Giving Up on Work-Life Balance and Blending

Lean in, lean out, work-life balance, work-life blending--all words I want to burn in a blazing bonfire surrounded by every parent that has struggled internally with pursuing their own career dreams while fulfilling the precious role of a parent.

It's funny. You spend your entire life planning for what you want to be when you grow up. We have all answered the question and depending on our age our answers have ranged from superhero to firefighter to doctor or social worker. Then at some stage in life, around age 30, we are expected to define that even more and we add titles like director, CFO, manager, or principal. But here is the funny part. Nowhere are we ever expected to address what kind of parent we want to be. What kind of home life do we want to lead.

We make these plans. These five year goals and then after we find the love of our lives, get married, add a dog, and then decide we want to grow our family all of a sudden we have to make the children fit into the plan. It's no wonder why this work-life balance thing is a challenge. It's almost designed that our children and family are an after thought or a "how can I make this work in my plans".

If I sound bitter, I may just be bitter. I want my career. I really do. Just not at the expense of my family and children and if I'm honest this balance or blending thing gets harder to juggle everyday. I find myself selfishly keeping my children up late so I can make up the time with them I spent leaving work late and in traffic. If I didn't do this, it would literally be dinner then bed. I would have NO time with them. Then after we put the kids to bed, I have the 15-20 minutes (depending on how long it takes for me to pass out) to actually talk to my husband.

I've asked other women and I've gone to all the female leadership conferences on "having it all" and "work-life blending" my stomach can take. What have I learned? That this balance/blending thing is a myth told to little girls to give them hope. The truth is there are 24 hours in a day. Sorry, only 24. For every second you give to one thing, that's a second you no longer have for something else.

I'm told that some days you will give more to your career and others your family. Honestly, I would like to see those days because they don't exist Monday through Friday. If I hated my job I guess this would all be easy. But, I don't. I actually like what I do and the people I do it with. That doesn't sound right I know, but I'm up late typing this because I blended my work and life poorly today.

One thing has become clear to me and that is sacrifices and compromises have to be made. Again, only 24 hours. So, the question I'm asking myself is do I want to be that mom at the soccer game on my Galaxy Note, tablet, or whatever typing away at emails. Do I want to have to run home from work, catch the recital, only to jump back on my laptop at night to make up for the time I spent supporting my child?

Oh and before you begin to comment and tell me all the marvelous things I can do from home, the consultant work I can undertake, or the business ventures I can start, I am not entrepreneurial. Never got that spirit. I HATE cold calling or attempting to sell people anything in any fashion even if i believe in it I like I do Jesus.

I honestly believe I shouldn't have to make those type of adjustments or leave and go to a company like Google, this magical place where people go to work but it feels like play. I mean Google can't hire everybody. Instead we have to move to some work models that resemble the days of pharaoh a little less and the days of....well, I'm not sure...Google more.

If you read this rant, please accept my sincerest apologies. It morphed from a blog post to a vent fest.

Parenting: Hoping You Get It Right

As an adult looking back on my own childhood and rearing it becomes easy to question all the events in my life and ask "what if". What if my mom and dad had stayed together and I grew up with both of them in the home? What if my mom didn't work so much? What if my dad had less children?


Then you automatically take all your perceived negatives from your life and use them to create the list of things you will never do as a parent and things you will fight heaven and hell to make sure doesn't translate into the lives of your children.

I am the product of teen parents. When I say teen, I mean teen. My parents were 15 when I was born. I'm a first generation college graduate and one of few in my family to have no children before age 20 and even fewer to have no children out of wedlock. Wedlock...do we even still use this word? To that end there are many pitfalls and environmental situations I am trying to avoid in my own life and definitely those of my children.

But it's a parenting nightmare to try to come up with a solution or anecdote so that your child doesn't fall victim to teen pregnancy, high school dropout, addiction or the myriad of other things we fear as parents.

Like anything in life you should never make decisions based on fear. I fast learned that the better route to take is to envision the life you want or the desired outcome then put the resources and people around you to make it happen. If only parenting were so easy such that we could follow a formula:

loving home + extracurricular activities + (x)income + christian values= well rounded, adjusted, model citizens 

We know this not to be the case because too often you have siblings with the same parents raised in the same environment but the sum of the formula is not the same. This is hard for us because we were taught if a=b and b=c then a=c. But in the parenting world somehow a=d and we don't even know where "d" came from.  

Does this mean as parents we throw everything to the wind and say "they're going to turn out how they're going to turn out". Of course not. That's why parenting is the most frustrating job EVER. Because there is no such thing as doing everything right. Right for whom? (Did I use that correctly. I've never understood who vs whom) What may be right for one parent and one situation is not necessarily right for another parent and situation.

So I can't leave this post hopeless because I don't feel hopeless. I'm full of hope actually. I look at my son and marvel at his stubborn spirit (he got that from me), his bold ideas, and his cautious nature (he got that from his father). With all those combined in one person I know we have a journey ahead with him. I know he will be stubborn and do things I told him not to and warned him would end badly. I know he will try outrageous things that will make me scream "What were you thinking son?!!" But I'm ready to be there for him and with him through it all. Because "getting it right" to me is being there. It's one of the few things we can control as parents.