If Your Mom Is Always Scrolling Her Phone, She's Likely Avoiding These 11 Fears
BearFotos | Shutterstock When stress starts to feel overwhelming, we often turn to distractions like “doomscrolling” on our phones to cope. This is especially true when we don't already have healthier habits to lean on, according to Dr. Aditi Nerurkar. Considering that mothers tend to bear the burden of administrative and emotional labor in their households, despite working and earning the same amount as their partners, it’s not surprising that they often rely on distractions to get through their days.
Like everyone else, moms have to calm their own fears and anxiety while still trying to be productive, so it's no wonder some may scroll away their emotions rather than deal with them directly. But rest assured, it's not that your mom wants to ignore you when she's on her phone during her free time. Instead, she's likely trying to manage her fears.
If your mom is always scrolling her phone, she’s likely avoiding these 11 fears
1. Being unneeded and unimportant
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Many mothers adopt a parenting identity that slowly squashes their personal interests and needs. They become mothers ahead of partners, people, and women, even if they’re not entirely aware of it. Their self-worth often becomes intrinsically tied to how needed they are by their kids, and their parenting responsibilities become a top priority, oftentimes above their own needs.
If your mom spends her alone time scrolling on her phone or avoiding being fully present, she’s likely avoiding a fear of confronting the reality of how much she needs to be needed. Whether she's in the empty-nester phase, feeling unimportant due to something her partner said, or trying to grieve the loss of herself in the process of becoming a mother, these things can feel overwhelming.
2. Being alone with her own thoughts
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As psychologist Michele Leno explains, many people dislike alone time and struggle with silence because it forces them to confront discomfort and the emotions they’ve learned to suppress. They dislike their own company because they run from themselves. Seemingly simple tasks like confronting personal thoughts and recognizing emotions may feel impossible for mothers stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
A mom who does this may be using distraction and busyness to avoid being alone with her thoughts and feelings, because that solitude brings up all kinds of discomfort and suppressed complexity. So, if your mom is always scrolling her phone when she’s alone or staying up late watching mindless television, she’s likely avoiding her fear of being alone with her thoughts and fears.
3. Slowing down
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For mothers with a million things to worry about and an expectation to put their children’s needs above their own, slowing down can feel impossible. After all, any behaviors we repeat may become habits, and meaningful behaviors, like tending to kids while balancing home and/or a career, become even more embedded in patterns.
Even if it’s uncomfortable and feels like something to instinctively run from, slowing down can improve mothers’ well-being and parenting. So, if your mom is always scrolling on her phone, she’s likely avoiding truly slowing down, which requires a degree of mindfulness.
4. Conflict and hard conversations
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According to psychotherapist Jennifer Gerlach, avoiding hard conversations in the moment may ease tension and anxiety in the short term, but in the long term, it only amplifies complex emotions like resentment, stress, and irritability.
Conflict resolution and healthy communication improve our long-term health and well-being in any relationship, but when mothers avoid them for instant comfort, their well-being is at stake. Even if it’s easy to overlook hard conversations and suppress discomfort, the key to forming a better family dynamic is to lean into the challenge of growth.
5. Dealing with a disconnected marriage
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More than a third of marital partners fall into distress in their romantic relationships within the first year and a half of having children. Especially for mothers, who often experience a dramatic shift in their personal identities after becoming parents, the added stress of relationship shifts can feel disorienting.
With pressure to fix everything, slowing down and dealing with a disconnected marriage can add too much stress to an already stressed-out mother’s plate. Scrolling and using distractions at home can protect women from dealing with the reality of their marriage, as reaching out and trying to connect may lead to rejection or conflict. Sadly, this keeps some partners scrolling in order to avoid taking that interpersonal risk. And that often comes at the expense of quality time and connection over the long-term.
6. Unprocessed grief and unresolved trauma
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While the manifestation of unresolved trauma and grief in mothers is incredibly nuanced and hard to directly blame for outcomes for their kids, one study published in the Social Neuroscience journal found that infants of mothers in this situation often end up with more disorganized relationship attachments. This shows the value of parents working on their trauma.
If they don't work on their trauma or grief, it is likely to keep popping up. Even after their kids have grown up, a mother who is always scrolling on her phone or avoiding confronting certain realities may be unaware of how this can affect her kids. If she notices their relationship patterns as adults and feels a sense of internalized shame about her role in her kids' development, that unresolved trauma may become a constant spiral of guilt. It’s something to run from and defend herself against, usually to validate her identity as a good mother, rather than to address and heal from.
If this sounds like your mom, it might be helpful to tell her you want better for her (and for yourself) and see if she wants support finding help. At the very least, it may help you have compassion for your mom's endless doomscrolling.
7. Dealing with her burnout
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According to a 2025 study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, mothers across all age groups and generational backgrounds are experiencing a worsening of mental health. Whether it’s burnout from a lack of support, a constant expectation to take on emotional labor, or the burden of organizing their households, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mothers are struggling. They’re expected to do the impossible.
If you notice that your mom is always scrolling on her phone and struggling to ask for help, she’s likely avoiding the work she needs to do in order to address her burnout or prevent it from happening again. She may be afraid of admitting that she can’t handle it all and worries that if she doesn’t show up, overworking herself every day, her household will suffer.
Some women also feel a sense of purpose or importance from handling these responsibilities, even if it comes at the expense of their own well-being, and worry that addressing the fear that they need help means losing those important feelings of belonging.
8. Setting boundaries
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While boundaries are important to set and maintain in any kind of relationship, psychology expert Peg Streep argues that they’re exceedingly influential in parent-child relationships in order to safeguard healthy family dynamics. Whether it’s setting expectations around communication or instituting a boundary that protects a burnt-out mother’s free time, it’s these kinds of “regulations” that protect everyone in a relationship from feeling unseen and unimportant. However, if a mother is constantly avoiding these hard conversations and scrolling on her phone as a distraction for the needs she’s been suppressing, she’s likely not benefiting from these boundaries.
While it may feel like she has control over her boundaries while zoning out on her phone, a study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology states that it only tends to amplify the stress of the problem at hand. In other words, avoiding setting boundaries will likely only make the situation that requires better boundaries worse.
9. Existential questions and ennui
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Mothers who rely on distractions and constant stimulation, often through “doomscrolling” and mindless entertainment, may be avoiding their fear of existential questions such as, “Is this really all there is to life?” or "What is my purpose here?" and "What if I don't like this life I've chosen?"
It’s easy to ignore this yearning for greater purpose and a desire to live with meaning when you distract yourself with busyness, but when there’s a moment of silence to reflect, it can all come metaphorically crashing down. While it’s true that parents often find greater meaning from their parental identities and responsibilities, if a mother is struggling to balance everything and make time for her own personal interests, chances are the realization that her parenting role is all-consuming is scary, rather than comforting. The lifelong commitment she made with ease once is now becoming a burden riddled with constant anxiety, stress, and responsibility.
Of course, the only treatment for this is to address it. Running from it by doomscrolling won't ever make it better.
10. Asking for help
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While social support networks are essential for well-being in motherhood, as a study published in the Health Psychology Open Journal explains, many women consider asking for help impossible. Especially if they’re “stuck” in overworked roles at home without support from their partners or families, and don't want others to know how overburdened they are. It can feel isolating to think about needing help from anyone or to make themselves vulnerable enough to explain why they're overwhelmed.
They’re used to carrying everyone’s burdens and managing everything, and the realization and fear that they can’t do it on their own can be scary in a million nuanced ways. Relying on someone else can be scary, too, and many moms would rather zone out and distance themselves from whatever is stressful than ask for help.
11. Losing relevance
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The fear of losing relevance can be especially acute for mothers of teenagers and adult children. Often, these moms struggle to cope with a natural disconnection from their once deeply connected kids, and scrolling online constantly may feel like a way to stay relevant. They want to understand the lingo, know what’s happening in the world, and understand the technology their kids use constantly in their own lives.
Scrolling on their phones isn’t so much an avoidance mechanism as a study ritual that gives them a sense of peace and perceived importance in their kids’ lives. However, it can become a method of avoidance and even disconnection if it becomes a habit.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a senior editorial strategist with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
