Reading this from Susan of A Juggling Mom has inspired some thoughts for this post.

It’s been only a week since I started taking care of K and his needs 24/7, while having to manage house-moving, keeping up with deadlines for work, managing 2 blogs, ‘silently’ moderating SMB group on FB and trying to keep awake.

How do moms do it? To be honest, I have trouble keeping up with taking care of hb and I would collapse if I had to handle all the housework at home.

It is so common to read about successful working woman from parenting magazines and how they have managed to keep it all together, with their career, success and their family. Is that really possible? Can they really do it by themselves, or handle them all at once?

I think keeping up this balance causes the stress, anxiety, and guilt we carry as mothers.

In short, the working mom balance does not exist. It is all a myth.

It is like juggling a lot of balls at once, the mom ball, the housework ball, the educator ball, the entertainer ball, the ball that keeps everyone happy and contented at home, the wife ball, the work ball. It is not possible to juggle them all the time without some of them dropping at times. Some balls will bounce right back when you drop them, while other which are fragile, might break and you can’t put them back together.

Photo from Helico

Came across this great quote recently; ‘Wise mothers who know, are selective about their own activities and involvement to conserve their limited strength, in order to maximize their influence to where it matters most.’ – Julie Beck

Since becoming a mom, I struggle to accomplish everything I think should get done. But being a parent has taught me the ability to let go of perfection and focus on what is most important :

• No matter what, my family comes first

I have recently turned down an opportunity to consider a full time marketing role in a corporation, despite the potential of a security of bringing home a good salary monthly. A 9 – 6pm job is not possible for a role like that, thus it will mean that it will be alot harder for me to set aside time for K and hb, and to continue what I am doing now.

Working from home now means that household income is greatly reduced, we may not have our own home for some time, but it means that I will have less stress and guilt when trying to juggling my roles as a mom and wife. So something needs to give.

• Work towards never doing what my child can do for himself.

Just this month, I decided that K should be taken out of his 3 hours kindergarten and be enrolled in full day Montessori childcare from July. Initially, I felt a lot of guilt to have come to this decision, after all, I am a work at home mom and I should be able to take care of him in the afternoons. But I realised that K demands too much of my time when he is at home in the day. The past 1 week have proven to me that it is not possible for me to balance work at home in the afternoons, while taking care of him at the same time.

The bane with working from home is that there tends to be no specific working hours, I can be on my laptop up to 15 hours a day, any hour during the day.

So starting from July 2nd, from 6 pm in the weekday evenings, I will be making sure that I spend that few hours daily in the evening playing, learning or just doing things together with K.

I am also a lot more proactive these days training K to be more independent, from brushing his teeth, taking his shower and cleaning up after himself. And I am certain being in childcare will help him to further develop his independence in self-help skills.

• Do something nice for yourself each day.

Like how they say on the plane, in times of emergency, administer the oxygen to yourself first, then take care of the kids / other things.

For me it comes in preparing breakfast for myself every morning and spending that needed time reading and meditating on God’s word.

Supermoms do exist, but it sure does not apply to me. Motherhood is one of the toughest job that I will ever have, but it is also the most rewarding. I think the best mom I can be, is to be a real mom who deals with plenty of life imperfections and handle the curve balls that are often thrown towards me.

So are a supermom or a real mom like me?

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