Chasing That Elusive Balance or Welcome to Your New Class Schedule of Life

I’ve gotten some great advice as I’ve started my new single mom adventure. Some of the more helpful advice has been how to handle my kid-free time. You see, I never had kid-free time before, which you  probably figured out if you have been reading my blog for a while now. “My time” had to happen between the hours of 4-6 a.m. In that time I had to go to the gym, read, mediate or do anything that resembled self-care. As soon as the clock struck 6 a.m., I was on duty. So now I find myself with more free time in one week than I had in 3 months and lots of my friends have helped me navigate that time (you guys, thank you – I love you!) When the house is quiet, your mind can race and while some deep thinking is healthy, ruminating is not. One of the best and most consistent pieces of advice I’ve received is to do something for me during this quiet time. Another piece of wisdom I got was to do all the work of running a house, like cleaning, running errands, meal prep, groceries, etc. when the kids are gone so you can just have fun time with the kids when they are here.

Because I love challenges, I took this kid-free time by the horns. I wasn’t going to be sad – I would be happy that they have some quality time with their dad without me running the show. It will be good for everyone! I’m over the causes of our divorce – I’ve got a one-way ticket on the train to Happyville! I started tackling all of the household chores and doubling down on self-care whenever the kids were gone. And you know what? I was exhausted when they came back. Sure no one but me had to do any chores in my house but I was so wiped out that I was pretty much sunk the day they got home and it was hard to plan fun carefree things to do. And sadly enough, there is some pressure to be the fun house, a status I will never achieve because I’m Mom and thought we needed to get back into the daily reading habit BEFORE school starts this year. This did not go over well.

Then I realized something. I was setting my boys up to expect their significant others to take care of themselves only when they had “free time.” That chores, groceries, cooking - all the things - magically happen when they are away. And that mothers should only have time for self-care when it is most convenient for the other people of the house. What the heck? Here I was thinking I was nailing this divorce thing, focusing on raising healthy well-adjusted men and I am fucking them up. I am modeling the same behavior that my ex and I modeled for them for years. The woman runs around taking care of everything and everyone but herself – she is allowed to take care of herself when everyone else is asleep or otherwise busy. Because she is ALWAYS ON CALL. Speaking from personal experience, this is not sustainable or healthy for anyone. Stop. Just stop. I cannot believe I have messed this up on this scale. Again.

What am I doing? I am showing my boys that they don’t need to lift a finger. That Mom’s house bears no responsibility – that it is not a team, a family, that lives here. That Mom lives to serve her kids. She will take care of any of her needs only after everyone is fed, clean, happy and asleep. We already did that. It did not work. But here I find us in the same pattern again and it is all my fault. 

Now let me say that my friends’ advice was spot on. This downtime IS time to take care of myself and it’s great to get groceries without a bag of Doritos and a box of oatmeal cream pies stealthily appearing in the cart. But I need to do it in a healthy way where I still require my kids to have some responsibility. As usual, I took the advice a little too far.  

So I started treating my kid-free weekends like little sabbaticals. What did I actually want to do? Did I want to stay in bed until noon reading books and binging on Netflix? Yes! Did I want to go to the gym for two hours? Yes! Cheetos and cereal for dinner? Yes (wait what, I meant salad and mineral water for dinner.) Cleaning all three of the bathrooms? Not so much. What did I want to do right now if I had no responsibilities? I slowed down. Sure, my thoughts caught up to me at first and I had some good soul bearing cry sessions. And then I rested. I didn’t run around the house like I was on fire to make sure everything was perfect for when my little cubs returned. I started saving some chores for them. A family means we all pitch in together. They should expect to have to take care of things in the places that they live. And they should have to help their mother. She works hard at her job, she works hard raising them, and now she will work hard ensuring that they have some skin in the game too.

Then I started thinking about how I saved up all of my self-care for when the kids are gone. Sure, it’s great that I now have some time to take care of myself when they are gone. But when the kids are here, they should respect that I am not a maid or a robot. My self-care should not just take place when they are not here – they need to see me prioritizing myself the same way I prioritize them. That I need fun and rest in my life, even when they are home. No longer will I be the only one standing in the kitchen when everyone else is sitting in the living room chilling out. It is time to model healthy relationships, even if it is one of a single parent. And some of that means that we need to respect that Mom needs downtime too to read a book or go to a fitness class.

So to my mom friends out there. It doesn’t matter if you are married or single. It’s time to start showing our littles that we are people, we are human. It’s time to stop doing all of the everything and make them pitch in a bit. I know they have sports and homework. Guess what. They’ll have those same things in college too and I sure hope you don’t plan to show up to clean their dorm room for them (you guys, I’ve heard of this happening.) We need to teach our kids that as much as we do revolve our worlds around them, the world does not truly revolve around them. Maybe we need to grab a pedicure on the weekend. Or have quiet time to read after a super long day at work. Or go for a quiet walk or listen to a podcast or go to bed early. Or…so many things. And for all of us to be healthy people in our homes it takes a team effort – everyone pitches in and everyone gets to enjoy themselves too.

Let me propose a new class schedule – one that has literal homework:

Laundry 101 – Yes, You Have to Separate
Dishes 102 – Handwashing (pre-req Dishes 101 – Unloading the Dishwasher)
Food 101 – Packing Your Own Lunch and Snack
Lunch – Clear Your Plate
Elective Choice – Dusting or Vacuuming – your pick!
Food 102 – It’s Time to Help with Dinner
Study Hall – Get Your Homework Done Without Being Asked 9 Times
Extracurricular – Let Mom Have Some Quiet Time While You Entertain Yourself Too
Capstone Project - Seeing a task that needs to be done and just doing it without being asked – clearly this is for senior year.

This year the “school year” is starting at home. First up, laundry and dishes. The school supply list? Soap and a lot of patience. Let’s make this school year the best ever! In the effort of full disclosure, I do not have any magical advice to get to this point. It is hard to change the culture of a home. I am going to have to break a lot of bad habits I’ve created and push my boys to move into this more sustainable healthy living style. But I think it’s worth it. I think I’m worth it. I think my boys are worth it. And I think whoever interacts with them in the future is worth it too. Pass the boys the Tide and hand me my book.