As more and more women take on both working and parenting, work-life balance has become the new buzz word. We look at other moms and wonder how they have it so much more together than we do. We aspire to the mythical goal of that perfect balance.
I’m a single working mom, and a question I routinely get from other moms is “How do you DO it?? How do you achieve that work-life balance?”. I would love to say that I’m just this amazing organizer who has found the secret to being a perfect mom and a perfect scientist. But frankly, the real answer to that question is: I don’t do it all. I can’t do it all. I am constantly dropping balls in this gigantic juggling act. Apparently, I’m just really good at making it look like I can keep them all in the air. And I would be willing to bet that those other moms that look perfectly balanced are also masters of illusion.
The truth is, there is no such thing as work-life balance.
Here’s the thing: Working is hard. Parenting is hard. Doing them both together is extra hard, and the idea of work-life balance is an illusion. We have to stop striving to achieve the holy grail, a situation where we are wonderful at everything all of the time. Instead, we need to strive to accept that we will not be wonderful at everything all of the time. We need to own it. And, then, we need to start thinking about this work-life balance concept in a different way to help us manage our lives. So to answer the questions I’ve gotten, I don’t have a perfect balance, but I do manage to get through each day in a semi-successful way. Here are the things that I think are most important:
1. Forget work-life balance. Recognize what you’re really facing.
Every Spring, in my Bird Behavior course, I teach students about the challenges of being a hummingbird.
Hummingbirds are these tiny little balls of energy that literally almost never sit down. They are the perfect equivalents for the working parent. I teach students that hummingbirds have to make very careful decisions about what they decide to do each minute of the day.
Hummingbirds have their own version of work-life balance. Because they are constantly moving, they have an almost incessant need to find food, which means they have to constantly move to find it.
But they also have to build a nest, take care of their babies, they have to stay warm, and their bodies have to battle diseases.
They have a limited energy budget to do all of these things, and each moment is spent deciding what to devote energy to and what to sacrifice. It’s amazing they’re even alive! And it’s amazing that parents can possibly juggle all that life throws at them too.
Our decisions as parents are far from just simple “work or life” decisions. They are “work or kids or partners or sleep or pets or sanity or our own health” kinds of decisions.
We need to understand the monster before we can effectively battle it. In this case, the monster is the limit on our energy and time, and there are more than just two aspects of life demanding those things.
2. Make routines and stick to them.
This is the single most important thing that I’ve done to survive as a single mom. Without it, we would never come close to making it through each day. I thank this one really amazing book for getting me started on this:
Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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In the book, Pamela Druckerman (now a NYT bestselling author and columnist), explains how, in French cultures, they believe that small children benefit from having what’s called a cadre, or a framework. There are so many unknowns in a big new world for a small child, and knowing what’s coming next can be a big deal for them.
So, from the start, I had a pretty strict schedule of meals and naptimes and activities. Then both of my kids attended a daycare where all of those things were, again, scheduled. Now at school they have a similar schedule. Our nighttime routine and morning routines are the same each day almost to the minute. On the weekends, we have more flexibility, to make sure they can handle change.
This has been a great benefit towards the manageability of our lives. It helps to decrease the chaos in our lives. There are very few battles over getting dressed or going to bed. The kids follow these routines because that’s just what we always do. It’s autopilot. It gets us all where we need to go, gets everyone the sleep they need, and even gives me a few hours of quiet time at the end of each day. The biggest benefit is that it keeps me from going completely and totally nuts!
3. Identify the important priorities
As parents (especially working parents), we are jugglers.
There are always many balls in the air, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think that none of them will drop. Sometimes, we even need to purposely drop a ball or two and pick it up later.
Maybe you have a hard work deadline coming up this week, and staying late will mean that your kid will miss gymnastics just once. Sometimes that just has to happen.
Just last week, my daughter needed to see a doctor and the only appointment I could get was during the class that I teach each week. The appointment was the ball that needed to be juggled, and the class…well I taught half of it, but ultimately that ball bounced just fine. We’ll make up the other half.
Some are luckier than others in the flexibility of their work schedules, but if you have any flexibility, use it! It is ok to drop some of your balls on purpose once in awhile! And along those lines…
4. Get rid of the guilt.
We have to stop thinking that we’re supposed to be perfect and do all the things, all the time. If you need someone to give you permission to drop a ball here and there, here’s your permission. We all have to drop balls. You are not alone. Instead of thinking, “I screwed up”, think, “I made a judgement call to prioritize _______ (insert kid, work, mental health, whatever). You can also use it as a teaching moment, to show your kids that it’s ok to be human, rather than superhuman. Know that making that judgement call was something you had to do to make your life more manageable, and that’s ok.
5. Learn how to work smart.
Before I became a parent, I would work all hours of the nights and weekends. Then I would go home and dream about what I hadn’t gotten done. But if I was honest with myself, I certainly wasn’t using my time wisely. I would meander from task to task, wander down the hall to have a conversation, check Facebook a few million times, and get one or two things done by the end of the day.
Now, my workday is much shorter, but it is hyper focused. I have a to-do list in front of me at all times and I make it a game to check as many things off before I have to leave at 5pm to get my kids. I spend nights and weekends with my kids thinking very little about work, and yet I still get more done than I ever did before.
Check out this great post with 10 ways to help yourself to work smarter.
6. Learn how to say “No”and “I can’t”.
Just like you need to make schedules and boundaries at home, it’s important to make them at work and with others outside your home as well. When I became a mom, attending events outside of daycare hours became a no-go most of the time. Sure, I could get a sitter during all those events, but then I would lose out on time that I felt was critical with my kids.
That boundary may have ruffled a few feathers to begin with (I’m sure it did), but in the end, I prove my value each day in other ways during work hours. If employers are interested in this work/life balance concept that they tend to tout these days, they need to be understanding about the challenges of parenthood. Don’t be afraid to say “I just really can’t do that”, or have a candid conversation about your parenting challenges. You can offer to make up for whatever it was that you couldn’t do in other ways.
The same goes for the PTA chili cookoff, or the tennis match you promised to be part of. You don’t have to be superwoman. Most people do understand when you admit feeling overwhelmed, especially when you’re dealing with kids. And along those lines…
7. Establish a support network and ask for help.
This one took me awhile for me. I used to avoid asking for help at all costs. I felt like I was failing somehow when I couldn’t do everything myself. But sometimes, work calls and there’s nothing you can do about it, or you need to be in two places at once. Sometimes, you get sick and you really need to just stop and rest. It’s time to ask for help. You can’t always do everything on your own. If you don’t making other people think that you’re achieving this mythical “work-life balance”, they won’t expect you do.
The trick is to establish those key people that you can ask for help, so you already know to whom you’ll go if you need it. I’m lucky enough to have parents nearby that are at the ready whenever I send out that last minute “help me” call. You can also find babysitters or friends that would agree to do that job. On the work side, have a coworker in mind in case something crazy comes up. You could make a deal to be a help buddy to another mom there. Walking a tightrope gets a whole lot less stressful when you have a safety net there, both at work and at home.
8. Enroll your kids in fewer activities
These days, it seems like every parent you talk to has their kids in a different after school activity every single day, like there’s some prize for the family with the most chaotic schedule. Parents race home to cart their kids from thing to thing, and kids don’t get to bed until late into the night. It makes everything harder for both parents and kids.
Sure, kids benefit from being exposed to new things, but they also benefit from time with you. They benefit from having time to do their homework, and getting a good night’s sleep. And you benefit by not feeling like you’re constantly late for whatever the day’s activity is. Set yourself up for success by making the family schedule more manageable from the start. You’re not a bad mom if your kid isn’t involved in twelve different activities.
9. Finally…don’t forget to take care of yourself
As moms, we are responsible for creating little humans and making sure they survive. Sometimes our own health (both physical and mental) can fall by the wayside. But we won’t succeed at any part of our lives if we are feeling sick or rundown or overwhelmed.
At night, my kids go to bed at 8pm. That’s a hard and fast rule. While I like to say that it’s because I want them to get enough sleep, it’s also because I need that hour or two after to do whatever feels good to me, be it working out, reading, blog writing, or vegging in front of the TV. However your schedule is structured, try to have at least a little time that is consistently your own. Sometimes, just the act of doing something nice for yourself is enough to make a huge difference in the way you feel about your life and daily tasks.
What’s the Take-Home?
When we use the term work-life balance, it implies that there are only two things to balance, and that it is possible to balance those things. In reality, we have a time and energy budget, and like hummingbirds, we have to decide where the time and energy will be allocated throughout the day. When we allocate time to one thing, another thing doesn’t get that time.
We can think about our activities like stocks in the stock market. Work, kids, partners, etc. are each individual stocks. For each, the market will have good and bad days, but you’re looking for a net positive overall. If we think of it that way, we can spend less time stressing about the dropped balls, we can ask for help to pick them up, and we can judge ourselves on what we bring to the table, rather than what we don’t.
You’re doing great mom! Hang in there!
