Mental Health Isn’t Just a Mom Thing
We talk about maternal overwhelm. But what about paternal invisibility?
The other night, I was folding laundry and caught him sighing. Not tired. Not resting. Just quiet sighing.
Since my delivery, I’ve been navigating mental health struggles — some obvious, some unnamed, and many ignored. With minimal support and the full-time role of being a stay-at-home mother, my physical and emotional health took a toll in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
There were days when it felt like the walls were closing in, and the only escape I had was through words, through music, or through the slow and steady rhythm of breath during a Pilates class.
Writing became my quiet rescue. Music offered me grounding. Movement gave me clarity. These tools didn’t make everything disappear, but they created space — space for me to feel, to process, and to slowly rebuild.
And yet, as I worked through my own healing, I started to notice something else.
Not many people talk about fathers’ mental health.
While maternal health is rightfully acknowledged, paternal well-being remains largely invisible.
Pregnancy and postpartum are tangible for mothers. We carry the weight, the changes, the aftermath. But for fathers, the transformation is quieter, more internal, and often unacknowledged.
To feel involved in the process, adjust to the new life, and contribute takes a toll on them in different ways.
The world tells mothers to rest, to take a break, to ask for help. The same world tells fathers to step up, to be strong, to carry on. But what if they need rest, too? What if their strength looks like silence, not because they’re okay, but because they haven’t been taught another way to cope?
Men haven’t been raised to talk about their internal struggles, and doing so feels unnatural now.
They haven’t been handed the vocabulary of vulnerability. So their exhaustion, their confusion, their anxieties often go unnamed.
My husband has never once complained — not about work, not about parenting, not even when he’s clearly stretched thin.
He works a full-time job, shares the load at home, and never makes it feel like a burden. But I’ve learned to look beyond the surface. I see it in the way his shoulders fall when he thinks I’m not watching — in the way he exhales when the room finally feels quiet, in the stillness that isn’t rest, but a momentary escape from pressure.
We make memes about their inability to juggle tasks or their cluelessness in parenting. But do these distractions prevent us from seeing the weight men carry?
Do they give us an easy laugh instead of an honest conversation?
Our toddler watches everything.
How we breathe. How we handle stress. And I wonder — are we modelling emotional literacy for our son?
I realized, in checking in with yourself and your spouse, that you are teaching your child how to voice their emotions without bottling them up, letting them believe that it’s ok to feel sad, overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, and exhausted. More importantly, you’re teaching them that any and all feelings are valid, no matter how small.
He may never say the words “I’m not okay”.
However, it never hurts to check in or observe your partner to see how they’re doing.
This week, I urge you to check in with your spouse.
Pause long enough to ask how they’re doing — and to mean it.
Because sometimes, the man who’s always “fine” just needs someone to say, “I see you.”
Hi there, I’m Swathi — a mom, women’s coaching specialist and fellow traveller in the world of slow, intentional living.
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Thank you! 🙏🏽
So beautifully written !!