Work-life balance. Its description implies that those two things live in harmony, perfectly divided up on the scale of your life. My work and home life have never, ever been balanced evenly on any level. Even when I was a seventeen-year-old sandwich maker at the Sub Station in my hometown. Even then there were days when a big project at school meant that I couldn’t work as many hours. Or accepting a lucrative Saturday shift (ripe with tip money) meant that I couldn’t hang out with my friends. Work and personal life will always battle each other for supremacy because both require your full attention to be successful. It’s not bad or wrong; it’s just how life works.
Sometimes my boys have school activities or doctor’s appointments and I have to leave work to be present for those. Likewise, right now as I sit holed up at the only desk in our house (in my big boys’ room), my entire family is having a grand time downstairs by the pool. I can hear them down there laughing and singing along to pop music. They’re drinking LaCroix and living their best lives, and I’m up here . . . writing this book. Pursuing my dream of being an author who encourages other women means that sometimes I will have to miss out on pool time in order to make it happen. The scale is never balanced; it constantly shifts back and forth based on what needs my attention right this second. I think that’s real for most of us no matter what stage of life we’re in, and the only way we’re going to get past this mythology that some people have it all figured out is to start being honest about what our lives and priorities really look like. Here, I’ll go first . . .
MYSELF
In my early days as a mom and entrepreneur I wasn’t a priority at all. I would run myself ragged, taking care of everyone else and never once worrying about how it all might affect me. This was a disaster. I got really sick at least once a year. I was always stressed out. I was always struggling with my weight. It was a mess. Then someone pointed out that I couldn’t take care of anyone properly if I didn’t first take care of myself. My health and well-being are now my biggest priority. I get eight hours of sleep every night. Yes, eight. Not six or even seven. Eight full hours. I eat well, I drink water by the bucket load, I haven’t let Diet Coke touch my lips in over four years. Yes, I’m still addicted to coffee, but we can’t win ’em all! I took up running and get in at least twelve miles a week. I carve out several hours a week for prayer, church, and volunteer work because my faith is extremely important to me. I don’t think the goal is ever to be balanced, ladies. I think the goal is to be centered. Centered means that you feel grounded and at peace with yourself. Centered means that you can’t be knocked off balance regardless of how chaotic things become. If I prioritize myself and make sure I’m centered, then everything else runs smoothly . . . even when it’s running at a hundred miles an hour!
MY MARRIAGE
I’m sure many parents would naturally list their children as their first priority, but my marriage will always be the most important relationship in my life. Dave and I have a weekly date night, and we take an extravagant annual vacation together—wait for it—without our children. When we’re at home we’re playing interference with three little boys and our queen bee, Noah Elizabeth, so it’s essential that we also get to hang out with each other regularly and act like reallive adults. Because we’re both so supportive of each other’s careers, it can be really easy to start neglecting our relationship, which has happened numerous times over the years. So rather than risk our marriage slipping into an unhealthy place, we’ve agreed to make each other a priority. We don’t want to have a good marriage or even a great one. We want to have an exceptional marriage, and exceptional requires intentionality.
MY KIDS
I have four children: Jackson, Sawyer, Ford, and Noah. So even when I’m not at work, I’m always on the go. There’s morning routine and school drop-off and dinner, baths, books, and bedtime. Then the weekends when we run from sports events to birthday parties and back again. That is a picture of what life looks like today with the kids, but let me back up and tell you about the first two years of running my company. I worked like a maniac. I was often in the office by eight in the morning, which means I was never able to do school drop-off. I got snarky notes from moms at school about missing field trips and bake sales, and I cried myself to sleep about them more nights than I can count. Nobody ever sent snarky notes to my husband for having to work during a field trip—but that’s a diatribe for another time. Most evenings I got home around seven, which means I missed dinner. It was a really chaotic season, but that kind of workload is also part of being an entrepreneur and running a start-up. Some people will argue that I lost valuable time with my kids, and I won’t disagree. But those three little boys also watched their mom build a company from the ground up. They watched me grow that company to something so big that their daddy came to work there too. They’ve seen firsthand the power of hard work and dedication, and I’m proud of the example I’ve set for them. That, for me, in that season, was another way of prioritizing my kids, just with a longer-term vision in mind.
MY WORK
I won’t pretend that there weren’t times when work didn’t take up most of my attention. I also won’t pretend that those weren’t the times that were hardest on my marriage, my health, and my ability to be the kind of mom I want to be. Now that I’m more established in my career, I’m better able to get my work done during office hours. Also, being five years into this business means I have the help of an incredible staff so it doesn’t all fall on my shoulders. My work is a priority for sure, but that looks different in my current season than it had to look in past ones.
Remember, figuring out how to juggle all the parts of your life in a healthy way is a scale that slides back and forth. Some seasons of your life will require more attention in one area than another, and that’s okay. Someone once said it was possible to be in balance, but that’s only their opinion. You get to decide whether or not it’s true.
The other opinion that affects our narratives about what we can and can’t be at the same time dives into an area of life that I know won’t apply to every woman reading this, but it will apply to a vast majority—and the ones who suffer from it are drowning in it. I want to talk about it. I want us all to be aware that it’s happening so we can, as a community, take power away from this insidious thing.
Mommy guilt.
You guys, mommy guilt is bullshit!
There, I said it. I don’t know if my editor will even let me keep that in here, but if we’re going to hold on to one cussword in this book, Jessica, let it be that line right there!
Mommy guilt, in case you haven’t ever experienced it personally, is this gross, horrendous, cancerous thing that lodges itself in your heart and creeps its way to your head where it festers forever—unless you actively choose to kill it. Mommy guilt likes to remind you on the regular of all the ways you’re failing your children. Some women struggle with guilt on topics like going to work. Others struggle under the weight of guilt associated with everything from wanting time for themselves to not feeding their kids the right kind of blueberries. And I guess, if that was the only thing you had to worry about, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but being a mom means there are 967 things to worry about on any given day. So not only are you responsible for someone else’s clothes and shelter and dental hygiene, but you’re also going to go ahead and beat yourself up for those 967 choices you’re making as you’re making them and think that this will empower you to be better next time? No way. This is only going to confuse and overwhelm you and zap you of whatever confidence you had in yourself as a mom, which, let’s be honest, is tenuous on the best of days.
I can already hear the critiques on this one. Well, you told us to be self-aware. You told us we should be honest about the areas where we can improve. You’re right. The problem is that mommy guilt isn’t about self-awareness. Mommy guilt is about self-destruction. Part of growth in any area of life is a willingness to make changes to improve. But mommy guilt isn’t really about improving, and, more often than not, it’s debilitating. And yet we go back to it again and again.