I’ve done a lot of food blogging in recent months, developing new recipes and posting some goodies from my cookbooks as well. Today, I am not posting ANY food pics – but I hope you’ll still stick around, read, and join my discussion (despite not having any visual food appeal)!
I’ve been mothering for 12 years now. I’ve been writing cookbooks even longer, and blogging about 8 years. Through these years, I have been asked many times – both in my personal life and through online acquaintances – “how do you do it? … how do you find the balance?“.
My short reply is often “I’m not sure there is any balance“. We may wax poetic about how us moms can “have it all”, but is that really true? Can we? For me, motherhood and working has always been more of a juggling act than a balancing act. With all the demands of family and work-life, something has to give – eventually a ball is going to drop.
Admittedly, I don’t even experience the challenges of working outside the home. The pressure and stress that must arise from trying to keep on top of chores, errands, your household, kids’ activities, homework, and just simple “time” with children – to talk about daily joys or worries. I can only imagine how trying it must be to keep on top of day-to-day life. Myself, I have perpetual guilt when I’m working… that I’m spending time in front of the computer instead of with my girls. (Time in the kitchen is easier to mentally and emotionally justify – the family reaps the benefits of the cooking and baking). And, if I take much time off to reboot with my family, I feel I am not being very responsive with you, my readers – and that I am falling behind on deadlines and projects.
One day I was on the computer (I have dubbed myself “momputer”), and the girls were stick-handling in the garage with hubby. I heard our middle girl say “mom’s missing out on all the fun because she’s tweeting to the world“.
*sinking heart* 🙁
Truth be told, the idea of dodging pucks in a cold garage is NOT my idea of fun. Yet, I realized in that moment that our girls see me momputing a lot because I don’t have “regular” work hours – I’m catching up when they are engaged and I have a few moments.
As I said, something’s gotta’ give. For me, it’s two areas (1) social and leisure time and (2) household. I rarely go to movies or concerts or events or dinners or even tea with my girlfriends (they are nodding their heads right now). Hubby and I have little time together as a couple too, partly because we are struggling with babysitting right now, and we don’t have that extended family support which is such a blessing when raising children (even for their connectedness with other loving adults). So, I work and mother most of my hours. The trickiest part for me is that working blurs into mothering and mothering back into working – there is little separation between the two. Also, areas of my house are disastrously disorganized! I need that Peter Walsh bloke in here to help me sort out my office, my kitchen pantry, and my PHOTOS! (who else has 164,987 digital photos of their kids to go through? Raise your hand!)
At times it feels like you are not doing anything particularly well! Anyone relate to that? In my heart of hearts, I know that really I AM doing a good job with my work, and more importantly that I AM a pretty good mom (I have my shit days, and even shittier hours). Yet, I think as women, we are often tough on ourselves, because we hold ourselves to high standards and expectations – rooted in our goals for our career and family. As I type this, I have the contract for my next book. I am excited and yet plenty nervous, wondering how I will “do it all”. Things have gotten busier as the girls have grown, and they aren’t slowing down yet!
Recently I’ve had many discussions with girlfriends about this pressure of working and motherhood. Several of my friends have been at home with their kiddos since birth, and now that their youngest children are in kindergarten they are struggling with the decision of going back to work. We have talked about how it’s still so busy even with the kids in school, catching up on household chores and also being part of school volunteering, and more. Then, once the kids are out of school, our days truly just begin! With homework and activities, dinner hour, and bath/bedtime and getting ready for the next day – there is so much to do in those after-school hours. Some of my friends don’t really want to go back to work, but they feel that pressure to do so, that it is expected. Many of them are asked “well, what are you going to DO now?” Huh?! I find that upsetting and unfair, as if there is nothing to do during school hours. And, it is disappointing that our worth is so quickly ‘diminished’ as mothers once our children are in school. Our children still need us, in many ways! Also, many mothers feel the financial pinch to get back to work because our current day of parenting means we have so many expenses associated with our kids’ activities. After being at home for 7-10 years with children, it’s not simple to transition back to the work force. We need more flexibility with hours, our skills sets may need retuning, the field we’ve worked in has moved on “without us”, we may have completely different interests than before (often we do).
While I hardly have all the answers, I have found a few things that work for me. First, I do love my work. It feels meaningful and creative and purposeful. I wouldn’t work as hard as I do if I didn’t have this connection and passion. Second, I respect my burnout. When I have had too much, I break from blogging or social media. I only blog about once a week, because that’s really all I can maintain right now. Third, I respect my sleep. I have always been an early bird – early to bed, early to rise. So, I don’t abuse that. I shut off from momputing by about 8:30pm. Here’s the embarrassing confession: I’m in bed most nights by 9:30. I know, plant-powered partay! Well, I’m often up at 5:30 or 6am, so it’s my rhythm. Sleep is critical for maintaining our serenity as mothers, and I have had periods of torturous insomnia after having children – which could be a whole post on its own. So, I do my best to respect my rhythms and try – try – not to be hard on myself. Fourth, I exercise. I don’t run miles or endure long, exhausting workouts. For my body, just small spurts of daily exercise works best. So, 20-30 minutes a morning of yoga, weight-training, or rebounding (I hope to post about that soon)! Fifth, I feel whole foods help energize and stabilize me through the day. My diet is about 80-85% whole foods. I’m not perfect, I enjoy my treats. I love my . And there you have my sixth coping mechanism. 😉
There are many things I know I should do more. I know I should meditate, have more “me” time like spa visits (ahhhh!), get out for girls’ nights, and also get away to food and veggie conferences more often. Maybe in time. I’m sure I could fit in even 10 minutes of meditation a day, that might be the best place to start.
As for “finding the balance”, that may forever remain elusive … at least until our children are much older and independent – and by that time I will likely miss the noise and chaos of my current days. 😉
How do you feel? Are you a mother working from home or outside the home? How do YOU do it all? Do you feel you have “balance”? Do you feel a lot of pressure from peers and family and society to “get back to work”? Does that upset you? What are your coping strategies? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I’d really like to hear from you on this, and if you have any links to share – feel free to do so.
Ricki says
What a great post, Dreena. And can I just say. . . even WITHOUT any kids, I can totally relate to most of what you write! I feel as if I rarely see my hubby any more, too, and as if I’m neglecting my “fur kids” so much these days. Balance is equally hard for all of us who try to do too many things at once. I like your coping mechanisms and employ most of them, too (need to start yoga! need to start yoga!!). Thank you as always for your honestly and your crystal clear, realistic assessments of your life–and so many of ours, too. xo
sue says
This was a great post, Dreena. I am a full-time working mom to my 2 sets of vegan twins (nearly 9-year old twins and 3-year old twins) who are homeschooled by my husband, who is disabled. I returned to work approximately 2 months after both pregnancies. I do not particularly care for my job and it is extremely stressful (social work supervisor for a large, county welfare agency) but my incomes keeps us afloat. My husband and I have had 3 dates together in the past 9 years. I feel like I am constantly running to keep everything together. I sometimes think how easy it would be if I didn’t have to prepare healthy, or at least moderately-healthy, vegan meals all the time but I look at my family and realize I could never feed them anything else. I spend as much time on the weekends with my kids while trying to catch up, and I am always trying to catch up, on cooking, cleaning, shopping and errands.
However, there are a few things I do to keep some sanity. I walk every day during my lunch hour and do an exercise DVD before everyone wakes up and I really try to get a good night’s sleep. I find that I can face most things when I have accomplished some sleep and exercise.
I’m still hoping that a vegan Mary Poppins will show up on our doorstep one day but until that day, I will just do my best. My kids are wonderful and I can’t imagine life without them even though I didn’t even want kids until I was 34 years old!
Dreena says
LOL Sue! How many times I have referenced a vegan Mary Poppins myself!! I was a little later having children too, well later than some of my friends. First babe at 30, so that’s not ‘late’ in our culture now, but for me with friends it’s a little later. And, I really relate to your comment about thinking “if I didn’t spend all this time preparing food”… my husband often says the reason we are busier is because everyone else doing the same stuff is grabbing takeout, pizza, etc. That’s entirely accurate. We see it all the time. But, I don’t want my kids eating McDonald’s on the way to hockey or softball, or having those arena fries and soda after the game either. I often feel so detached when watching what others eat – I’m really grateful for my online community her and on facebook to know others ARE doing the same, maybe just not in my real-life community. Thanks for sharing your perspective, I hope you get some downtime soon too. 🙂
Laurie says
This isn’t to judge or anything but to share my own experience. I feel so blessed to have been able to stay at home while raising our 4 children. I know a lot of us feel tempted to go back to work when our kids reach school-age but I’m grateful I was able to be home even through my children’s high school years. Teenagers need us as much if not more than our little ones! Now that our kids are all in their 20’s, they often tell me how much they loved coming home after school knowing that their mom was there waiting to greet them – even if I was on the computer! I realize it isn’t possible for many moms to be home and I know I was lucky to be able to make that choice. It wasn’t always fun and it wasn’t always easy but I now look back and realize that teaching our children and creating a fun, safe environment of love for my family has been my greatest accomplish in life.
jill62 says
As the mother of three adult sons – the youngest is 29 – the balancing / juggling act is and has always been a difficult one. I have worked full time (mostly through financial necessity)since the youngest was three years old but for better or worse they have turned out to be (mostly) great blokes (Australian for males). They do have their ‘only child’ moments but that passes and they turn back into humans.
The guilt thing is, I think, a female thing as my husband who loves his sons dearly just seems to accept that life isn’t perfect but its the best he can do at the time. They (the sons) know they can come home at any time, indeed the middle son and his partner are staying with us for a week before moving from Melbourne to Adelaide for work. And over the Anzac weekend we will be helping the eldest move house, which means at nearly 62 years old I will be helping carry large pieces of furniture down flights of stairs.
On balance, and after seeing how life has turned out for us and our friends, I don’t think it really matters whether we work in paid employment full time, part time, from home or do the really difficult thing – be what is called a stay at home Mum, if you love your children and do the best you can all will be okay. They, the children, may not always do what you want/expect but have you always done what your parents wanted.
This may seem like a long diatribe and I sorry that this has taken a lot of words but I will be 62 next month so have had time to think about this – a lot. AND as you may have gathered I am Australian – FYI Anzac Day is an important day in our history so I won’t just be moving furniture on ANZAC Day eve but thinking about what the holiday means for us. If you are interested ANZAC Day is April 25 and commemorates the day Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Gallipoli (Turkey) in 1915 during what is euphemistically called the great war.
Take care and for those who cook lots I promise your children will always remember, and want to eat the food you have always cooked for them-even when they grow up and their tastes change and expandl
Erin says
Dreena, I loved that distinction between balancing and juggling. I know exactly what you mean! You are not alone. I was immediately reminded of a TED talk I saw by Brene Brown, who writes about how shame is organized by gender.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html
It’s about 15 min into the video, but the entire video is pretty engaging. From the transcript:
“For women, the best example I can give you is Enjoli the commercial: ‘I can put the wash on the line, pack the lunches, hand out the kisses and be at work at five to nine. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you’re a man.’ For women, shame is do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat. I don’t know how much perfume that commercial sold, but I guarantee you, it moved a lot of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. (Laughter) Shame, for women, is this web of unobtainable, conflicting, competing expectations about who we’re supposed to be. And it’s a straight-jacket.”
I don’t know exactly what the solution is, but it helps me, at least, to know that this is very much wrapped up in social expectations for women and not an inherent failing of myself (which it’s very easy to feel.) It seems there’s a simple natural law of time and energy: you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.
Anyway, no good answers here, except that I really appreciated this post and wish you the best as you understand better how to integrate work and family.
Dreena says
Erin, I watched this video today and got chills. I’m so glad you shared it – thank you. I may post it to my fb page, its message is valuable to so many women. Yes, it’s so much about our expectations – what we feel others expect of us and what we expect of ourselves. Thank you for your note, and for this video.
Anna {Herbivore Triathlete} says
This post really hits home for me. I agree that motherhood is a juggling act. I work full-time and have 3 kids who are involved in all sorts of activities and sports. I feel like we are always running from one thing to the next. It’s reassuring to hear others say that they face the same struggles that I do. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and struggles Dreena.