Women's Lifestyle May 7, 2026 0 Comments

Why Being a “Bad Mom” on Your Phone Might Actually Be the Secret to Finding Balance (And Sanity)

Ever tried ditching your phone for two whole weeks, only to feel like your brain’s been given a fresh tune-up? Sounds heavenly, right? A study out there swears by it: unplug for a bit, and suddenly your focus sharpens, your mood lifts, and anxiety takes a backseat. But here’s the kicker—what if you literally can’t hit the off button? Especially if you’re a mom. For us, silence isn’t serenity; it’s straight-up panic mode. Imagine sitting at a ballet, enchanted by the music and lights, yet your phone’s cheekily tucked under your thigh—silent, but always watching. That hyper-alert state isn’t just a bad habit or craving for dopamine hits—it’s the relentless pressure of motherhood in this wired world. So how do you reclaim your sanity when the device promising connection feels more like a leash? Let’s dig into the fierce tug-of-war between the need to disconnect and the mom-guilt of going off-grid. LEARN MORE

5 min read

Maybe you’ve seen the study:take a two-week digital detox from your smartphone and your brain resets. Suddenly, you have better focus, improved mood, less anxiety. How reassuring to learn that all the damage from the tiny handheld computers that have been both wrecking and saving us can be reversed merely by setting it aside. Of course, as a phone addict, I’d love to blame something else for my cognitive decline, such as turning forty or hormones. But no—it’s this fucking device I carry everywhere, the one I fantasize about chucking out the window in a fabulous and freeing huff.

The problem is, I can’t. Because I’m a mother. For mothers, being unreachable doesn’t feel cleansing or freeing—it feels dangerous.

So I stay constantly reachable at all hours of the day and night. I answer calls I’m almost always certain are spam. As the phone rings, I think, What if it’s the school calling with bad news? What if it’s the hospital or the police? I keep my phone face up and within arm’s reach at Barry’s Bootcamp, tucked beside my water bottle like a heart monitor. When I wake up at 3 a.m. to pee, I check my phone before I go back to sleep—just to make sure my mom hasn’t called. Even in my favorite place in the world, watching ballet at Lincoln Center, under the trance of music and all the beauty on stage, I feel unable to turn my phone off completely. I turn the light to its lowest and make sure there’s no sound, but I keep the thing under one thigh.

This isn’t just a habit or my addiction to dopamine; it’s hypervigilance. And it feels less like a choice than a condition of motherhood in the digital age.

This is the trade off, constant access in exchange for unabating dread. I am one notification away from someone hurt, something broken, my life changing forever. I’ve convinced myself that if I miss something, I will have failed as a daughter and a parent, the person responsible for holding everything together. This isn’t just a habit or my addiction to dopamine; it’s hypervigilance. And it feels less like a choice than a condition of motherhood in the digital age.

The cost of that is harder to quantify, but I perceive it everywhere. Weeks pass when I can’t find the imaginative space I need to work on my next book. There are afternoons at the playground when my son goes down the slide and, instead of watching him, I reach for my phone. It’s not just that I’m pulled toward mindless scrolling—I am—but also that I’m on guard for disaster. I am there, but not there. Available, but not engaged. And of course, the kids notice.

We don’t talk about this part enough: Putting the phone down doesn’t feel like self-care—it feels like negligence. As a mom, I am responsible for the logistics of my family. I am the point of contact, the keeper of schedules, the one expected to respond. The phone isn’t just a distraction; it’s the control center and the control center is never allowed to power down.

Putting the phone down doesn’t feel like self-care—it feels like negligence.

The culture that tells us to unplug, to be present, to protect our mental health, is the same one that has put a device in my hand and given it the capacity to monitor and track everything. I can assess the quality of my REM sleep, count how many steps I’ve taken, and know the amount of protein in my salad. I can meditate myself into a stupor with an app, or get worked up about the state of the environment or the patriarchy by scrolling social media. Much has been made about phone use in young kids, about what blue light does to the middle-aged eye before bed, about what the constant barrage of negative news and trolling does to our psyche. But what about the toll on mothers, who by definition have to be reachable?

On my book tour for The Motherload:Episodes From the Brink of Motherhood, my 2025 memoir about the year of extreme postpartum depression I experienced following the birth of my first son, I met hundreds of women who came to me not only with stories of their own postpartum experiences, but with their shared exhaustion. They talked about pregnancy, motherhood, and loss. They described the quiet strain of being the default emergency contact and the expectation that they would absorb this anxiety of this role without complaint. The phone, which promises connection and efficiency, has become the delivery system for that responsibility. What struck me wasn’t just the burnout, but the vigilance. If you are the emergency contact, can your phone ever be turned off?

a woman holding a newborn baby in a hospital setting

Courtesy of Sarah Hoover

Hoover after the birth of her first child.

An added complication is that for many women, the phone isn’t just a lifeline, it’s a livelihood. Social media has opened up entirely new ways of work that are flexible, self-directed, home-based, and, in many cases, built around the realities of motherhood. Women are creating businesses, shaping their own narratives, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. All of it depends on staying plugged in. The same device that delivers the bad news, the school calls, the constant low-grade panic, is also the one that creates income-generating possibilities. Which means the solution can’t simply be to put the phone down in the name of self-care. Not when the phone is carrying both the weight of responsibility and the promise of autonomy.

My solution, for now, is small and slightly absurd. I carve out blocks of time to be with my kids and force myself to follow my own self-imposed rule: no phone in the room. Before we start, I send a group text to the adults in my life letting them know I’ll be unreachable. In case of emergency, there’s a landline. Yes, I installed a landline just for this purpose. It’s not a perfect system. It doesn’t quiet the reflex to check, or the flicker of fear that something is happening without me. But for an hour or two, I get to step out of the loop. I get to be present where I am. And while it isn’t a complete solve—it’s not the scientist-recommended digital detox—I know that such a thing is only nice in theory. Because for me, putting the phone down doesn’t feel like relief. It feels like too great a risk.