Inner Spaces for Busy Moms
By Claire Matze
Average User Rating:
| Somewhere in today's turbulent world, where overwhelming forces combine to push us to the very brink of our limitations, exists a fertile land where inner spaces are allowed to grow, welling from the deepest recesses of the human heart: the land of peace, creativity, and inner space. | ||
| So many moms lose touch with their "inner space" once that first bundle of joy comes home, radically changing the focus of life itself. And yet there are ways to stay "connected" while devotedly caring for a family. | ||
| Unless we're training to become child care experts, nurses, or child psychologists where we are professionally taught how to handle one of the myriad facets of child rearing, the extent of most people's preparation for parenting is based on a combination of memory, instinct, social, and cultural influences. Those who are lucky receive the benefit of experience from their extended family, though that path can also be fraught with error. We draw on the do and don't influences from our earliest childhood memories and personal readings, and add love and hope to each of our parenting experiences. Beyond that, there is no such thing as a parenting school that trains parents to shape and mold the human lives they are responsible for bringing into this world. | ||
| Consider that doctors receive a minimum of eight years instruction before they are legally allowed to treat a common cold; teachers average five years of training; financial planners study accounting practices for years before being entrusted with a family's financial portfolio; and diplomats graduate after years of toil from demanding schools such as Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. | ||
| Contrast those realities with the fact that, over the course of nine short gestation months, people are expected to bring similar skills to their parenting roles.
Parents are nurses responsible for their child's nutrition and physical well-being. They are teachers educating their kids in the ways of life. They are economists planning for the financial management of their household, and they are the diplomats and officials required to sort through sibling and parent/child conflicts. | ||
| Throw in today's social economic structures that result in families where both parents frequently work full-time and face the demands of the business or professional realm, and you have all the ingredients for the most potentially stressful job in the world! | ||
| So how do busy moms cope with wearing so many hats at once? Is it possible to find any inner space at all? When there is an endless series of needs pulling in so many different directions, how can a mother ensure that her own needs are met, at least enough to maintain her sense of happiness and self-worth? | ||
| The key word is balance. Think of mothering as a deep well. The well has plenty of water, but it is not bottomless. If water is constantly being drawn and no chance is provided for renewal, sooner or later the well will run dry. | ||
Perceptions The first step is for a mother to change her perceptions regarding her own needs and learn to find a worthy place for them in her long list of priorities. Taking "time out" to catch up on much needed sleep, read, go for a walk, join an exercise class, or pursue some private interest is not something to feel guilty about. In fact, it becomes totally justifiable if contemplated from the context that the time a mother spends nurturing herself is a personal renewal, which enables her to go back to caring for her family with new gusto. | ||
| If you find you can renew your energies with your kids in tow, go for it! Megan Harris, a single-parent massage therapist from Paradise, California, who cares for her kids on alternate weeks, feels she never gets enough quality time with her kids. | ||
| "Every weekend we try to do something different. Sometimes we go to garage sales, take a picnic to the river or the park, call up a friend and go to the movies, or go to the local fair or farmer's market," she says. | ||
| Self-nurturing is not the same as self-indulgence, though self-indulgence can be part of the nurturing process, which can also be seen as a form of healthy self-preservation. | ||
Actively Seek Help Learn to say "yes" to offers of help, even if you've spent your life trying to get by on your own. If grandma offers to watch the kids for a while, or a lonely senior citizen in your neighborhood would love to spend time with your little one, this is your chance to catch up on chores or enjoy a breather. | ||
| The guilty feelings some moms associate with taking time out can be even harder for working mothers who already spend many hours away home. Those moms may consider hiring occasional help around the house to "buy" quality time with the family. Even if it's expensive, look on help as an investment in yourself and your family. You may be able to cut corners in other areas to make that financially possible. | ||
| If hiring even occasional household help is not a possibility, consider giving a job to a neighborhood kid as a "mother's helper" to entertain your kids while you accomplish a goal or project. Sometimes even a little thing can help break the cycle of job to chores to job again. | ||
| Help for you can also mean joining a support group, or calling a family member or friend to vent your feelings with. Moms can find incredible comfort in knowing there are other parents struggling with similar issues. Pamela Campell, a missionary's wife living overseas and home-schooling her kids, often jests: "When I'm feeling alone I reach for the phone!" | ||
| If you have spent your life working so hard you haven't taken the time to develop close friendships, it is not too late to open up to the world around you and surround yourself with people you can help out and whom you can call upon in an emergency. Parenting is such a big job--you need all the help you can get! | ||
Accept Your Own Limitations A lot of the stress we take on in our daily lives is self-imposed. By determining excessively high standards for ourselves, or for the people around us, we are setting ourselves up for frustration when we invariably fall short of our goals. Be realistic in your expectations! | ||
| Don't expect yourself to wash the car, mow the lawn, take care of the kids, stock up on a week's worth of groceries, cook three meals a day and pay the bills all in one day. You'll end up a nervous wreck. Though all of these are jobs that have to be done, try spreading them out over a manageable time frame and accept that you're doing the very best that you can within a given set of circumstances. Nobody has the right to expect more of you—not even you. | ||
| Delegate as many chores as possible, perhaps by involving family members and setting up a reward system linked to accomplishments. What's obvious to us may not be so obvious to our children. Take the time to spell out that help for mom around the house means you'll be more available to play and have fun! | ||
Attitude Think positive. Fiona Lhotka, a Canadian lawyer who quit her practice when her kids were born, says she doesn't mind long to-do lists, as long as the lists aren't always the same. If she's managed to cross one or two items off her list every day, then she can focus on the things she's done instead of what still needs attention. She says she gets discouraged when today's list is tomorrow's list is the day after's—and nothing gets crossed out. | ||
Take Baby Steps Instead of waiting for a long, three-hour chunk of time to write that letter you've been wanting to write, pick up a "meaty" book, or tackle a specific project, learn to use the time you have constructively, even if it comes in bite-size pieces. | ||
| Gisela Buiatti, an Argentinean mother of four kids ranging from one year old to 12, finds time to pursue her love of reading. "I always have a book at hand," she says. "One lives in my kitchen drawer and comes out when I'm stirring soups. I take it in my car when I pick up my kids from school. It's in my purse and comes out when I go to the bank, post office or grocery store and have to wait in line. There's even a book in my bathroom!" | ||
| If going to work involves a long commute, you may want to listen to music or catch up on world events on the radio while driving, as long as you don't lose your ability to concentrate on the road. If you can't relax at home, this is your chance to listen to meditation tapes or learn a foreign language. Invest in books on tape or enjoy the luxury of listening to the silence—something many mothers of young children crave! | ||
| If you're a writer or teacher, again think constructively. Listen to tapes that can assist in class preparation while you're driving, or you can try talking into a portable tape recorder to help you think through and record that particular twist of plot or character development you've been working on. | ||
| Ann Doro, author of the children's chapter book Charlie, the Lost Dog, wrote and sold the tele-play "Most Precious Gold" by disciplining herself to working one hour a day while her young children were at school. That single hour was all she had, and she made the most of it. | ||
Parenting Brings Joy Yes, parenting brings joy, closeness, bonding and wonderful family ties. Most parents cannot envision a meaning to life without their kids and wouldn't go back to "pre-kids life" for anything in the world. But the struggle many moms encounter in trying to meet the needs of others often results in their own needs not being met, hence a feeling of neglect, frustration, even intense unhappiness. Taken to an extreme, it is possible to lose sight of the joys of parenting. | ||
| Though all moms occasionally experience a bad day, it is possible to find peace and balance by nurturing the inner spaces that allow us to thrive as individuals and human beings, first and foremost, and consequently, as parents.
Related Content: | ||
|
