Although her oldest child, Ben, is 10 years old, Andrea Scher, 44, feels like a new mom again. Scher suffered from maternal depression after Ben was born, eventually recovering with the help of antidepressants and psychotherapy. She was understandably relieved that her depression didn’t return after the birth of her second son. But now she’s struggling again.
Once more, Scher is having anxiety attacks and it’s difficult for her to sleep through the night.
“At 3 a.m., an electric current of fear shoots through my body, because I worry about my kids and how I am doing as a mom. My nervous system is in overdrive. I can’t believe I’m feeling this way all over again,” she says.
Scher is not alone. Many women assume that the first year of motherhood is the most precarious time for their mental health. But a recent study published in Developmental Psychology finds that maternal depression is actually most common among mothers of middle school children as they catapult into the tween years.
“Parenting a tween is harder than mothering an infant,” says Scher, who lives in Berkeley, Calif. “When Ben was a baby, I worried about his sleeping and eating schedules, but those were things I could kind of control. Now, I obsess over how much freedom I should give him when he’s playing Pokémon Go with his friends, and how I can monitor what he’s doing online. In many ways, he’s more on his own now, and I have to trust him to make the right choices.” To read more from JULI FRAGA, click here.