Chasing the Impossible

Throughout my years as a mom (almost 13 now) I have struggled to find the best career fit to perfectly balance the needs of my children and family. I started working full-time with one child, then two. Being that I felt overwhelmed and overworked, I stayed home for 3 years plus after my third child was born, as a home child care provider, thinking that this career would fulfill all of my balancing needs. After feeling overworked and isolated, I then to returned to the workforce part-time in 2004. That worked for a while and then after some thought I narrowed down my part-time hours to the bare minimum (4 hours per week) and left a position that was more than stressful at times, yet challenging and invigorating to now focus on the family.

Thinking this would be the best decision, I expected I would be home everyday for the kids after school, see them off in the mornings, go on school trips, have an exceptionally clean home, have tea with friends and family, excercise, go to lunch with my husband, have dinner on the table with ease, not do my shopping on the weekends and accomplish having a well organized and exceptionally managed home.

Well six months later I can tell you that on some levels things have improved - not playing "Beat The Clock" so much BUT I still play laundry catch up, still feel stretched to get the kids where they need to be as often as they need to be, still do most of the chores around the house, still hate to grocery shop and have difficulty getting dinner on the table and many more things - dare I mention- like excercising (not happening!!!) My house is still messy at times, my kids still forget to do their homework and their chores, we still run out of socks and loose our sports equipment. I still have piles of papers and things to sort, Christmas decorations lining the laundry room floor waiting to be put away. I still have plenty of stressful moments and often don't spend what I feel is enough quality time with the kids.

So what is it I have accomplished you ask from being home with my children? While aside from being there most often when they need me I volunteer with the CAS, design websites, work on computer projects, coordinate a Sunday School Nursery program, lead scrapbook workshops, go on the occasioanl school trip, work at Mohawk College (4 hours per week) and generally make busy work for myself in my more than ample spare time. It's not that I have not thoroughly enjoyed working on all of these projects - without them I would not be fulfulled (so if I recently did a project for you don't feel awkward about this post - I loved all the outcomes). I love "busy" work.

I guess the long end of it is that no matter what you decide to do or how you decide to balance all of your career needs with your family, I have come to the conclusion that there is no perfect fit. We often trade one set of problems for another without even realizing it. Some good, and some bad. With that being said, I am again considering returning to work P/T to do the thing I loved the most - be a Resource Teacher to small children. Yes it will be busy, but clearly I have accepted that being busy is the only thing that makes me happy.

So for all you moms out there that might see me and think I have it all together - look again. All I do is my best with each day - as often as I can and I know you do to. Nothing is perfect - we just live daily in organized chaos and that's the way I like it.