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The Time Crunch: Mending Our Lives
by Patty Wipfler
It's probably safe to say that nearly every parent in the United
States experiences poverty of time. We need time to connect well with
each child, time to tend relationships with our partners and our wider
families, time to keep our households, time to sleep and eat, time to
learn new things, and time to relax. And time has been taken from parents
in drastic proportions over the last 30 years.
The work of parenting is vital, and it takes time. Connecting
in a generous, loving way with our children is at the heart of parenting.
So is thinking about our interactions with our children. And playing
with them, which we often consider the frosting on the cake of daily care,
is what they would love to do with us for hours each day. If our children
had their way, we would play with them and their friends 40 hours a week,
and we would work an hour or two a day at most!
We parents also have needs. We need warm human contact with
other grown-ups. We need praise and reassurance for the job we
do as parents. We need a way to release the feelings we store up,
day after day, while we do the best job we can with our children. And
we need a chance to relax, free from worry and guilt.
But we are hard-pressed to meet our own needs and our children's.
30 years ago, one employed parent could usually support a family of 4.
Today, it takes two parents working to support the average family of 4.
The work week for each of those parents averages 6-1/2 hours longer than
the work week of 30 years ago. This amounts to six weeks of extra work
days each year! It's no wonder we're under pressure! Given that we are
backed so firmly into the overwork corner, how are we to organize our
lives so we can, at least sometimes, be satisfied with ourselves as mothers
and fathers? How can we get the time and peace of mind we need?
There's no magic formula, but there may be a few practices that can
help us to satisfy our needs to connect well, to relax and play, and to
think about our children. Here are some ideas that parents have told us
are helpful.
- Organize help. We have been trained to think of parenting as
a one- or two-adult project. So when we get worn, we blame ourselves
for our lack of energy rather than seeing that we are expecting ourselves
to do a superhuman task. The truth is, when you are tired, day after
day, you deserve help. When you find yourself short-tempered, you deserve
help. When you've run out of energy to talk with your partner or get
together with your friends, you deserve and need help. Parenting is
like building a bridge or keeping an intensive care patient alive through
a crisis: it is not work that's meant to be done in isolation. We need
to identify the toughest times of our week, and experiment with setting
up assistance at these times.
Extended family members, neighbors, church or temple members, and teenagers
in the neighborhood looking for work can be asked to do child care or
errands or cooking. Parents in a neighborhood can cook for each other's
families, forming dinner co-ops. Parents can organize child care co-ops,
in which time is exchanged, rather than money. Some city recreation
programs and libraries have services for parents of young children.
Even "weekends free" exchanges between families, in which once every
two months or so, one set of parents gets Saturday through Sunday noon
away from their children, and the other set does child care, can be
arranged.
- Build a Listening Partnership with another parent. Make the
commitment to tell someone what it's like for you, what your victories
are and what is driving you up the wall, and then listen back so that
parent gets listening time, too. It's surprising what a difference this
exchange of listening time makes, even if it's just 5 or 10 minutes
of listening each way over the phone. The time you invest in connecting
with another parent won't make you less busy, but it will help you see
the choices you have, solve problems more quickly, and feel less alone
with the challenges you face.
- Lift some expectations. Do you really have to have
a clean house? Must you really fold the clothes? Is a hot meal
at dinner time really essential every night? If you are a harried
parent, these questions can be irritating. It feels like, "Of course!
What would people think! And me--how can I stand things being more undone
than they are?!"
When we're overloaded, we often keep working as though the sky will
fall if we don't get it all done. We feel resentful, but don't move
to change things to benefit ourselves or our children. Instead, we drop
time with our children but continue with the cleaning and the housework
and the expected visits to the relatives. However, that tactic can prove
to be expensive. Given too little contact with us, our children sprout
aches and pains and complaints and explosions that take up a lot of
our time.
So serving raw carrot sticks and peanut butter on toast for dinner (three
food groups!), stuffing the unfolded clothes into drawers or letting
them sit in a pile in the corner (they're clean!), and vacuuming once
a month (it just gets dirty again, anyway!) are viable tactics with
which to fight against the overload that so much work creates. Remember,
as a parent, you get to construct your own way of doing things.
Anything goes. You get to set your own priorities. There's no expectation
that you can't question, no "right way" to run your household.
Above all, don't blame yourself for your overwork. It's not your fault!
Remember that we live in a society that cares more about your ability
to produce than it does about your time for parenting, so the pressure
you feel is the sign of backwards priorities at large, not a sign of personal
failings. To take the ease every parent needs, you'll need to be active
in working on your own behalf at home and at work. Think, listen, talk,
and see what you, and fellow parents, can do to make time and make change.
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