Saturday, May 30, 2009
Balance
People ask me quite often how I do what I do. I don't know, I just do. I'm kind of a type A personality, so I'm not good at just being idle - my father is the same way - my mother laments that he never takes her out for dinner and a movie because he can't sit still long enough to watch a movie. I can relate.
This week I had a chat with Charmaine from HRM Parent for Haligonia Kids where we talked about balance, raising kids with an environmental conscience, among other things. We talked for far too long, and the video is shaky at best, but it was interesting, as I have yet to figure out what balance is, and no other working mother has been able to tell me.
I have asked other women in business, including the owner of P'lovers, another environmentally conscious store in Halifax, and my peers and contemporaries, where usually the answer is "haaa!" So, my gut says that as a working mother, the achievement of balance is a myth used to sell self-help books on how to gain balance.
When I started Nurtured, my idea was that it would be a mail order company, I would pack orders and all would be wonderful. I would have lots of time with my kids and still be able to make money. Easy. Wrong. Several things happened:
1) My personality is not conducive to being at home all the time. I love my privacy, but I also really enjoy being with people.
2) Establishing a mail order company with a remote clientele requires that you spend an inordinate amount of time online and in chat rooms building an online clientele, and if you are a people person, it is infinitely easier to gain a local clientele.
3) It is impossible to build a business on a part-time basis, businesses are far more resource intensive than babies.
4) There is no such thing as easy money.
I had my business based from my home for nearly three years, which was wonderful, and I loved meeting my customers in person. Over time, the volume increased and I set business hours. However, even when I was not "working", I was at home, and people would often just drop by unannounced and more than once, I put plans with the kids on hold to help a customer.
Between my husband and I, we decided it was time to separate home and business. My kids had been in part-time care, allowing me to work three days a week. They are now in care full time, and when I come home, I am able to be fully present with them rather than having work looming over me. It is much better for me mentally, but it is still difficult in that I don't see them as much as I used to, but our time is more quality than it was before, when there were a million distractions.
Ideally, I'd love to work four days a week, and hope to eventually match my work day to the school day so I can be home with the kids in the afternoons. I still haven't found my balance, I went from one baby, to two babies and a business, to two toddlers/pre-schoolers and two businesses. I constantly am trying to keep up with the business(es) and put my kids first. It's nearly impossible. Some days are tougher than others - I sometimes feel overwhelmed that I haven't seen much of my kids, and when I lament to Scotian that I'm still a mom first and his reply is "are you really?" it hurts. I'm really proud of my career achievements, it feels good to be mentally challenged, but I still love my children so deeply it hurts. I love that I have an income, I've never been comfortable being financially reliant on someone, regardless of how stable my marriage is. I still struggle with mother guilt, and then I think of my grandmother, raising 8 children on her own (my grandfather went absent for a period of about two years, no one knows to this day where he was or what he was doing, my father says he went out to buy a stove pipe for their wood stove and never returned), and how little time she would have had for each individual child. How is that any different than today's circumstance?
There is an immense amount of pressure to raise our children, to be a contributing member of society, to do everything. And it's hard. My schedule is so packed that if something falls out of place, it ripples through my entire week.
I snuggle with my babies at night, content that they're safe and loved, and I kiss them goodbye every morning as I go to work. I love what I do, and I love my kids. They're only little once, but my life will have to continue once they're grown up.
If someone has the answer to balance, I'd love to know!
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