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Lastly a woman must maintain her relationship with her children, and this must be done on a daily basis. Waiting until Saturday morning to have a five minute conversation is not
recipe for happiness. Work and activities must be balanced with down time, and always parents have to remember that children don’t want stuff—they want you. They want your time, and I don’t mean just quality time. Quantity time is every bit as important. The likelihood that your daughter will come to you with a question about guy she’s dating is slim enough without added pressure of getting question in only between 9:30 and 9:45. It just doesn’t work that way.
Then, of course, there are those who think that just because they have little children, that means they can be absent most of time, and kids won’t notice. It is often these same parents who when their child is 15 can’t figure out why child won’t come talk to them. Maybe it’s because child has learned over past 15 years that even their smallest problems are not listened to, so why should it be obvious now that mom and dad care about big things? The behavior of talking and discussing life with your child is a learned behavior—don’t expect to neglect it for 13 years and then have it suddenly kick in. It won’t.
So, now we have these three relationships—each competing and vying for your time. The key is balance. There must be time set aside each day, or at most, each week for time to nurture and foster each of these relationships. A mother can be all to everyone, and then get burned out because she has no time for herself. Or she can focus on herself and her career, and one day turn around and find her family has fallen apart.
Neither of these approaches work long-term. The answer is balance. Take a few minutes and think about life you are living right now. A good exercise I have seen is to place important aspects of your life on a wheel, and then give a point total to each—one to ten, one being total neglect, ten being optimal performance. Once you have done this, take a look at your wheel. What area needs more “air”, more time, more energy, more of you?
If all of areas are somewhat deflated, then start with most deflated one. Make a plan to spend time on that area. As it begins to improve, start on next area. Check in with your wheel at least once a week and see how you are airing up your tire—or how you are living your life.
Is it worth all this effort? If you want to have control over life instead of life having control over you, it’s critical. Take some time for your life—find some balance. It will be best investment of time you’ve ever made.
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