7 Ways to Balance it All as a Working Parent
Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash.
A few months ago, a mom reached out via a parents’ email listserv and asked for advice on how to make it all work as a working parent. I shared my thoughts with her then, and I’m sharing a lightly edited version of that here now. I would love to say that I am an expert on this topic, but the truth is that balancing everything I want in my life (to be a great employee, a great parent, a great partner, a healthy person) is a daily struggle for me.
But I have also learned some things from experience and from the wisdom of others. Here are my thoughts, and I’d love to hear in the comments how else you find ways to align your priorities and make it all fit together.
Give up the guilt: You might have seen a meme going around lately about how society expects mothers to work as if they are not parents and parent as if they have no job. The truth is that children of working parents can truly thrive. In fact, kids of working moms are likely to be high achievers at work AND happy when they grow up. I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home parent - that is just not my jam. I am incredibly grateful for the teachers who spend their days with my preschoolers. I adore my children and they provide significant fun and joy in my life; they are also a source of significant stress and my time with them has been relaxing and restful exactly 0 hours total (even if often fun) so far. It is OK to struggle to balance it and to keep trying to balance it every day, and it is necessary to make space for your own needs too (professional, physical, mental, spiritual, etc.).
Household Systems: When I went back to work after kid #2, we had to take our cleaning/house systems up a notch to stay in an OK place. We started doing 5 things every night (pump bag emptied and repacked, lunches packed, garbage out if needed, dishwasher emptied and started again, and kids’ bags packed for the next day). It made a huge positive difference. I wrote about the idea here. Next, we upgraded to a weekly list.
Weekend “Formula”: It’s helpful to try to design an “ideal weekend” and then see if you can incorporate those pieces into weekend planning. For example, we try (and succeed much of the time but not always) to have each weekend have some alone time for me (with no kids), alone time for husband (with no kids), and some time with our two kids separated and getting some 1:1 attention. It’s made weekends much more manageable to be able to make space for different types of enjoyment and relaxation.
My Favorite Podcast on this Topic: I really like this podcast where two working moms (who love their jobs and families) discuss how to make it all work. They do a lot of interviews of working moms and get into daily logistics.
I Know How She Does It: This book, by one of the women who hosts the podcast above, is about how women in executive roles design their days and weeks to fit in time for kids, work, and fun. It was an important read for me to re-frame how to think about my time. In addition, this other book was one of my favorites for thinking about pregnancy and parenting at work - it’s super practical.
You Already Delegate. Do It More: We all delegate parts of our lives (for example, I do not design and sew my own clothing nor raise my own chickens for meat and eggs - I delegate those tasks to others by buying clothes, meat, and eggs). Consider if there are additional things you can delegate. I love grocery shopping, but it’s a pretty affordable thing in 2019 to get them delivered. So I do that. Could you hire a monthly cleaning service? Is there a teenager in your neighborhood who could provide very affordable post-bedtime babysitting hours for date nights? Would a virtual assistant (I use Zirtual) be helpful at work for administrative tasks? Could you upload a list of your holiday cards and have them sent for you instead of hand-addressing them all?
Deliberately Acknowledge What You’re Not Prioritizing: Come to terms with what you are going to fully pause in your life and pick up again later. It removes the “I should be...” feeling. Maybe these are not the years for reading books. Maybe these are not the years for highly fashionable clothes beyond the basics you need for work. Maybe these are not the years of trying new recipes all the time. You’ll get back to all those things you love when kid(s) are older. But you might deliberately abandon them now and feel no guilt about it.
What’s most important here is to know this: You’re doing a great job. Literally every working parent thinks that it’s difficult to balance it all.
What else do you do to balance it all? Share in the comments!
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