Mom hats - balancing homeschooling with life

Have you ever sat down and counted how many mom hats you wear? My two biggest hats are my mom hat and my wife hat. Coming in close behind follows my homeschooling/teacher hat. But there are many other hats that we as moms wear. Chaffeur, cook, maid, nurse, counselor, playmate, veterinarian, landscaper, decorator, laundress. I’m sure there are more but I can’t bring them to mind. Someone once said that no one would be able to afford the salary for everything that moms do.

How in the world do you balance it all? In this post I give several tricks that I have tried, but in no way should you consider me an expert. These are the things that I do to balance all the mom hats that I wear.

The perfectionist in me wants to do it all, and do it all perfectly. For a long time I tried to do it all and I beat myself up regularly when I couldn’t do it. I still fall into that trap a lot, but I think that I am learning how to identify it quicker and hopefully stay out of it more.

Prioritize

Since I cannot do it all, I have to choose what is most important. What needs to be done now, tomorrow, and next week? I choose those household chores that absolutely need to get done, and those that I can’t stand to leave for too long. So the cat litter gets cleaned every day, the dishwasher runs, and the laundry get cleaned. But the dust bunnies usually continue to hide, and I leave the vacuuming for longer than I probably should. I make sure space remains to walk around our house, but I don’t necessarily pick up everything every day. Everything else I try to let go. I get to the cleaning when I can.

Lower your expectations

This. is. so. hard. I have learned to let go of the “Good Housekeeping” dream. My house will never be close to that magazine. But I need to let go of even more. I don’t need to worry about every single animal hair in the house. My old windows will never again be absolutely clean. Our house looks lived in. Carpet fibers blanket the floor, and every trip outside brings more of our gravel driveway into our house. But my kids are clean, fed, and healthy, and we enjoy living in our house.

Schedule your housekeeping

I keep a general schedule of when I want to do my chores. My dishwasher runs right away in the morning along with feeding the animals and cleaning the cat litter. Laundry gets done on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings in the middle of our schoolwork and fold it the next morning as part of my dressing routine. I don’t have a consistent schedule for the rest of my household chores, but I do them when I feel they need to be done. Usually I choose what I want to do that same morning, depending on what needs cleaning the most on that day. Each day I usually choose whether I am going to work on office work or work on housecleaning chores, usually based on what needs to be done first. Generally I alternate days between office work and household chores.

Get Your Kids to Help

One of the greatest chores that my kids do for me is to empty the dishwasher. It may seem small, but it helps me out so much. If you have littles, then I know that it is more difficult to find things for them to help you with, but encourage them to help out according to their age and ability. When Super Stuffy was little, I gave him a small broom and had him help me sweep the kitchen floor.

Neither one of them gets things as clean as I would, but they do help. I have also found that teaching them to do the chores that they are able to do builds habits that make things easier when they are older. Both Bear Bear and Super Stuffy know what they are expected to do and they do it without much nagging. Since I have taken the time to teach them, I have saved more time in the long run.

Take Time to Relax

This one may seem counter intuitive, but I reach a certain point where I just need to stop. I like to compare myself to a spring that is wound as tight as it can go. My brain shuts down and I just need some time to recapture my strength and motivation. When I get to that point, I find something that I can do to recharge my batteries. Then I am able to get back to work.