Subscribe to my blog via email
-
-
Jul
14
I remember being pregnant with my first child and planning everything out. I’d take off work 3 months and then go back to work. I’d do it all. Yeah, right. Fast forward to the weeks before my maternity leave were up, crying myself to sleep every night at the thought of leaving my baby to go back to work.
I ended up working part time, which is a pretty good balance. Recently I’ve been blessed to be able to work full time at home, which works out great now that my kids are a little older. Perfect situation, right? Well, not always.
Even working at home, I can’t do it all. There is no “Wonder Woman” at my house, it’s just me. Some days I can get lots of things done, important things like laundry, dishes, cleaning. Other days, in fact many days, nothing gets done but my work. Some days, we’re running out the door to practice or lessons, grabbing fast food as we go. This rushing around makes me cranky, and sometimes I take my crankiness out on my children. Work must be done, and if after all the practices, meals, homework, I still have work to do, I stay up late to get it done. Which leads to more crankiness, then more griping at the family. It’s a vicious cycle, and I haven’t figured out a way to break the cycle yet.
Maybe there are women who can do it all, work, raise a family, keep the house clean. I can’t get it all done, so something always suffers. Unfortunately, the thing that occasionally suffers in my quest to try to do it all is my relationship with my kids. I get so caught up in what has to get done that I forget to make time for what should get done. Playtime, chilling out time. My kids don’t care that the house isn’t spotless, or that dinner isn’t gourmet. But they care deeply when I run around like a crazy woman trying to finish everything on my to do list, without taking even a second to hug them, or ask how they are doing.
Here’s a painful confession: there have been days when I’ve tucked my kids into bed at night and realized that I hadn’t really talked to them that whole day, besides barking orders and telling them “just one more minute” when they needed me.
When my youngest child started 3rd grade, they had to fill out these papers answering all kinds of questions about themselves. Things like, do you have brothers or sisters, do you have a pet, etc. One question was what is your dad’s favorite thing to do, my son wrote “Play with me and my brother”. For the question about what is your mom’s favorite thing to do, he wrote “Work”. All the parents were reading their childs paper and laughing, but I felt like my heart was breaking in a million pieces. My son was 8, he didn’t have any hurtful intentions when he wrote that, he was just answering the question based on what he thought was true. But work wasn’t my favorite thing to do, it was just the thing I had to do.
Many, many times since having kids, I’ve wanted to yell “Do over!”. I’ve wanted the chance to do it again, do it better, do it right. There are no do overs in this game though. But I still have a chance, every day, to do it better.
After reading my son’s paper I made a conscious effort to play, to laugh, to pay attention to both of them, every day. Without looking at my watch, without worrying about all the work I need to get done. Just be with them. There are still days that I fail at this, fail miserably. But I’m trying, and as they’ve gotten older I’ve explained that work is never my first choice, they are always my first choice, but sometimes I don’t get to choose. I’m sure they don’t understand completely, but I hope they at least know that I would rather be with them.
We all have to make choices, we all have to try to squeeze everything in. Here’s to doing the best that we can.
This post entered in Scribbit’s July Write-Away contest.
New
here? Subscribe to Unexpected Bliss or have it delivered via email.
3 Responses to “Doing it right, some of the time”
Leave a Reply
Michelle at Scribbit on July 15th, 2008 12:25 am
Ouch! That would hit me hard too–I heard the kids say something along those lines here and it kind of got me thinking. Like you said, we’re all doing the best.
Sheri on July 15th, 2008 1:10 pm
I think the problem with working at home is they see you working alot, whereas if you go to work and come back, they see you at home playing more. It’s a fine line, trying to find balance.
When I grow up | Unexpected Bliss on August 6th, 2008 12:16 am
[...] think you can do everything and do it all well, something has to give. I’ve already admittedthat I can’t do it all. For many women I think what “gives” most of the time is [...]