anything, I can be thankful for that and that God preserved my life through that birth and allowed me the opportunity to be a mother and just to be grateful for that. Sometimes God just gives us harder assignments than He gives other people. We can’t compare to the people who seem to have it better. All we can do is just say, "Yes, Lord, I’m willing and I will trust You," even though I may not understand it.

Jim Daly: Sounds like Paul: "be content in all things." I remember Dina, my wife, sometimes looking at me saying, "It shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve wanted to be a mom all these years. It shouldn’t be this hard." The golden answer is to not answer the question.

This Focus on the Family broadcast will continue in just a moment.

Guest (Male): Parenting is one of life’s greatest joys and biggest challenges too. You want to raise kids who love Jesus, but with everything on your plate, it’s hard to find the time or the right guidance. That’s why we created the *Practice Makes Parent* podcast for parents just like you navigating the ups and downs of raising a family in today’s world. Find *Practice Makes Parent* and other faith-building podcasts at FocusOnTheFamily.com/podcasts.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let’s resume now with the balance of today’s programming.

Jim Daly: Kristen, I want to ask you this because you were a business owner before being a mom and you had to make that decision. Jean was in biochemistry and teaching labs at a university when we got pregnant with Trent. For so many young women today, that becomes such a struggle because they don’t know the value of each. We as a culture put value on working outside the home, kind of neglecting the beauty—everything you said at the beginning, Jenny—just how amazing motherhood is and the contribution it makes to the culture. Think if we had healthier children growing up, what that next generation would look like—capable young people that aren’t depressed, that don’t have anxiety because more parents were willing to be in the home at the time of being little. Describe that battle that you had and your decision to stay at home.

Kristen Roche: It was a battle. I wrestled a lot because I had all these different voices. I had my own desires of wanting to apply my passions and my giftings and the things I had learned in school. I love working for myself, being self-employed and being able to have the gratification of growing a business and seeing the fruit of your labor. It’s really rewarding.

So to set that aside is really difficult. But then you have this life—this eternal being that you’re pouring into too—and you want to soak up every moment and you want to be present. Then you have social voices too. I just kind of felt the pressure to be Mom Plus. You need to be a mom, but you also need to be furthering your education. Or you need to be a mom and you need to be working. Or you need to be a mom and you need to be doing all these extracurricular activities. I just kind of felt that exterior pressure on top of my own internal pressure. It’s a lot to kind of process through and figure out what are the priorities and what is God asking of me in this season.

I didn’t want to listen to the Lord to be honest. I did and I didn’t. I wanted to be obedient, but I also wanted what I wanted. So I tried to juggle both. I wanted to sort of obey God but also keep some of what I wanted. God is so patient. He lets us fumble things. He lets us make bad decisions. He lets us learn from our bad decisions and He graciously picks us back up and goes, "Okay, let’s do this a different way."

So it got to the point where I couldn’t put off closing down my business anymore. The Lord just brought me to that breaking point and he’s like, "Okay, I’m going to close it down for you." So he did. It was very hard, but it was also one of the best things for my motherhood because I could finally close that chapter and have the head space and the energy and the presence to be there with my kids and to invest in them.

Jim Daly: Which is beautiful. I understand there’s going to be some moms that are in a place they have to work or at least the budget, they feel the constraints. I would suggest it’s good to look at doing that for a season, but the more frequently that you can spend time in home with those kids when they’re little, the better they will be, the healthier they will be. Not to put a guilt trip on anybody, but I think that’s generally the rule of thumb. It’s better for you to sacrifice in that moment and then you’ll reap the rewards.

Kristen, I want to follow up with you. You also had postpartum experiences. For the women that have gone through that, it’s not unique, but it’s cloudy. Describe it.

Kristen Roche: I definitely grew up with the idea that real Christians don’t deal with depression. I think that was just kind of prevalent in the time that I grew up in. So being a believer in Christ and having what I considered to be a strong faith in Jesus, I thought, "Okay, well then I’ll never deal with depression. We can check that off the list."

I remember as part of the prep for my birth, I had to go to classes that talked about postpartum depression and I would just kind of tune out and think about other things. But in reality, I was really struggling.

Jim Daly: What did it look like for you? Give me the adjectives that describe that.

Kristen Roche: I felt alone. I felt disinterested in the things that used to bring me joy and happiness. I felt totally overwhelmed. My sleep was all over the place. I was exhausted during the day and I couldn’t sleep at night. I was struggling with anxiety. I just felt a lot of emptiness.

It was really hard for me to connect with a newborn. Especially when they don’t smile at you in those early weeks where it’s just kind of like a burrito that you have to change their diaper and they don’t really connect with you. You long to connect with your child. In those early weeks where they’re still developing and they don’t connect fully, it just feels very lonely.

Jim Daly: Did you translate that into "what’s wrong with me as a mom? I’m not feeling this connection, something’s wrong with me"?

Kristen Roche: Yeah, there was a lot of shame that went with that.

Jim Daly: How did that transpire then? How many weeks or months did it take before you felt, "Okay, I’ve arrived"?

Kristen Roche: In my case, it lingered for about nine months. We had just moved to a different state and we were getting caught up on some of the kids' doctor visits and things. So we finally got plugged into a pediatrician and she’s like, "Okay, well I’m going to send you some questionnaires that you should have taken earlier, but we’ll just do them now."

I remember sitting in this new pediatrician’s office and I thought my questionnaires were done. It was mostly the "Are they crawling? Are they rolling over? Are they doing X, Y, and Z?" I turned the page and it was questions about me. For whatever reason, I decided to read the questions this time. As I went through the list, I realized, "Oh wow, I’m depressed." It was just kind of this sinking feeling and a relief at the same time to have an answer for why I was feeling all of these things. Then I had to come to terms with "I guess Christians can be depressed."

Jim Daly: Jenny, let me come back to you because you’ve seen this I’m sure in your practice. Those adjectives that help describe a woman—and you may not know, to your point, Kristen, "Am I postpartum? I don’t know." What would that look like and what is the help that she needs in that moment? What should she do? A new mom, let’s just assume there are new moms listening and they were where Kristen was. "I’m not feeling this connection or this bond. What’s wrong with me?"

Jenny Coffey: First of all, I think it’s helpful to differentiate baby blues and postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is like an actual diagnosis and there’s criteria for that. Baby blues most people go through that. When you think about it transparently, it’s like what your body just went through, your hormones getting back into swing—all of those things, it makes total sense. There’s nothing wrong with you to feel a little off.

Postpartum depression, I tell people if you’re starting to really feel very disconnected from your baby, listless, non-motivated in a way where I’m talking non-motivated like I haven’t showered in a week—those types of things. Those are the things I really encourage people: tell your husband, maybe tell your mom or sisters or other trusted women in your circle and get some perspective on—and be honest in that perspective. If you’re going to reach out, be honest. Then really truly, this can be a little taboo, but more often than not if it’s true postpartum depression, it needs medication—temporary medication to reset hormones.

Jim Daly: And that’s okay. And is that typical, a nine-month kind of run? Is it all over the map, or within a year or so that should be taken care of and you should be in a better place?

Jenny Coffey: Well, I think Kristen would probably affirm that the quicker you address it, the faster it will go probably. So if you—it’s not going to just typically go on its own. So that’s something to tell people. And I actually like to remind people there’s a statistic that actually says if you dealt with any type of postpartum—so postpartum depression, anxiety, or OCD, because there’s three, there’s not just postpartum depression—if you deal with any of those in the first two years, it can show up for seven years afterwards. So it’s not just this short period of when they’re a year that feels like 10, right? It actually can pop back up. More often than not, I do tell people to be aware if you have previous mental health diagnoses like depression, bipolar, major depression disorder, then it is more likely that you will struggle with postpartum. So just being aware of that—the transparency of that—can help people.

Jim Daly: And one of the great things, if you are not sure, call us here at Focus on the Family. You can talk to someone like Jenny who is in the counseling department. We can arrange that call and you can just talk to them about what you’re experiencing as a new mom and "is this something that’s normal or should I get some help?" They can provide some guidance in that way.

Jenny, this idea of grace for oneself—it’s probably one of the more difficult topics, right? It doesn’t feel good to have grace for myself. I should be performing so I feel better about myself. But the whole prospect of grace, the whole attitude of that, is it’s grace. It’s not something you have to earn, it’s not something you have to work toward. This is God’s gift to us—His grace toward us. Why do we struggle so much extending that to ourselves?

Jenny Coffey: I think part of it has to do with the fact that we’re afraid that if we drop the bar just a little bit, then everything else will fall. That was something that I’ve kind of had to reevaluate the last few years for myself—if you’re juggling a ton of balls and every single ball is glass, then you can’t let any of them drop.

The imagery I have for myself is, I bet some of these are dryer balls. I bet some of them have got to be dryer balls that are bouncy. It’s fine. So you pick the things that are like, "These are more glass, these are more fragile, I care more about these things or they’re more priority to me."

Then the other things where it’s like maybe the dishes don’t get done today or whatever it is. Yesterday afternoon, I’d had all day of seeing clients and meetings and I got home and I knew I had another appointment that evening. So I conked out on the couch for like 30 minutes. What that’s really modeled, what I have found—and not that my kids are perfect—they give me so much grace back when I’ve gotten better at giving it to myself.

So modeling that to them, especially with them being older—I’ll wake up and be like, "I’m sorry I laid down guys," and they’re like, "Mom, it’s okay that you rested." They give that grace. So I found that the more I model that—because I want them to do that for themselves when they’re older—the more I try to model that, the more they give it back to me, which is a gift that I probably tangibly couldn’t have known how great that is.

Then hopefully the more that they feel the permission to give it to themselves because if it was modeled to you—if you have parents that are just doers all the time—then you’re going to have children that feel like "I’m not allowed to mess up, I’m not allowed to rest, I have to be productive, I have to be doing." Really what I try to help people to realize is rest is productive. It’s not something to put on your list, but it is a productive thing to do.

Jim Daly: Well, but for that mom of young children, you might need to put it on the list. "Rest from 2:00 to 2:20." I mean, that’s not a bad idea.

Jenny Coffey: But it’s not something to achieve, I guess is my point. It’s not something to say, "Oh, I did so good at rest today," or more stress. You’re laying there going, "I gotta rest, I gotta rest. It’s on my checklist." Then your brain’s just going to keep you awake.

Jim Daly: Well, that is great and such a delightful conversation with our panel of moms: Ashley Durand, Kristen Roche, and Dr. Jenny Coffey. I think many families and especially moms have been encouraged by what we’ve shared these past two days. To follow up, get a copy of the book that Kristen and Ashley have written, published by Focus on the Family and Tyndale House. It’s called *Mothering on Empty: How Moms Like You Found God’s Joy*.

I mean, who doesn’t want that joy in motherhood? This resource will help you. It’s full of stories and compassion and godly truth. I know you and your children will benefit from it.

John Fuller: Make a donation of any amount to Focus on the Family today and we’ll send this book to you. It’s our way of saying thank you for stepping up and being a part of the support team and helping us minister to families literally around the world. Call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or donate and get that book *Mothering on Empty* at our website. And that’s FocusOnTheFamily.com/weekend.

Jim Daly: And John, I’m reminded of a comment we received years ago from a mom named Kristen who had three kids ages six and under. She described living in the moment, just trying to get through minute by minute instead of being able to enjoy her children.

But then Kristen found our resources which helped her reconnect with her kids and experience special memories with them. I just want to say thanks to the generosity of our friends who support the ministry. We can have this kind of impact every day with moms, dads, and their children. That’s why I encourage you to do ministry through your giving to Focus on the Family. Donate today and together let’s rescue and encourage more moms like Kristen.

John Fuller: And again our number: 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Or donate at FocusOnTheFamily.com/weekend. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

For more shows and encouragement for your entire family, stop by FocusOnTheFamily.com/broadcast.