Work-life balance is a joke. That's one thing working moms, stay-at-home moms and every other sort of moms can agree on. And too often, the joke's on us.
Today, the Strollerderby team was thinking about bringing you a list of tips on how to balance work and motherhood. Problem: none of us know how to do it.
Unless we're Carolyn, who practices mother-daughter yoga while her assistant types for her.
At the end of the day, we'd love to have a strong sense of professional accomplishment while we're reading bedtime stories to our clean, fed, smiling children. But let's get real. That balancing act never quite happens as planned. So we may as well embrace the chaos. Forget trying to balance and celebrate your natural, disheveled self!
Related: Does Motherhood Belong on Your Resume?Here are our top 11 tips for unbalancing work and motherhood:
1. Bribery. This works on kids and bosses, both. Sunny offered her kid frozen yogurt if she got to finish up her article. My husband offered to review his grad students' homework over the weekend in exchange for cutting out early for a parent-teacher thing Friday. Sometimes the same bribe can work on your kid or your boss. Chocolate goes a long way with both editors and four-year-olds.
2. Make "bring your daughter to work day" a daily celebration instead of an annual one. While you're at it, teach her to use a stapler and the photocopier so she can do office chores for you.
3. Remember that sleep is for the weak. Get up before your kids and enjoy a few hours of quiet worktime before dawn. Just remember not to operate heavy machinery while using this tactic. The sleep deprivation will catch up with you, and it won't be pretty.
4. Give your boss and your spouse the same cute nickname. That way, your honey will never know that your mind has drifted back to your 4 p.m. staff meeting when you murmur "Honeybear" in bed.
5. The microwave is your friend. Use it for all the meals you "cook" at home. You can check your work email while the veggies heat up.
Related: Could it be cheaper to live in New York City than the suburbs?
6. Let your kid pick out your work clothes. Nothing says "fashionable mama" like the fashion choices of a four-year-old.
7. Buy 10 copies of the same outfit for each of your kids. Then give the rest of their wardrobes to Goodwill. Dressing them the same way each day means no one will ever know if they're wearing yesterday's clothes!
For more ways to embrace work-life imbalance, visit Babble's Strollerderby.
MORE ON BABBLE:
Gwyneth Paltrow and Balancing Work and Mommyhood
Dad-to-Be Sympathetic Pregnancy: Myth or Fact?
The Truth About BPA
Child Breaks Record for Walking On Top of Moving Plane
A 3-Year-Old Alcoholic? Really?
There are no comments yet