I have three-year-old and ten-month-old boys. I am home with them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My schedule is pretty flexible as a doctoral student at Duke. Today I had an easy day. My one task was to make cookies for us to bring for dessert tonight at another family’s house. It is 2:15 pm and I have accomplished the task and cleaned up the kitchen but I have done little else beyond normal parenting. My normal parenting tasks took this form today: I vacuumed, changed the boys, set the kids up with toys, borrowed some sand toys from the neighbors, read a few books to each of them, fed them breakfast and lunch, put them down to naps, had one conversation on the phone for 15 minutes, scanned my RSS feeds at Google Reader, and disciplined Ryan for head-butting “bonking” Jacob (3 minutes in timeout and a lecture from dad).
All of that to say, I have not done much and the day is half-gone. I therefore absolve all parents from feeling they are bad parents or disorganized or inefficient if an unexpected thing “comes up” (and it can even be a little thing and something always comes up) and a parental ball falls. It is unrealistic to juggle even the basic four things all of the time: keep a clean house, feed children decent meals, give the kids some attention, and shower. You can try to juggle these tasks (and it is important to try) but you are normal if you fall short. Parenthood involves kindly trying to put sane boundaries around constant chaos.
I have enjoyed listening to some podcasts from Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast today while working in the kitchen. Like being a CEO, parenting involves prioritizing, self-control, energy, gentleness, backbone, and the courage to manage change and chaos.
So play with the kids. Fight the obsessive-compulsive tendencies to keep the house in pristine condition. Love the kids. Get together with other people. Clean up a little when they are asleep. And reflect regularly on what is really important.
Andy