This Means Home

Some days, slowing down feels like a beautiful idea meant for someone else’s life.

It’s easy to picture it in theory — quiet mornings, unrushed evenings, time that stretches instead of snaps — but much harder to imagine inside the shape of a working mom’s day. The kind of day where the alarm comes too early, the hours move too fast, and by the time evening arrives, you feel like you’ve already given everything you had.

There’s a specific kind of tired that lives here.
Not just physical exhaustion, but the tired that comes from holding so many roles at once — employee, mother, partner, keeper of the household, emotional anchor. The tired that makes you long for slowness while simultaneously wondering how you could possibly fit it in.

If you’ve ever thought, I want to slow down, but I don’t know how, you’re not alone. And more importantly — you’re not doing anything wrong.

Slow living for working moms was never meant to look like a lifestyle overhaul. It was never meant to ask you to wake earlier, do more intentionally, or somehow become calmer in a life that is already full. It begins much smaller than that, in ways that are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.

For a long time, I thought slowing down meant creating space that didn’t exist yet. I told myself it would come later — when work felt lighter, when the kids were older, when life stopped feeling so demanding. But life rarely offers us a season that feels simple enough to begin.

What I’ve learned instead is this: slow living doesn’t wait for a quieter life. It quietly enters the one you already have.

As a working mom, the rush doesn’t usually come from poor time management. It comes from constant transition. From switching gears all day long — work mode to home mode, responsibility to responsibility — without ever fully landing anywhere. Even rest can feel rushed, like something you squeeze in instead of something you’re allowed to inhabit.

That’s why slowing down doesn’t start with changing your schedule. It starts with changing the way you move through what’s already there.

Sometimes, slowing down looks like sitting in the car for an extra minute before walking inside, letting yourself breathe before the next thing begins. Sometimes it’s choosing to drink your coffee without answering emails at the same time, even if it’s just for a few quiet sips. Sometimes it’s letting the dishes wait until morning so you can be fully present in the evening instead of racing against the clock.

These moments don’t announce themselves as “slow living.” They don’t look impressive or Instagram-worthy. But they count.

One of the biggest shifts for me was realizing I didn’t need to slow down everything. I just needed to slow down something. One moment. One transition. One small pocket of the day where I stopped rushing myself through my own life.

Working moms live inside transitions. From work to home. From noise to quiet. From caring for others to trying to remember ourselves. When every part of the day feels like a handoff, the body never quite settles. Softening those transitions — even gently — can change everything.

It might look like lighting a candle when you get home, or changing into comfortable clothes before doing anything else. It might be playing music while making dinner, or lowering the lights in the evening as a signal that the day is winding down. These are not tasks to add to your list — they’re cues of kindness, reminders that you’re allowed to move more gently now.

Another quiet pressure that keeps working moms feeling rushed is the belief that we need to “make the most” of every moment. Quality time, productive weekends, meaningful evenings — all good things, but heavy when they become expectations.

Slow living gives us permission to release that pressure. To let moments be enough as they are. To understand that presence doesn’t always look intentional or curated. Sometimes it looks like sitting beside your child on the couch while cartoons play. Sometimes it looks like folding laundry without resentment. Sometimes it looks like choosing rest over optimization.

Not every moment needs to be maximized to matter.

Redefining what a “good day” looks like can also soften the rush. For many working moms, a good day is measured by what got done — what was crossed off, what was accomplished, what was held together. But what if a good day could also be one where you noticed something small? A laugh, a quiet moment, a brief pause that reminded you you’re still here too.

Slowing down doesn’t mean your days suddenly feel calm. There will still be days when everything feels fast and loud and unfinished. There will still be evenings when rest doesn’t come easily and mornings that begin before you’re ready.

Those days don’t mean you’re failing at slow living.

Slow living for working moms is not a destination. It’s a practice of returning — to yourself, to the moment, to the life you’re already living — even when it feels messy and incomplete.

You don’t need a different season to begin.
You don’t need fewer responsibilities or more time.
You don’t need to overhaul your life.

You only need to notice where you can soften — and give yourself permission to begin there.

And that is more than enough.