If pressed to name only one thing for which moms today are not given enough credit, I’d say it’s their circus skills. At a minimum, mothers regularly find themselves juggling the emotional and physical well-being of one or more children; ringleading a household and all activities occurring within and without; playing the clown for an audience with a tiny attention span, the magician when broken items need fixing or lost items need “unvanishing,” the lion tamer when tempers are running high… I could go on. And that’s not to mention any career these women have chosen or are, for financial reasons, obliged to pursue outside the home.
Let’s be real, though: We know it’s all smoke and mirrors. And yet many of us would do anything to keep up appearances — to convince our families, our peers, our employers, and the world at large that we got this, whatever “this” may be at any given time. It’s hard work, but somebody has to do it.
Or do we? What are we sacrificing when we spread ourselves so thin that we can’t remember where our painstakingly produced personal reality show ends and we begin?
It wasn't until I lost my son, Logan, that the answer hit me — hard. In the long hours, days, and months following his passing, I realized that the perfection I had been seeking as a mother, an entrepreneur, a friend, a public figure, a romantic partner, and goodness knows what else was worth next to nothing when a part of my very being had been permanently carved away. And not until years after that did I start to grasp the concept of balance.
Though I still grapple to achieve balance every day, I’m far better at it now than I was a decade ago, and I’m glad that I have the chance to share some of the techniques I’ve learned with you.
Embrace Your Identity From the get-go, I want to dispel a major myth: Slicing your life into convenient pieces and arranging them as you like just isn’t possible. The idea that you can be one person when you wake up in the morning and, depending on how many things you have to accomplish throughout the day, two or three others by the time you go to bed is wishful thinking. You do yourself a disservice in attempting to chop your being up in this way. So here’s your first step toward achieving balance: Embrace your whole self, every moment of every day.
If you have an occupation outside the home, don’t try to check your motherhood at the office door. I attempted to do this during my 25-year run as a small business owner and politician, and only after my family life came crashing down did I realize that I had been shortchanging both my personal and professional selves.
I can almost guarantee that whatever killer qualifications landed you your career in the first place have only been enhanced by your identity as a mother. And the reverse is true, too. Whether you’re a teacher, a lawyer, a barista, or a CEO, the skills you’ve honed while on the job — from supervising study sessions to tackling customer complaints to closing billion-dollar deals without misplacing a penny — have as much of a place in the living room as they do in the classroom, courtroom, coffee house, or boardroom. You are a multidimensional human being. You deserve to enjoy that distinction.
Make Space Within Another solid step in a healthy direction is to build balance within your own mind and body. If you expect to establish a sense of stability in the world around you, you must also cultivate equilibrium on the inside. To someone who feels, as most parents do, perpetually pressed for time, this may seem counterintuitive because self-care does require more of that precious commodity. Attending to the needs of others, however, is far more easily done once you’ve attended to your own. If you haven’t eaten in hours or you’ve been trapped inside working or doing chores all day, the chances of your being able to provide creative input on your child’s science project or to get everyone bathed and in bed at a reasonable hour without blowing your lid will be seriously reduced.
Words by Cathleen Elle
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