You’ll Never Find Balance as a Parent
So embrace your life of imperfect balance and just do the best you can, Mama.
In life, we play many roles.
As we get older, we see new roles added on and old roles go away.
These days, I have the role of wife, mom, friend, sibling, daughter, and aunt, to name a few.
But I’ve also added the roles of freelancer, writer, copywriter, business owner, CEO, CFO, head of marketing, head of advertising, payroll, accounting, and a slew of others. All because I went into business for myself.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, it is the balancing of these roles that is the hardest. And, unfortunately, impossible to balance them all perfectly.
I did a better job of balancing my roles before becoming a mom.
But once I had my first baby, that balance went completely out of whack. And now something – or someone – gets neglected.
Take, for instance, my daughter. She’s 6 now, but she was 6 months old when I started my business.
Parenting was getting easier than when she was a newborn (but just a bit). And by easier, she could now entertain herself for longer periods – and by “periods,” I mean a handful of minutes.
At 9 months, she learned to army crawl across the floor to explore parts of the office. Gone were the days when all she would do was stare at a spot on the ceiling or the fan spinning.
But she now had the independence to change her own view and play by herself.
It was great. This meant I could get more done building my website or cold-pitching clients.
But sometimes, when we were working in the office, she’d crawl over to my desk chair and headbutt my leg for attention.
Or force her way under the desk and start digging in the trash.
Or lay next to the chair, put her limbs in the air like she’s skydiving and whine.
Sometimes, she’d crawl somewhere I didn’t want her to go, stop to look at me, wait for my reaction, and then give a small smile as she went anyway.
It’s the fact that she stops to see what I’ll do that gets me. My husband says she is checking in with us. Maybe. I think it’s her mischievous side coming out. It a more of “How far can I get before Mom freaks out?” (I think our 2 cats taught her this move.)
But I digress.
All her actions tell me it is time to save and pause what I’m doing to give her some attention.
I can no longer have my business hat on. I have to swap it out for my mom hat.
Usually, she didn’t need much. Maybe ten minutes of play, a cuddle, a diaper change, or a bottle. Sometimes it is all of these.
But so long as I put in the time, the fewer incidences I’d have of being headbutted in the leg.
My husband felt neglected during these early days too and found his own creative ways to ask for attention.
No, he didn’t headbutt me in the leg.
Even the cats felt neglected. (Oops, forgot to add kitty mom to the list of roles.)
Our black cat used to meow in front of the bedroom door when our daughter was napping because he knew I’d come running to shush him.
“Hey Mom, while you’re here, why don’t we play a little?” Okay, give me the damn ball.
I’m sure my friends felt neglected. They never said it, bless them.
But I became that woman who’d see a text, read it, and then forget to respond for 3 days because I had 17 different tasks on my mind.
And when I added in all the roles of business owner, I had no concept of what time it’d take from me.
Can I neglect the business? Not if we wanted to pay the bills.
But can I neglect everything else because of the business? Not if I wanted a happy marriage.
Not if I didn’t want to send my kid to counseling to talk about how she can only get her mom’s attention by headbutting her in the leg, even at 16.
So I tried to find a balance as a mom, wife, mompreneur, and everything else in those early days.
Did I find it? A bit.
Have I found it yet after almost 6 years? Sort of.
Mostly by setting boundaries for myself and others.
I set work hours and try not to work after my husband comes home. I try to keep my weekend strictly for family. But if I need to work, communicate that clearly with my husband.
I set the timer on my computer and make sure to stop every 20 minutes to check in with the kids.
Yes, that’s kids plural now. Did I mention we added a set of twins to the mix just to keep life interesting?
What about self-care? That’s a hard one.
I can’t be everything to everyone. Not even to myself.
So I try to do some type of self-care once a day. I carve out a little time to read or to write. Or a bit more time to work out, stretch, or take a walk.
No, these aren’t great big moments. But they make me feel cared for by me.
So do something once a day that makes you feel cared for.
And then turn around and do something once a day that makes the other people (or furbabies) in your life feel cared for.
There’s the balance. Is it perfect? No.
Like relationships, nothing is 50/50.
Sometimes it is 90/10. Because something needs 90% of you and everything else is going to have to take 10%.
But the magic, the balance is in not allowing that something to continue to get 90% of you ALL THE TIME.
There eventually has to be an end.
And if there isn’t? All those other roles will disappear from your life because those people you love will seek others who can fill those roles for them.
That’s why people get divorced.
That’s why parents don’t know what to do when their kids leave the house.
That’s why people feel lost after retirement.
Find the balance as a mom, as a business owner, as a writer, as a [fill-in-the-blank].
Shed roles no longer important to you and focus on the ones that are. And make the people you love a priority.