“I think it’s helpful to see things as job, like staying home with my kids is oftentimes like a job, because if I saw it purely as something I loved to do for the joy of it there would be so many days that would feel like failure.” This really struck me, especially as I’m still mulling over the whole housework vs/ plus creative work for women. I feel like on the one hand, if housekeeping is my “job”, I’m pretty much a failure. But it’s definitely not a passion project 😂- it’s laborious. But if I treat it like, I don’t know, maybe paid consultancy, I tend to have a better outlook. I only need to swoop in and do it every so often (read: every few hours), and then it’s done and I can focus on other (generally more enjoyable) things. It’s the mental load of it that I need to make lighter.
Thanks for your link and thoughts on my piece. I totally agree that alone time, and alone with God time, is so important. Sometimes I wonder if therapy is the only place that people experience someone else really listening, in this crazy modern world, and therefore the only place they actually stop and think? (Not universally, of course.)
It also helps me to not do laundry on weekends! "Sorry, it's the weekend. Laundry is part of the jobby job part of being a mom, I'm not doing it on the weekend and I'm making my weekend feel as much like a weekend as possible!" It is also part of the harsh lesson I learned in motherhood that having discipline, schedules, and routines actually equals much more freedom! It was a hard lesson to learn, but I learned it through real life decisions let me tell you.
Yes, I think you're very right in that therapy may be the only place where people truly listen. Which with the state of marriages today, friendships today, general isolation today would definitely track with therapys popularity. This is partly my personality, partly my "season in life", but therapy is sometimes the only time that I get to actually deal with my emotions. I don't want to deal with emotions, I put dealing with my emotions off, but if I schedule a time and actually discuss and talk about them I am more likely to do something about those emotions. But it truly is so very hard to get alone time, prayer time, time to just think about your own emotions, that it hardly ever happens unless I'm proactively scheduling a therapy appointment sometimes.
My most depressing day of the year (not really, but up there haha!) is when everyone goes back to school and I see the posts from jubilant mothers who have free time again, at which point I have to fight the speedy slide down the hole of self pity when I remember that I have to provide the structure, motivation, resources and energy for the homeschool that I run (usually by September I’ve forgotten and am thrilled to not be packing lunches). This year we limped to the finish line and will probably need to do some math over the summer because well, moving. But I absolutely agree that I have to treat homeschooling and parenting like my job. When I expect it to be easy I’m very disappointed and frustrated. When I take ownership and don’t pretend I can do it while multitasking, everything runs more smoothly
Oh my gosh, back to school on social media is a huge time of resentment for me every year. Every other woman in the world excited to get eight hours a day to herself and here I am signing up to go back to another full time job and never get a break from my children! Yeah. So rough. Also so rough to see so many moms spin out over having their kids home during the summer. I could go on and on about how that is essentially unhealthy but. I won't. Breaks from school are necessary for teachers and students! And we all know that kids really are learning sponges at all times, so we really shouldn't freak out over exact amount of days off, but it is a hard reflex to ignore as a homeschooling mom.
I’m learning that I just expect to feel weirdly defeated at the start and end of the traditional school year and try to not think about either of those things too much 🙃.
I'm in agreement with you about homeschooling. Whether or not it's thought of as a job, per se, I think the main thrust here is that it has to be taken seriously. It requires diligence. Even unschooling does. It's a thing, people! A good thing, but a thing that takes effort and energy! And planning.
I heard somewhere recently about a homeschooling mom who buys herself teacher gifts at the end of semesters. Why not? I mean, it doesn't have to be gifts. But this is real work!
Haha, I have used the "teacher gift" excuse to buy some extra things around Christmas for myself that's for sure! When I started homeschooling I thought it would be easier to not think of it as a job but just a natural part of my day, which maybe works if you have one or two kids homeschooling and no toddlers. But I had two kids doing school, two toddlers who would nap simultaneously for an hour, and five kids the rest of the day so I really learned quickly that to make consistent progress at school meant I needed to be disciplined enough to work during nap times every darn day. It's work!
Right! And even with it being "part of the day" -- that is, when it is integrated, which I love -- it still takes attention, diligence, and, well, work. I think we think of things as either "just like school" or "no trouble at all." Nope. If it's part of mothering, it's going to bring some joy and some plain hard work (and even heartache!).
Yep. It's the integration that I think trips so many of us up. I said in an earlier comment here that learning through motherhood that routine, consistency, and discipline in my day and with my kids actually led to more freedom and success for me as a person. Someone we think routine and structure make us rigid and working a job or somehow crazy people, but it's when you don't have those things and life with kids spirals out of control and you have no freedom!
Yes. This is something that I’m also thinking about as we look ahead to what school might look like for our kids. We haven’t decided anything, but from the available options it seems homeschooling might be it (at least for a while). There’s a lot of mental fortitude and structural diligence that, from what I’ve gathered, goes a long way… or, is needed to not sink into despair and comparison of the moms with a different setup.
You definitely can't do it for fun or reactively for long! And some people don't want to homeschool for long which is fine too! But if you are in it for the foreseeable long haul like I am the mental game is a long one!
Oh man, this line "that there are unsaid societal standards that are common and that shape how we view certain choices compared to others" totally jumped out at me. Thank you! As someone who homeschools/is with her young kids all the time (aside from when I'm able to hide in the bedroom after dinner or during naptime), it's just not helpful for me to read all that stuff that hits social media towards the end of the "school year." (so I tried to stay away-ish from social media this past May, and when friends would talk about all the school stresses, I took that as a good reminder of why we homeschool haha!) Anyways, I hope you have a lovely springtime and enjoy all the gardening!
Haha, I always see those end of school year posts with moms freaking out about their kids being home all the time and just think, "Or just another day like the entire rest of my year!" Or I think of Pinky and the Brain, summer really is just like the school year in what are we going to do today? The same thing we do everyday Pinky!
Yep, that stood out to me as well. I am home with our 3 (young, not yet school age) kids and all the dialogue about summer always leaves me flummoxed. All the people who are used to not having their kids are all stressed out and it’s just another universe.
It's really wild and I know we all need and appreciate breaks from our kids etc etc etc, but it probably has at least some unhealthy element if you're expressing dread and fear over your own children being in their own home everyday for most of the day? Again, another thing you can't say out loud on social media.
“I think it’s helpful to see things as job, like staying home with my kids is oftentimes like a job, because if I saw it purely as something I loved to do for the joy of it there would be so many days that would feel like failure.” This really struck me, especially as I’m still mulling over the whole housework vs/ plus creative work for women. I feel like on the one hand, if housekeeping is my “job”, I’m pretty much a failure. But it’s definitely not a passion project 😂- it’s laborious. But if I treat it like, I don’t know, maybe paid consultancy, I tend to have a better outlook. I only need to swoop in and do it every so often (read: every few hours), and then it’s done and I can focus on other (generally more enjoyable) things. It’s the mental load of it that I need to make lighter.
Thanks for your link and thoughts on my piece. I totally agree that alone time, and alone with God time, is so important. Sometimes I wonder if therapy is the only place that people experience someone else really listening, in this crazy modern world, and therefore the only place they actually stop and think? (Not universally, of course.)
It also helps me to not do laundry on weekends! "Sorry, it's the weekend. Laundry is part of the jobby job part of being a mom, I'm not doing it on the weekend and I'm making my weekend feel as much like a weekend as possible!" It is also part of the harsh lesson I learned in motherhood that having discipline, schedules, and routines actually equals much more freedom! It was a hard lesson to learn, but I learned it through real life decisions let me tell you.
Yes, I think you're very right in that therapy may be the only place where people truly listen. Which with the state of marriages today, friendships today, general isolation today would definitely track with therapys popularity. This is partly my personality, partly my "season in life", but therapy is sometimes the only time that I get to actually deal with my emotions. I don't want to deal with emotions, I put dealing with my emotions off, but if I schedule a time and actually discuss and talk about them I am more likely to do something about those emotions. But it truly is so very hard to get alone time, prayer time, time to just think about your own emotions, that it hardly ever happens unless I'm proactively scheduling a therapy appointment sometimes.
My most depressing day of the year (not really, but up there haha!) is when everyone goes back to school and I see the posts from jubilant mothers who have free time again, at which point I have to fight the speedy slide down the hole of self pity when I remember that I have to provide the structure, motivation, resources and energy for the homeschool that I run (usually by September I’ve forgotten and am thrilled to not be packing lunches). This year we limped to the finish line and will probably need to do some math over the summer because well, moving. But I absolutely agree that I have to treat homeschooling and parenting like my job. When I expect it to be easy I’m very disappointed and frustrated. When I take ownership and don’t pretend I can do it while multitasking, everything runs more smoothly
Oh my gosh, back to school on social media is a huge time of resentment for me every year. Every other woman in the world excited to get eight hours a day to herself and here I am signing up to go back to another full time job and never get a break from my children! Yeah. So rough. Also so rough to see so many moms spin out over having their kids home during the summer. I could go on and on about how that is essentially unhealthy but. I won't. Breaks from school are necessary for teachers and students! And we all know that kids really are learning sponges at all times, so we really shouldn't freak out over exact amount of days off, but it is a hard reflex to ignore as a homeschooling mom.
I’m learning that I just expect to feel weirdly defeated at the start and end of the traditional school year and try to not think about either of those things too much 🙃.
I'm in agreement with you about homeschooling. Whether or not it's thought of as a job, per se, I think the main thrust here is that it has to be taken seriously. It requires diligence. Even unschooling does. It's a thing, people! A good thing, but a thing that takes effort and energy! And planning.
I heard somewhere recently about a homeschooling mom who buys herself teacher gifts at the end of semesters. Why not? I mean, it doesn't have to be gifts. But this is real work!
Haha, I have used the "teacher gift" excuse to buy some extra things around Christmas for myself that's for sure! When I started homeschooling I thought it would be easier to not think of it as a job but just a natural part of my day, which maybe works if you have one or two kids homeschooling and no toddlers. But I had two kids doing school, two toddlers who would nap simultaneously for an hour, and five kids the rest of the day so I really learned quickly that to make consistent progress at school meant I needed to be disciplined enough to work during nap times every darn day. It's work!
Right! And even with it being "part of the day" -- that is, when it is integrated, which I love -- it still takes attention, diligence, and, well, work. I think we think of things as either "just like school" or "no trouble at all." Nope. If it's part of mothering, it's going to bring some joy and some plain hard work (and even heartache!).
Yep. It's the integration that I think trips so many of us up. I said in an earlier comment here that learning through motherhood that routine, consistency, and discipline in my day and with my kids actually led to more freedom and success for me as a person. Someone we think routine and structure make us rigid and working a job or somehow crazy people, but it's when you don't have those things and life with kids spirals out of control and you have no freedom!
Yes. This is something that I’m also thinking about as we look ahead to what school might look like for our kids. We haven’t decided anything, but from the available options it seems homeschooling might be it (at least for a while). There’s a lot of mental fortitude and structural diligence that, from what I’ve gathered, goes a long way… or, is needed to not sink into despair and comparison of the moms with a different setup.
You definitely can't do it for fun or reactively for long! And some people don't want to homeschool for long which is fine too! But if you are in it for the foreseeable long haul like I am the mental game is a long one!
Oh man, this line "that there are unsaid societal standards that are common and that shape how we view certain choices compared to others" totally jumped out at me. Thank you! As someone who homeschools/is with her young kids all the time (aside from when I'm able to hide in the bedroom after dinner or during naptime), it's just not helpful for me to read all that stuff that hits social media towards the end of the "school year." (so I tried to stay away-ish from social media this past May, and when friends would talk about all the school stresses, I took that as a good reminder of why we homeschool haha!) Anyways, I hope you have a lovely springtime and enjoy all the gardening!
Haha, I always see those end of school year posts with moms freaking out about their kids being home all the time and just think, "Or just another day like the entire rest of my year!" Or I think of Pinky and the Brain, summer really is just like the school year in what are we going to do today? The same thing we do everyday Pinky!
Yep, that stood out to me as well. I am home with our 3 (young, not yet school age) kids and all the dialogue about summer always leaves me flummoxed. All the people who are used to not having their kids are all stressed out and it’s just another universe.
It's really wild and I know we all need and appreciate breaks from our kids etc etc etc, but it probably has at least some unhealthy element if you're expressing dread and fear over your own children being in their own home everyday for most of the day? Again, another thing you can't say out loud on social media.