Can you have both – a passion for your work and raising children?
I spiritually mentor both men and women who feel guilty as they love their job, or running a business, but feel like they are not being a ‘good enough’ parent.
Susan Jeffers in her wonderful book – ‘Freeing Ourselves From the Mad Myths of Parenthood’, discusses how some people absolutely love the process of being a parent and all that it brings, and some people don’t take to it as naturally and therefore don’t love it so much.
Susan makes the valid point that both ways to feel are okay. Thank goodness as I came in the latter category and over the years, as a single parent, learned to compromise my ambition with committing to my son’s needs. I saw the role of being a mum precious, knowing one day he would fly the nest.
Here are my top 5 ways to let go of the guilt and make both roles work.
1) Look at your week and commit time to different roles.
Break your week into time chunks and commit to your different roles – committing to ‘parent’ role, committing to ‘job’ role but also committing to ‘rest’ role. The latter is important to re-fuel you as a parent. When you are child and work free it is important to prioritise time for you. The hovering, bathroom/car cleaning, answering emails or attending a networking event don’t have to be prioritised downtime. Remember no ‘YOU’ and there is no job/business and the kids will certainly suffer. It is important to rest and self-care.
2) Bring in an expert to help
I used to spend hours doing my accounts – it would take me a full day and I would dread it. Accounting is not my strong point. I then decided to task a bookkeeper with this. It would take her 2 hours to upload all the information into the spreadsheets. This meant I had a full day to see clients or even take the afternoon off so this was a much more beneficial use of my time. Who can you bring in to help you? Cleaner, coach, ironer, dog walker for example. Failing that, asking children or partners to help is important, it allows them to learn to take responsibility.
3) It’s okay to leave the housework.
I used to factor in a full house clean in my week. One week I thought, I wonder what will happen if I don’t do a full clean this week so I didn’t do it. Nothing happened, other than I had more time for myself! After that little experiment, I went from cleaning weekly to fortnightly. Do you really need to clean up or change the bed sheets as often as you do?
4) Stop being a martyr.
I realised I needed a medal for the amount of times I was being a martyr. Family and friends would offer to help me, and I would decline. Boy, would I then tell everyone how busy I had been in the week and how I had done everything on my own! This was until someone pointed out; “Well I did offer to help!” Check in if you are wearing your medal of martyrdom and take it off. It’s okay to accept help!
5) Ask the kids
If you are wondering if you are being a ‘good enough’ parent then ask the people who know. I often used to ask my son, how can I be a better mum? Be prepared to act on the answers though. One time he told me that I get angry over nothing which upset him. It really made me think and taught me to stay calmer. Remember to ask them what you are doing well though, they will tell you, from their perspective of course.
Journal Prompts
- How am I being an awesome parent?
- How could I be a better parent?
- How can I be awesome parent to myself?
- How can I balance my priorites better?
- How can I rest more?
I am sure you are doing an awesome job of balancing your priorities, however if you need support, please reach out for details of my mentoring packages. https://rachael-alexander.com/