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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hefty®.
Universally, I think mothers are accepted as strong individuals. The work of a mother never ends, whether working or stay-at- home, yet I wonder exactly how heavy is that work? How much weight do mother’s really carry day in and day out? I set out to see just how strong moms really are, based on research. Because strength is in essence, a power, and by looking at strength this way, I was able to find some astounding research to just how powerful moms really are.
Many of us remember the very popular article on the Mental Load that makes us moms all so very tired…despite our sleep. The writer perfectly describes the crazy amount of thoughts we carry, “Often the most tiring aspect of this work is being the “Knower of All the Things.” So often the mom is the one who holds all of the behind-the- scenes knowledge about all of the many things involved in raising a kid. The one who plans, who notices, who anticipates, who researches, who worries. This is often referred to as “the mental load.”
I was just grabbing my Hefty® Ultra Strong™ trash bags the other day at the store, because I literally forgot trash bags for 4 days. True story. I was using old grocery bags, and I could not remember to buy trash bags. The mental load got the better of me, like it usually does with something super basic and necessary like trash bags.
Exactly. Moms hold what seems to be everything in their mind. I know I still see my mom as “knower of all things.” I believe carrying the mental load is part of the strength of a mother. Like one muscle group, maybe the legs, and there is more. Mothers have the power to transform a baby’s brain. Literally, make it grow. Scientists took a look at brain images, which illustrated that a mother’s love (nurturing) physically affects the volume their child’s hippocampus. The study concluded that children of nurturing mothers had hippocampal volumes 10 percent larger than children with less nurturing mothers. A larger hippocampus means better memory. That is some amazing super strength, in my opinion, to physically affect the development of a brain through a nurturing presence.
Mother’s also have another super power, super hearing. Mother’s can hear their baby’s cry from very far away, due to special levels of increased Oxytocin after birth. It actually changes the way auditory signals are processed and makes her brain more sensitive to the sound of her baby’s cries, and proven in research.
What is disappointing is there isn’t much research on exactly how to quantify the strength of a mother, but then again, do we really need it? I know what I believe makes my mother strong. Her never-wavering enthusiasm and consistent support, despite the one million other things she has going on, illustrates emotional strength and selfless character. She will drop anything on her own schedule, to help me if I need it. Her presence, despite being across country now, never leaves me. Her love for my sisters and I, our children, and my dad is so obvious, I’ve never questioned for a minute its existence. Her ability to selflessly love us is so strong, there’s this force field I carry with me, no matter where I am, and that is something I consider strong, yet scientifically unquantifiable.
I can’t remember how many messes she cleaned up for me, or helped me navigate out of in life, as I am doing right now for my little boys. The messes are multiple times a day. Hefty® celebrates strong moms, who tackle strong messes on a daily basis.
Just like Hefty® trash bags, today’s moms are Ultra Strong in everything they do. Hefty® is helping to celebrate strong moms in honor of Mother’s Day by teaming up with John Cena and his mom Carol Cena. She knows a thing or two about ultra-strength and ultra-savings as well:
Hefty® Ultra Strong™ trash bags are fabulous for odor control, and for moms like me who let the garbage get as full as possible before taking it out. I realized that quantifying the strength of a mother isn’t really possible. There is an invisible strength we carry, or feel from our own moms, that is difficult to scientifically understand. We can acknowledge the mental load, or study the impact of a mother’s love on brain development,
but the true strength of a mother goes deeper, and transcends into the emotional abyss of our spirits.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hefty®.
