Guest Blog Post By: Ms. Rasberry
As a single mother of two, I often find myself trying to balance children, work and social life. It’s not easy to say the least. Recently I’ve decided that life is far too short for me to continue to be unhappy and unfulfilled by my work. I spend anywhere from six to eight hours a day, five days a week, doing work that is at best tolerable and at worst aggravating. If the economy – not to mention my bank account – wasn’t in such bad shape, I’d quit tomorrow.
In lieu of being able to up and quit, I’ve decided to start doing what it takes to be able to move on to a career that will allow me to earn a living doing the things that I am passionate about – writing, design and social media. My career transition plan includes taking classes, attending various networking/social events and taking on small projects to build my resume and portfolio of work. Here’s where the balancing act goes off kilter: the more time I spend on these things, the less time I have to spend with my children. They have friends and social lives of their own; but a lot of the time when they are home, I’m busy writing, studying, developing my online presence, etc. That’s if I’m home. If it’s an evening that I have an event to attend, I may not get home until around 10 pm, in which case they may be asleep.
My daughters are 12 and 14 years old so we have real conversations. I’ve explained to them that I am doing these things to try to make a better life for us. They seem to understand, but still sometimes I find myself wondering if the sacrifice of not spending more time with them will really be worth it in the long run. I tell myself that it will be. What else can I do? When we’re together I make sure to spend time talking about their days and lives and we do things together whenever possible. The last thing that I want is for one of them to end up in some kind of trouble because I wasn’t around enough. Of course it will probably only be this way for a year or two, but anything can happen with teenagers.
It’s a delicate balancing act to be sure; walking the single, working mother tightrope.
Read more of Ms. Rasberry’s written work on her blog HERE!
While it is important to set goals for better yourself it may not be the best idea to do it at the total expense of other things. Trying to explain to your children that it will be better for them in the long run seems like you are trying only to convince you, not them.
I have found that for things that are most important (i.e. your children) you have to take time off the top. Your kids probably don’t need your constant presence but the time that they need must be quality. Schedule ‘on purpose’ quality time exclusively for them each week. Sometimes time spent with both of them, sometimes schedule time with each of them individual. You don’t want them to look back on Mommy’s accomplishments and resent them because it took you away from them.
Even though it may be exhausting… a majority of that extra curricular stuff must be done “before 7a and after 9p” meaning when your time is your own.
Good luck with everything, I can imagine how hard that balancing act must be.
David:
Thanks so much for your comment. While I agree with much of what you said – and stated that I do many of those things – I find it’s often easy to judge and offer advice looking from the outside in. I’m curious to know if you are a single parent as well. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment.