No, it's not just you

Exhausted. Depleted. Fatigued. 

These are the words I hear when I speak with my team, my friends, and my customers. And yes, on occasion, I make the admission myself.

We are now “living at work”

The struggle is real for working parents. The hours are long. The days even longer. This past year has felt like a decade to many of us who are caretaking while working. Though the pandemic is old news, the struggle has not lifted and life has not become any easier. If anything, our challenges have reached a fever pitch. Whether or not you worked remotely before the pandemic, we have all learned that it’s not really “working from home”; as one of my customer executives suggested, we are now “living at work.”

The pandemic started with so many quick tips for working parents: post a schedule and use timers to segment the day; put your kids’ healthy snacks into bins every morning, so they can self-service throughout the day; go on family walks; don’t forget to find at least 30 minutes a day for self-care. Uh, yeah.

In my world, the bar is so very much lower than it was a year ago (but I continue to fool the world). Walk beyond the doors of my pristine office – which is outfitted with a shelf of knickknacks to suggest that I am not only perfectly organized and love globes, but that my reading habits are both socially aware and intellectually stimulating – and you will find what appears to be a gypsy encampment:

Toys litter the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs to some disgusting treasure hiding beneath the sofa… Blankets drape over every piece of furniture to create either forts or secret hideouts…Clean laundry still sits in the basket from three days ago…and I still hold the belief that someday I will rediscover my dining room table beneath the stacks of “art,” fuse beads, pipe cleaners, school worksheets and slime. One day, indeed.

Before I go on, I must acknowledge and express gratitude that I write from a position of privilege. My family is healthy, housed, and well-fed. My children are young. And while the hands-on work is grueling, we are thus far free of the mental health challenges and social despair that is plaguing many adolescents and teens. Our work allows us to stay home most days, and we enjoy the luxury of ordering online what we cannot find locally. I know this is not the case for so many working parents.

Changing how I parent and work

Like everyone else, our family has been forced to adjust to many new challenges. We are all figuring this out day by day. I often imagine the collective world of working parents – many isolated in their homes but connected in a web by our exhaustion and love – beaming energy to each other in our darkest moments. 

Through this health crisis, I have learned a few things that have altered not only how I care for others, but also how I work:

1.    Everyone – even executives – can define your own boundaries and segment your time.

I rarely begin work before 9 a.m., so I can get the kids sorted before school begins. I also have tried to reinstate a psychological “commute” for 10 minutes at the end of my workday. I’ve found this helps me to be truly in the moment with my kids when I open those office doors.

2.    The ability to “context switch” and self-regulate is the new currency of success.

I no longer flinch at the idea of changing a diaper or giving hugs for 30 seconds between work meetings. The 10-second transition from brushing a toddler’s teeth to a customer executive meeting now gives me a quiet Superwoman sense of self-admiration. (And it should.)

It’s also really easy to carry forward negativity from the last meeting or the mistake you just made. But guess what? No one in THIS meeting knows or cares about any of that. So, unleash your inner Elsa, let it go and start fresh with every new interaction (including with your family).

3.    Finding the ever-elusive “time for you” can be as simple as five minutes of quiet.

If you have the luxury, take time off while your kids have childcare. Get away from them. Do not think about them. Find any possible way to escape from them. They will love you more when you return.  :-)

Even though there is nothing to do and nowhere to go, I take one day off at least every month. It allows me to complete tasks that only serve to stress me out when not done, like catching up on my daughter’s school communications, cleaning the house, buying and wrapping birthday presents, organizing things at home, running time-consuming errands, and making healthcare appointments for myself. 

Every year in the first week of December, I also take a day off to buy, wrap, and label Christmas gifts for my family. I get 80% of my Christmas presents “done” that day, which then allows me to get through December without the usual holiday stress. Ditto for kids' birthdays.

4.    A few minutes of prep will return hours in the long run. 

Over the weekend, we go through all of my first grader’s school materials, pull out everything she will need for the following week, and clearly label and organize all of her materials. The midday tears have subsided (for the most part) and we are all calmer and better prepared during the school week.

5.    You CAN prioritize the important over the urgent, but it takes work.

6.    No one wants another excuse to sit in front of a screen and drink together.

Try replacing Webex meetings at your desk with a walking Webex. It will provide much-needed oxygen and allow you to really hear each other with no distractions.

7.    Brownies still fix many problems. The kids love them too.

8.    There is no such thing as balance right now, but there is smart working.

I don’t apologize for folding laundry while listening to a call (albeit one where I don’t really have to present or speak). Chopping vegetables during the company All Hands is A-OK too.

9.    Every day you are juggling. But the trick is to know which ball is made of glass on that day.

Years ago, I decided to pursue an MBA while I was working full time. The program occurred on Saturdays from 8 a.m.-7 p.m., 45 weeks a year for two years straight. I was apprehensive about whether I could persevere, and anxious about adding such a load to my already full plate. A graduate of the program shared a wonderful metaphor that I have recently resurrected from my mind’s helpful archive:

Every day you are juggling, and each ball is important. One ball might represent your boss, another your job or team, another is a parent, spouse, child, pet, YOU, fitness, faith, hobbies, or friends. But the true trick is that every day ONE ball is made of glass, and the rest are rubber and will bounce back. Your job, every day and possibly every moment, is to determine which one is glass…..and just don’t drop that one!

This pandemic has been incredibly difficult for everyone, but women – especially mothers – have suffered more economic and psychological hardship as a result. Last September 865,000 women left the U.S. workforce when our children returned to school – in many cases because “school” was now in our homes. Women are leaving the workforce at four times the rate of men; there were 2.2 million fewer women working in October 2020 as compared to one year prior (U.S.). 

Our current situation is untenable for many working parents who are stuck in the “messy middle” of caring for both children and parents, while also giving their all to a part-time or full-time job. Now is a time to support and encourage each other, forgive the small stuff, and lower our collective expectations.

I hope I gave you some ideas for adjusting your mindset and how you work so that your day is the tiniest bit easier. And I would love to hear what has worked for you as well- no one has all the answers right now!

We can do this together. It might be dirty and messy, and we may all look a little worse on the far end, but we can all do it together. We just have to keep believing that we can do it.