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1 in 4 working moms cry alone, survey finds. It’s time to find solutions.

One in four working moms cry by themselves at least once a week, according to a new survey.

They spend an average of 37 hours a week at work and a whopping 80 hours a week on chores, child care and home responsibilities, says the care.com survey of 1,000 working moms.

Thirty-five percent report feeling “like they’re always falling behind,” and 65 percent “imagine that others are more together than they are.”

It gets worse. Twenty-nine percent won’t hire outside help because “they feel guilty if they’re not able to do it all themselves.”

Now I feel like crying.

There is no shame in hiring help. There is no shame in choosing to read an extra book to your kids or go for a jog or meet a girlfriend or heck, read a book to yourself, instead of cleaning your house. There is something quite powerful and honorable, in fact, about choosing humans, including and especially yourself, over housework.

“Many people still believe that ‘caring for a family’ means cooking, scrubbing, vacuuming, lunch packing, weeding and laundry, in addition to the emotional work of nurturing children’s brains and souls,” Laura Vanderkam writes in her book, “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think” (Portfolio). “Is that really what kids need?”

Is that what any of us needs?

The moms-crying-by-themselves stat would suggest not.

Maybe your mom kept a spotless house full of home-cooked meals with no outside help. Did she work as many hours outside the home as you? Did she attend as many kids’ activities as you — soccer games and school awards assemblies and birthday parties for every kid in the class and field trips and mother-daughter spa days, just to name a few of the endeavors I regularly watch modern moms fit in? Did she play Legos and office and bakery and Go Fish and Wii? Did she meet her girlfriends for wine? Was she happy?

Those are questions worth asking, if you want to. Or not — because at least 65 percent of us need to stop imagining what others are doing and start imagining what we, ourselves, want to be doing less of. And more of.

I interviewed Vanderkam when “168 Hours” first came out in 2010. I will always remember her recommendation that we choose a couple of things we like doing least and hire them out. No weighing how that looks to outsiders or in-laws or whatever audience — imagined or real — we find ourselves playing to. Hate cooking? Hire someone to cook occasional meals for your family. Hate laundry? Ship it out. Hate cleaning bathrooms? Hire a weekly service to come in for an hour.

It sounds expensive, and it is. But Vanderkam pointed out that many of us could cancel cable, earmark a tax refund or otherwise find a few hundred dollars here and there to make the changes that would decrease our workloads and, most likely, improve our happiness.

“Money is a choice just like time is a choice,” she told me. “We can examine how we’re spending both and see if it matches up with our priorities, rather than just saying, ‘I don’t have time for this’ or ‘I don’t have money for that.'”

Especially if it cuts down on the time spent crying alone. That needs to end.

hstevens@tribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13