I feel very fortunate to be living in a time when women can choose what they want to have in their lives: career mum or stay at home mum, kids or no kids, partner or no partner, more than ever before we can build the life we want. But somewhere along the way I think we got a bit confused about what having it all actually means. We seem to think that to have it all we have to do it all ourselves which is an impossible standard to meet.
Although it would be fab to have super powers, especially if it meant your washing folded and put itself away when you clicked your fingers, unfortunately there’s no such thing as a superhero. Yet somehow as Mums we seem to think that having it all means we have to behave like a superhero. Able to fold washing, cook dinner, clean the house, present at a board meeting, put a bandaid on that grazed knee and look sexy for our partners without breaking a sweat (ok maybe a little bit of sweat in the bedroom is a good thing).
Having it all actually means:
Defining what you want in your life, not measuring yourself against others
It’s critical we make sure the life we are striving for is the one we want, not what someone else wants.
When Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean in’ was first published, I didn’t rush to read the book, the newspaper headlines put me off. I read the headlines suggesting mothers should strive for leadership roles in business and, with two young kids keeping me awake half the night, I thought “that’s easy for her to say”. I was angered by the pressure I felt from those headlines, as though I wasn’t doing enough already. I had a corporate job, and prior to having kids had been quite ambitious about rising through the ranks, but having kids had changed my perspective and so those headlines challenged me and I felt inadequate.
Now I don’t give a monkeys and have realized I have to live to my own desires and standards, not someone-else’s, including my mother’s. Did it really take me 40 years to work that out? Yep.
Creating a modern village
It used to take a village to raise a family. That’s not the modern way of living but you can create your own version of village. With two jobs, a husband, two kids, and a dog on the go my village looks like this:
· A husband who is very involved in the kids lives and in the running of our household. It’s a 50/50 split of work in our house
· Family I can call on help out or babysit
· An afterschool nanny 2 days a week and in the holidays
· Neighbours I can call on when needed and vice versa
· A cleaner
You may think I’m lucky and I agree with you, but I learnt the hard way how necessary it is to have this support. I resisted creating a village for a long time, trying to do it all myself with little help. The end result was burnout, which leads me to…
Having it all does not mean looking after everyone but yourself
If you keep trying to do everything by yourself a few things will happen:
1) You’ll stop investing in yourself. Exercise, your own diet and time for you will get squeezed meaning…
2) Your body will begin to burn out, meaning
3) You’ll get grumpy and resentful towards your husband and kids and
4) It’s all downhill in a handcart from there.
If you want to have it all you have to start by looking after yourself. That means all the basics like diet & exercise but also including things that make you feel good, things that make you smile. Take a bath, read a book, dance in the living room, do a handstand, light a candle, walk barefoot on the grass, watch a funny video on You Tube, paint your fingernails, whatever works for you. It doesn’t have to take much time but by doing something nice for yourself you’ll be a whole lot nicer to live with, just ask my family. Which means you have to get comfortable with the word No…
Having it all does not mean saying yes to everything just because you are capable
There are only so many hours in each day. If you want to have it all, you have to start saying yes to the things you love and no to the things you don’t. Yes we have to pull our weight in the community but it is ok to say no to something if it doesn’t work for you. I recently had to tell a group of Mums that I couldn’t participate in a mother help roster. Did I feel stink? Yes. Did I worry they’d judge me and be pissed off? Absolutely. Would I do it if I could? Yes, but even with my village I can’t say yes to everything. In this case participating in mother help would require me to be in two places at one time and not even a super mum could do that.