Mom, It's Not the Heat. It's Your Nervous System

It's 9:15 am, and you're already behind schedule. The sunscreen is a negotiation, someone can't find their goggles, the Camp Caravan drop-off line is longer than you expected, and your youngest is crying in the backseat about something you'll never fully understand but are somehow responsible for. And you lose it.

Later, when the car is quiet, the guilt settles in. It's summer. This is supposed to be fun. Why can't I just enjoy this?

Here's what I want you to know: nothing is wrong with you. In fact, something important is happening inside your body. And once you understand it, everything starts to make a little more sense.

It Was Never Really About the Goggles.

Most of us were raised to think of our reactions as choices. We snapped, so we must have chosen to snap. But science tells us something different and far more compassionate.

Every moment of your day, your nervous system runs quietly in the background asking one question on a continuous loop: Am I safe right now?

When the answer is yes, you're calm, compassionate, connected. You can laugh about the missing goggles. You feel like the mother you know you are, underneath it all.

When the answer is no, your body shifts into a protective state. Your heart rate climbs, your muscles tense, your empathy dissolves, your thinking narrows. The part of you designed to protect you kicks in before the rest of you can catch up. That’s when you “snap.”

This isn't a character flaw. It's biology. 

And here's what makes it harder than it sounds: your nervous system doesn't distinguish between a work deadline, a disrupted routine, a child who won't put on sunscreen, and a bathing suit that doesn't fit the way it did last year. It registers all of it. All day long. 

By the time the goggles go missing, the cup was already nearly full.

Your Nervous System Has Company.

Here's what that means for the kids in the backseat.

Your nervous system and your child's are in constant conversation. Not metaphorically – literally. Children look to the adults around them to understand whether the world is safe. When you're running on empty, their systems feel it. When you find your way back to calm, they often do too.

There's a reason the hard drop-off sometimes turns itself around the moment you take a breath and soften your voice. That's not a coincidence. That's co-regulation. And it starts long before the drop-off line – with everything you’ve been carrying since the alarm went off.

Nobody in That Drop-Off Line Has It All Together.

Summer is sold to us as the easy season. But for many moms it quietly removes the structures that were holding everything together: the school routine, the predictable hours, the small pockets of breathing room nobody counted until they were gone.

The calm that feels out of reach is still there – buried under all the busyness of July. And in that quiet car, after everyone is finally dropped off, you have a choice about what happens next.

Most of us fill that silence with self-criticism. I shouldn't have snapped. Why can't I hold it together? What’s wrong with me?

But it doesn't have to go that way. 

You're Still in the Driver's Seat.

In my work with moms, I come back to three simple steps – and none of them require a meditation app or an hour to yourself.

Start by noticing: something in your chest is tight, your jaw is still clenched, your nervous system is still running hot. Just notice it, without adding a story about what it means about you as a mother.

From there, remember: the mom who just pulled away from the curb had her own version of this morning. So did the one behind you. So did every mom on your street. This is a shared struggle, not a personal failure.

And then offer yourself what you'd offer anyone else you loved: just a little kindness. Not a performance of calm. Not a promise to do better. Just a small, honest moment of compassion toward the woman sitting in that driver's seat.

The goggles will turn up. They always do.