Just this morning, on what was supposed to be my day off from my cafe, I got a message from one of my team.
“Hi we are having grinder problems.”
Standing in my kitchen, I looked up – my 5-year-old was still in his pyjamas, my 7-year-old had just settled in to eat breakfast and my husband had walked out the door to his morning gym class.
After troubleshooting from afar, the only thing to be done was for me to quickly go into the shop and see if I could fix the grinder – our doors were a minute away from opening and I knew we would already have customers waiting for their morning caffeine fix.
I threw some shoes on my sleepwear-adorned pre-schooler while ordering my 8-year-old a lunch order on the school app. Before you know it, we were on our way and eating breakfast out of tupperware in the car.
As patiently as two young kids can, they waited for me to fix the grinder and finish dialing in the coffee machine (rewarded with a couple of mum-guilt hot chocolates on the way out the door).
Regular customers who heard me use my parenting voice to scold them for running around the shop tried to hide their giggles.
By some miracle, the coffee got flowing and I got both kids off to daycare and school on time.
Is this what we mean when we talk about a work/life balance?
For me as a working parent, rather than ever achieving a sense of equilibrium between these two facets of my identity, the push and pull is more like a pendulum, ever-changing and swinging between the two.
Some days, I am an excellent mother and a terrible business owner. On other days, it’s the reverse.
We recently had a challenging few weeks of being understaffed due to staff holidays and illness and I was at my shop almost non-stop for three weeks. I left the house before my kids were awake and most days the first time I would see them for the day would be at school pick-up. I was exhausted, impatient, and in bed asleep by 8.30pm. Both quality and quantity time were almost non-existent.
Times like that, though, are not the norm. You just have to get through it. There will be lazy Sundays and the morning breakfast rush at home and searching for school socks most days.
On days that’s not the case, I have to hope that my kids are getting some value in seeing their mother work – building a business, getting up before dawn, learning new skills, and coming home with new stories to share around the dinner table.
Maybe it’s because I had a schoolteacher mother who I watched work hard – she went back to work when I was six weeks old. I was a daycare kid, then a kid who had to wait around before school and after school for her to work, then a latchkey kid from 11 years old.
Despite the many hours she had to spend at work instead of with me, not once have I ever doubted my mother’s care and love for me. It just was how it was. And I have to hope my kids feel the same way about me.
So, what’s the lesson here? I have no guidance on how to achieve an idealistic and even split of energy between work and home.
I simply will say this: you are always doing your best. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
But, if you can, and your work allows it, here’s what I do to try and feel like I have more control over how my time and energy is split:
I try and set aside one day per week as family time
We’ll all be home together for breakfast and we’ll plan a morning adventure – this might be a bike ride to the city, a visit to the museum or just fish and chips at the beach. Something that we can all happily do together.
I try to be there for the big (and small things)
I can’t make it to every school assembly, but if my son’s class is presenting, I will do my best to make the time. I am a part of my youngest’s kinder committee. I organise my schedule to be there for every single football game and worked right up to the very last minute of his presentation day – covered in coffee grounds and spilt milk but I was there to see him get his trophy.
I try and save some time for me
As the saying goes, you can’t fill from an empty cup, and this is true both as a manager and a parent. I know myself – without time to decompress and recharge, I am no good to either my family or my business.
Work out what helps you get that sense of calm back through all the stress – an evening walk, a solo coffee somewhere. Sometimes I take an extra half hour before pick-up time when the kids are at aftercare or daycare and potter around my quiet, empty house, readying myself for the non-stop rollercoaster to bedtime.
Inevitably, try as you might, it is certain you won’t ever feel like you have everything under control. That’s life, and both work and kids will constantly throw curveballs at you if you are ever feeling too comfortable.
So just breathe in, try your best, and know that this isn’t forever. One day, the kids will be grown and work will have all the focus you wish it could have now. But even then, when life feels calm and in control, I’m sure, you’ll miss those chaotic mornings and spontaneous tupperware breakfasts in the car.
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