As a working mom, life comes with certain challenges. You have to balance putting your best foot forward in your career. You need to leave the office on time in order to pick the kids up from school or after-school care in order to get one kid to a basketball game and another kid to volleyball practice. No matter how hard you try to wrap up your day on time, that 30 minute meeting still takes an hour and now you’re grabbing your bag and running out the building like a crazy lady! You do slightly over the speed limit and make a few risky lane changes. You get everyone to their destinations safe and sound. You take this time to check your email, place an Instacart order and browse social media for a bit. Once you make it home, it’s a chaotic song and dance of preparing dinner, helping with homework (hubby has to step in and help with 8th grade Math because I know my limitations), bath and bedtime. As soon as your head hits the pillow and you start to drift off, your alarm starts blaring in your ear. It’s time to do it all over again. Does this sound familiar?
Now, if things weren’t already crazy enough, let’s throw a global pandemic in the mix! Effective immediately, I started working from home and my kids started attending school virtually. My husband is an essential worker so he still had to go in to work. That just left me at home with a Kindergartner and a 6th grader struggling to make it work. Trying to be productive at work and attend virtual meetings while making sure my kids are logged into their Google Classroom and completing their assignments proved to be a challenge. We were stuck in the house trying to figure out our new normal.
I will admit, there were many days that I did not succeed at balancing it all. There were tears shed by all parties involved on some days. Frustrations and emotions ran high. There was no longer a separation of work and home or school and home. The kids couldn’t hang out with their friends and I couldn’t find a quiet moment for myself. I realized that something had to give. Thankfully I work for a great company that offers flexible scheduling. I created a plan that helped us get through the days. I worked for the first half of the day, then took a few hours off to sit down with the kids to help with homework and make sure they were on task. Once I felt like they accomplished what they needed for the day, they were free to relax while I finished up my work day. I had to learn that life changed overnight and things would never be the same. We started off trying to operate things as if they were still in school all day and that was just unrealistic when they are stuck in their bedrooms. We decided to pivot and that helped a lot. We were able to get into the groove of virtual learning and working from home.
Those first 6 months of the pandemic were a learning experience. I had to retrain my brain and my expectations. I had to adjust my expectations for my family and myself. I learned to extend grace. I think I became a better mom for it.
