How not to stay balanced
Juggle the right stuff
For most of my adult life, I’ve been in search of this elusive concept known as “the work-life balance.” Now, four years into the life of a working mother, I’ve finally decided that balance isn’t just elusive. It plum does not exist.
I will never be able to pay every single bill on time. There will always be days when hot dogs seem like perfectly healthy options to make for dinner. I probably won’t feel caught up on my sleep until my daughter is a teenager. I may never feel as if I’m exercising enough. Meditation may forever be a hit or miss proposition.
I won’t get to every book I want to read. My spiritual life, for the time being, may very well have to be centered on praying to God to keep me sane. I’m probably not the only person who has ever forgotten my younger brother’s birthday. (Sorry Lil’ Bro. Hope it was a great one!)
So what if I show up to birthday parties with unwrapped gifts and forget to RSVP to other parties altogether?
I’m a working mom, God dammit. This is what working mothers do. We drop balls.
I can tell you this. The day I feel balanced—the day I can expertly juggle every single ball without dropping a one—will be the day I feel bored.
Yes, indeed.
More important, I’m downright happy about my perfectly imbalanced life, and this has not always been the case. Years ago, when my life was just as imbalanced, I was not nearly as happy. In fact, I would describe that younger me as completely miserable. (And why exactly did I have a hard time balancing it all back then anyway? I had no kid. I could sleep in. I had an entire weekend every weekend to catch up. And I couldn’t stay balanced?!)
So this is what I’m saying today: If you want to find more balance in your life, you are striving for the wrong goal. Don’t seek balance. Instead, make it your goal to try to balance the right things. Juggle the right balls.
When I was imbalanced and miserable, I was juggling the wrong balls. For instance, I was doing volunteer work that did not fulfill me. I was going to parties that left me more anxious than happy. I was sustaining friendships that did not support me. I took on work projects because they were there—and not necessarily because I wanted to do them.
Even if I had managed to balance it all, I could never have been happy while doing it. My life had been filled with the wrong stuff.
Motherhood forced me to balance the right stuff. It taught me that it’s okay to:
Be antisocial. I rarely answer the phone when it rings, and I don’t return every phone call. I don’t attend every party I’m invited to. I don’t make an effort to stay in touch with all that many people. My true friends know I’m not a phone talker. They know that I won’t return their gestures to throw snowballs, play games, and poke people on Facebook. They are okay with seeing me when they see me which, in some cases, is just a few times a year. They love me anyway.
Be disorganized. So what if ATT Wireless almost discontinued our cell phone service this month because I lost not one, but two of their bills? My husband wasn’t mad. He doesn’t want to take over paying the bills. That’s for sure. And even if it hurt our credit score, we’re not planning on buying a new home at any point in the next 30 years anyway.
Outsource. I don’t care how tight things ever get financially. I will never give up my cleaning lady.
Not reciprocate. Back in the day, if someone sent me a holiday card, I sent one back. If someone invited me to their party, I invited them to mine. If they did me a favor, I made sure to do something for them. Now? I’ve stopped blindly reciprocating. You know what? No one seems to have noticed. For instance, I send our holiday letter only to blood relatives, but I don’t seem to have been purged from 20 or more holiday mailing lists of non blood relatives.
Not finish what I start. If I’m not into a book by page 80, I close it for good.
Tell people that I feel overwhelmed. It doesn’t make me weak. It makes me normal.
Not be perfectly healthy. If I did everything I know I’m supposed to do to improve my health, I’m sure I’d live to 117. You know what? I’d be happy with 90.
Spend more time balancing some stuff than other stuff. When my daughter was an infant, I put nearly all of my energy into her. When she turned two, I put more time into my marriage. Once she turned four, I began focusing more on my career. At different points in our lives, some balls are heavier and harder to juggle than others.
Not be a perfect mom. Apparently my daughter’s preschool had a free vision screening last week. My daughter did not participate because I never signed the permission slip because I just found it this morning on my desk, under my to-do list. She had some sort of homework she was supposed to do last week. She was supposed to turn it in Friday. We found it when we were cleaning the house on Saturday. Last Thursday she was supposed to wear white. I brought her to school in blue. You know what? She’s healthy. She can see, and she’s one of the smartest and most well behaved kids in her class. She also doesn’t own any white clothes that I know of.
More important, I’m the best bedtime book reader on the planet. Just ask my daughter. She’ll vouch for my skills. That has to count for something.
Do you have tips for staying balanced? Share them in the comments area.
Tomorrow: You’ll find out how other mothers keep it all balanced.
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Tags: happiness, motherhood, work life balance
January 12th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I have to disagree on two points: One, it doesn’t get easier when they turn into teenagers. You will not sleep for other reasons, like waiting for the phone call that they have been in an accident, or worrying what if they don’t get into the college of their choice, or how can you make them see that the boy/girl friend is wrong for them. Give me a nightmare or needing a glass of water any day. At least I’m only up for a few minutes and both of us fall back to sleep.
Two: not needing to do everything possible for the best of health. If you don’t take care of yourself to the very best of your ability, then you can’t take care of your child, work, or anything else. And living to “just” 90 is great unless that last 20 years you are doubled over in pain or wandering in the abyss of dementia. If taking really good care of myself now gives me 90 productive, active years, I’ll do whatever it takes. Health is my #1 priority.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Wow. First time visitor here…and I just about popped out of my chair. I know your tongue was in your cheek, but I have to say what you’ve hit on is the core of my life’s work.
Life balance is impossible. You don’t ever get there, cuz there’s no there there. The plates you choose to spin are just that–choices. So life balance is really about making congruent choices. One’s that are lined up with what you truly value and what’s important to you right now.
Everyone of your suggestions helps us to remember that what we can eliminate from our lives is the constant “shoulding.”
One little/big thing I would add to your list is to get inside WHY we want balance. If your life were balance, then what? What’s the big picture you’re living into?
You’re in my blog reader, babe.
January 12th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Great post! It’s all a matter of definition – personal definition. Of course, balance is possible, but not if you let someone else define it for you. When we define for ourselves what matters most & then arrange our lives to focus on that, we achieve our own personal balance. And that’s all that really matters.
I’ve written & blogged about this a lot because I think as women we impose on ourselves, and get subjected to by others, a lot of crazy, unrealistic definitions of what we “should” be doing. Best question ever: “Whose rules are these?”
You & your readers might want to check out my Suit Yourself essays, partic the one called “It’s About Priorities, Not Time,” the posts on my blog under the label “Feminism” and my novel A Merger of Equals. Info about all on my website – hope you’ll enjoy them and find them helpful.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I just found your blog on Twitter Moms and I love it! I think we may have a few things in common. I hope we can keep in touch. Take care!
January 12th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
So true Alisa. There will never be completely true and perfect balance. Our goals do (and probably should) shift as our children grow, careers grow, etc. This year I had to “sacrifice” many of the things I wanted to do professionally in order to devote more time to my son and his educational growth. As he becomes more self sufficient, I am able to branch out and change my list of priorities. I may not look fabulous every day anymore, but my kid has great grades. Maybe by next year when he hits his 3rd straight year of straight A’s I can then go back to having fabulous-ness high on my list again.
I hope all the ladies here will read the post I have submitted on How To Balance Life and Motherhood!
January 13th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I’m with you on the cleaning lady. That will be the last to go!
January 13th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Hallelujah!! I think we are living the same life!
Just a few of the “proper” things I’ve tossed to the wayside:
1. Thank you notes. If someone loves us enough to give us a gift, they love us enough to know our life is too crazy to remember a note. Verbal must suffice!
2. Christmas cards. I can’t even manage to get my family to the portrait studio to use a gift certificate I have, let alone print photo cards and find people’s actual addresses. My MIL can’t stand it though so she sends out my girls’ picture on HER cards!
3. Packing lunch. Yes I had visions of packing a well-balanced school lunch everyday for my new kindergartner, that gave way to periodic buying lunch – as long as it was something good on the menu, which gave way to almost every day buying lunch and hoping she ate more than the overpriced ice cream. It doesn’t help that I can’t stop my husband from pilfering the juice boxes. Apparently the box makes them taste different than pouring a glass of the same brand!
January 19th, 2009 at 1:58 am
I stay at home with my 2 toddlers and my 11 month old. My house always looks like shit (I WISH I had a cleaning lady) and this blog entry is pretty much the story of my life, lol. Glad to know I’m not the only one.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I have to turn your abstract ideas into concrete ones though. Well more concrete for me anyway.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
If you do what I did when my daughter was a teenager, you’ll sleep. Turn off all phones and silence the answering machine. Does that sound horrible? Too bad. I’m not a nice person when I get woken up in the middle of the night. I know this about myself. So, if there is an emergency in the middle of the night, I’ll deal with it so much better in the morning after a full nights sleep.
Guess what? There was only one emergency in the middle of the night. The police knocked on my door, asked if I had a daughter by the name of _______ and I nearly had a heart attack. The officer said “no, she’s fine, we handle those types of situations another way”. She’d been busted for curfew. She didn’t even live at my house – she was 17 and thought she was 30.
I had to pick her up at the police station – about a 30 minute drive. The officer that busted her told me straight up “if she hadn’t been such a sass I would have let her off with a warning. But I figured she needed to be hauled into the station”. Perfect solution as far as I was concerned. And yes, she paid her fine and the parking fees.
Even with kids, you’ve got to pick your battles and juggle all the balls you have going in your life and their life. Picking my battles saved me so many balls to be juggled and so many problems with my daughter.
I can proudly say, she’s 23 and a contributing member of society and people of all ages thinks she’s the nicest and most considerate young woman.
May 12th, 2010 at 8:05 am
I love photo cards, they are more special than those ordinary greeting cards that is just full of text.”:’