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The Myth of Balance in Motherhood {Episode 51}
105 Plays5 years ago
It seems that everyone is seeking for "balance" these days: in work, parenting, hobbies and more. But the real question is, does balance even exist? Is there, perhaps, a better question we could be asking ourselves as we evaluate our progress in the past and make goals for the future?
Join us as we explore the myth of balance and learn more about becoming intentional parents, spouses, friends and servants of God.
Recommendations:
Plastic scraper
Essentialism Book
Live Free Creative Comparison Episode
Bonnie's free email course on finding joy in motherhood
Interview with Joanna Gaines at Altitude Summit
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Myth of Balance
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Outnumber the Podcast. We are on episode 51, and today we are talking about the myth of balance and motherhood and all the things we have on our plates. But first, we would like to ask you a little favor. All of you know that we love every single review that we get, so keep them coming, please. We love hearing from each of you.
00:00:19
Speaker
And we'd also like to ask as this year closes up for recommendations on what you'd like to hear in 2020 from us. We have so many ideas. We can hardly narrow them down every week on what we want to talk to you about, but most of all, we want to give you advice and information that you are looking for. So if you have a specific struggle or challenge or a thought that you'd like us to explore in 2020, please email it to us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and we will do our best to address it.
Meet the Hosts: Bonnie and Audrey
00:00:54
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Exploring Balance as a Buzzword
00:01:19
Speaker
Welcome back, guys. We are excited about today's topic. We are going to be talking about balance in motherhood or parenthood, but specifically the myth of balance, because that word is kind of a buzzword. We hear it a lot, so we're going to dive deep a little bit and talk about our thoughts on this. But first, I wanted to share a little mom hack I have for you guys.
00:01:38
Speaker
One of my sisters-in-law gives fun little gifts every Christmas. And one year she gave us just these fun little kitchen gadgets that she had. And one was a plastic scraper. Do you have a plastic scraper, Audrey? Plastic, like rigid? Yes. I think so. So it's like this small, this little square. Like I've seen them for like after you put dough on your counter or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I have one of those, yeah.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so she uses hers for everything, like for cleaning the bar stools, for like all these different things. And I was like, how come I never thought of that? So now every time I wipe my table, every time I wipe my counter, I get this thing out and it is revolutionary. Again, maybe I'm the last person on the planet to use this, but it is so helpful for getting every bit of gunk or grime off that your kids leave anywhere. So I'm gonna put a link to that because it's like my favorite, my favorite under $5 gift.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, hang on, I have a question for you. We're supposed to clean our bar stools? I know, that's so gross. I've been refinishing my table, so I've been sitting at the bar with the kids, and it's so gross, I can't even handle it. I'm not sitting there. What did you do? I'm not even going to say what I found on the underside of my bar the other day.
00:02:52
Speaker
I think I know. So gross.
Unrealistic Expectations of Balance
00:02:58
Speaker
Okay. So we're going to start off this episode by sharing three thoughts about where we think this desire for quote unquote balance comes from. So it's a really popular word right now on the internet. And we just have a few thoughts about why it's so popular. So my first thought is that we honestly have more time and freedom now than we ever had. Now people might not always
00:03:20
Speaker
agree with me because we feel busier than we've ever been, right? Running around here and there and everybody wants to wear their busyness like a badge of honor, right? Yeah. But in reality, think about your ancestors 150 years ago. How much free time did they have? Yeah, exactly. My kids were reading this something.
00:03:41
Speaker
or memorizing a little poem, and it was something about Friday's laundry day, or Monday was laundry day, and Tuesday was ironing, and they're like, Mom, why would you spend all day doing laundry or ironing? No, no, you guys. Yeah, they did, really. It took all day.
00:03:56
Speaker
and they had two outfits apiece. The only reason my laundry takes all day is because I have nine children and they each have 37 outfits. It's ridiculous, right? So because of all these modern conveniences, life really is easier and we do have more free time. Now, many of us have chosen to fill it with
00:04:15
Speaker
maybe working a full-time job, or maybe homeschooling kids, or maybe all these other things to make our lives better, maybe a hobby or a book club or something like that. But in reality, the basic necessities of life do not take nearly as long as they used to. So with this freedom, now we have to ask ourselves, oh, we're spending our time and our energy in the right places, right? Exactly. So yes, number two,
00:04:44
Speaker
We think we have to be balanced in all things because we have unrealistic ideas and goals of what we're supposed to be doing and how we're supposed to be doing all these things at one time and be balanced in all of them.
00:04:57
Speaker
We get this a lot from social media and seeing what other people are doing, listening to other moms at gatherings and like, oh man, I must be a terrible mom if I'm not doing that too. And anyway, there's lots of places and ways we get unrealistic ideals and goals for ourselves. But when we can kind of debunk the myth that we need to be doing all the things, then that also helps us see that we don't have to have balance in all the things because we don't have to be doing all the things. Does that make sense?
00:05:26
Speaker
Yes, totally. I was just talking to a girlfriend of mine who is in a really tough stage of life, that early mom stage where she has two little babies and a husband who travels and all these things. And so she was kind of venting to me about all the things that she wasn't getting done. And I just flipped it right back around and I said, girlfriend, you've got a husband out of town, two little babies. You're doing these house projects. You're baking cookies for this Christmas thing. You're doing all the things that I could see. And yet in her mind, she was still failing at the things that she wasn't doing. And why do we do that to ourselves?
00:05:57
Speaker
Did you keep your kids alive today? Boom, success. Right. And then the third thought is that we expect all areas of our lives to get equal amount of time and effort. And I think that's really a fallacy. And maybe technically we don't think that, but we still hold ourselves to that kind of standard. So for example, if we're, let's say you're a working mom and you work outside of the home for 40 hours a week, and then you don't spend that much time with your kids while they're awake,
00:06:27
Speaker
you think that's making you a bad mom. So every area of our life will not get equal amounts of time and effort. And that's just something we need to wrap our minds around. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. We actually can't be doing all the things, be balanced, balanced in air quotes all the time in all areas because then we're really masters of none. If we're trying to be doing all the things at one time, we can't be balanced. We can't be masters or really good at any of them because we're
00:06:56
Speaker
Basically, we're failing a little bit at all of them when we're trying to focus on everything at the same time.
Living Intentionally vs. Seeking Balance
00:07:01
Speaker
We each have three solutions for changing our focus to intentional living instead of focusing on the impossible idea of balance. We're going to do an episode upcoming this year on the thought of daily intention. Bonnie and I are going to lay out for you how we daily
00:07:23
Speaker
do everything that we do and do it in an intentional way. But this episode is kind of like an overview of how to get your head wrapped around the idea of balance. Great point. Yeah, that's going to be a good one. So my first tip is to change your focus. Sometimes when we say the word balance, we think of our entire life as a scale, right? Well, I'm a little heavy in this area, so that means I need to put more effort into this area.
00:07:46
Speaker
But that's not how life works. We have priorities. We have things that we want to be spending more time and effort in. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute, but our lives are not a scale. That's just simplifying things too much. So just get rid of that idea of balance. Things aren't going to look balanced. Right. So you're saying we're unbalanced. Yeah, we are unbalanced and we should be.
Staying Grounded: The Merry-Go-Round Analogy
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, we should be. No, maybe not mentally. Don't be mentally unbalanced. That's bad.
00:08:11
Speaker
That is a great first tip and my first tip is very similar to that. My first tip is to stay grounded. So instead of seeing life like a balance, that's like a seesaw where you're either up on one end or you're up on the other or maybe you can kind of try to keep your balance in the middle. But think of life more like a merry-go-round where you are
00:08:34
Speaker
If you are grounded, you are right in the center of the merry-go-round and you're in no danger of being tossed off the sides. So what does grounding look like? For me, it looks like having a strong spiritual connection to God first and then to my husband and to my family. Like those are the things that ground me. And when those connections become weaker, then it's like I'm out toward the edge of the merry-go-round. I'm getting kind of thrown this way and thrown that way with everything that comes.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. And you think about if you are in the middle of something that's spinning, even when things are going fast and getting kind of crazy, you don't get sick to your stomach. You're still in the middle and you're able to kind of oversee everything around you. And sometimes that's what our lives feel like, just like things are getting thrown at us one thing after another.
00:09:20
Speaker
And if we're in the center, we're able to say, that's not a priority, we're not gonna catch that one. But we are gonna focus our efforts here or here instead of being on the fringe and throwing up. You stick to your stomach, that's all I think about. Which I always did on the merry-go-round. Oh yeah, oh yeah, me too. Okay, so my first tip was changing focus. And now my second tip is gonna talk about how we change that focus. So we need to create our priorities and decide how much effort each priority needs.
00:09:49
Speaker
So I have decided that my priorities are in order of importance, one God, two family, three work, and then everything else after that. So if a friend wants to spend all afternoon with me, that would be really fun, but have my obligations for God, my family, and my work been completed already.
00:10:10
Speaker
If not, then that can't happen. I can't have that fun afternoon with my friend, right? Again, not saying that you always have to have your work done to have fun, but sometimes we allow those fringe things, or think about it this way, what if a friend asks you for a favor, right? And you really want to help her, but you haven't fulfilled your obligations for those other things that are your priorities. So I like to think of my time just kind of like a pie, right? Or a pie chart. If the whole pie is 100% of your time, then
00:10:39
Speaker
Your priorities should not be divided equally, really. Is there anything in your life that you're spending equal amount of time and effort on? Maybe each of your children, but your family is probably going to take up a much bigger section of your chart because you're a stay-at-home mom doing all these things for them. For us, we have a big chunk taken out for work.
00:10:59
Speaker
Um, a chunk taken out for spiritual aspects and then a little bit for everything else that comes. But it's just, if you can keep bringing yourself back to that, you think, okay, where is this on my chart? Where is this in my, my priorities? Am I giving it too big a piece of the pie? Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense. Um, and oh, I was going to say too, that if you think
00:11:20
Speaker
You need to give equal time to each of your children. For example, go listen to our really cool episode on one-on-one time with kids. That'll be in mind. That'll help debug that too. Yeah. Okay. My second tip is flexibility on a daily basis, but discipline on a weekly basis.
00:11:37
Speaker
So on a daily basis, I have to be flexible. I am not going to be able to accomplish everything in all the categories of my life on a daily basis, because some days, um, you know, maybe I have a sick kid and so I'm going to have to spend a saturate a lot of my time that day in kid time because you know, I've got a sick kid and maybe I don't even get to something else on the list because you know, my, my kid took priority.
00:12:03
Speaker
So be flexible on a daily basis, not let myself get all stressed out that, ah, I didn't do anything on my XYZ project today and I'm just gonna, but then discipline on a weekly basis. So for me, that means every week I have to kind of touch all areas or check in and make sure that there's something progress happening on that goal or that area that week.
00:12:31
Speaker
And just check in with it and see where I am. Even if all I do that week is say, oh yeah, okay, nothing done in this area, but this is still a priority to me this week. It was just that other things took so much time. So for me, flexibility on a daily basis and discipline on a weekly basis.
Flexibility and Discipline in Prioritizing
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, you nailed it. I'm so glad you said that because that is how I view the balance of my life, if we're going to use that word, right? Is that very often Monday through Wednesday is a train wreck and my kids need everything from me and my house is falling apart and I'm doing everything I can to just keep all the balls up in the air. And then Thursday I realized, oh, you know what? I'm behind on some work projects that I really wanted to get this done and it's time to have some TV time kids or whatever it takes to get that time for my other priorities. And that reminds me of,
00:13:17
Speaker
how you make sure that a toddler is being fed nutritious foods. You don't look at their daily diet. You look at their weekly diet because there might be some days where all they eat is plain noodles, you know? But sometime in that week, they're going to get some vegetables and I think they're going to survive. That's been my toddler this week. She's been like eating nothing except, yeah, nothing. She'll get hungry someday. Hopefully.
00:13:45
Speaker
Okay, so my third tip is to remember that there are times and seasons for all things. And this is such a good tip for any mom, especially with young kids. Sometimes we can get sidetracked into thinking that our life will always look exactly the way it does today right now, which is drowning in diapers or whatever else, you know. And once you start seeing, getting the perspective of how kids grow up, that it's really quite quickly.
00:14:10
Speaker
that in just a few short years things change really really rapidly then all of a sudden you're a little bit more at peace
00:14:18
Speaker
to saying no to the things that don't fit that season, right? So it was really hard for me to say no when all my kids were little to projects that I wanted to do because I just thought, well, that's not fair. This is my life and it is. But that was the season I needed to dedicate almost exclusively to my little babies. And now that my kids are getting bigger, I still have babies, but I'm realizing it's a different season and I can put a little bit more or different things on my plate than I could
00:14:43
Speaker
in the past. Yes, that is so true. I was thinking about that the other day because I was nursing my baby and I was just staring at him instead of, you know, trying to work on the computer or something. And I was thinking now, how many more times am I going to be nursing a baby, nursing this baby, you know, like month wise, like in five years, probably I'm not going to be nursing babies anymore. So like, you know, just thinking about enjoying the moments that I'm in because they're going to be gone.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yes, that has really helped me as well. And it took me many years to gain that sort of perspective, but I'm really grateful for it. My dilemma lately has been in this season of life has been in wanting to do more service outside of my family. So I was talking to a friend about this saying, sometimes I just want to go to a soup kitchen or do some, you know, do these big service project things.
00:15:33
Speaker
that can impact the world and yet it's really difficult with a bunch of little kids and just finding the time and the effort and then figuring out what to do with them and they can't come, you know, that sort of a thing. And my friend was like, you are doing service all day long for your family. And I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't count.
00:15:49
Speaker
Of course it counts, but in my mind, I just wanted to give back to the community and it's just a hard time of life. But that's not always going to be the case. Sure, it might be the case for you and I for a lot longer than some people because we keep advocates, but it's not going to be the case forever. But you're right. That's both a pro and a con, right? You're not going to nurse that baby forever. You're not going to be able to cuddle them forever.
00:16:11
Speaker
Here's my side note, I hated when people told me that when all my kids were little because I just thought, all right, fine, you have a couple of days of sitting here with them and tell me to just be cuddling with them and enjoying them all the time. They drive me crazy, you know, or I'm so stressed out or I'm so tired. That's not intended to invoke any sort of guilt for moms that are overwhelmed by little babies. It is so hard. But when we're tempted to wish those days away, they will go away, you know, and all too soon. And so we need to do everything we can to enjoy that season.
Staying True to Personal Goals
00:16:41
Speaker
And my third tip is to stay true to your own vision. So what are your big dreams and goals and values? Put those on your plate and get everything else off. It doesn't matter if other people are doing it. It's not part of your vision. It's not part of your dream or your goal. Then just let it go. That's not in the cards for you. And that's okay. That's good. So I just recently had
00:17:11
Speaker
a chance to listen to Joanna Gaines keynote speech at Alt Summit. And she's talked, her subject was authenticity and how if we're not authentic and we're not true to our own vision and our own who we are, then we're really doing ourself and others a disservice. And so that's my third tip. Stay true to your own
00:17:35
Speaker
to you, to your own vision and your own self, and that will bring balance to your life. Okay, that is a great segue into my next tip, that there's just so much power in being yourself and not comparing your life to anyone else's. Gosh darn, if we could just wrap our minds around this as moms, I think
00:17:54
Speaker
just we have so much more power and more acceptance of ourselves and of everyone around us that we're all doing the best we know how. I think that the only person who can accurately give you guidance in your life is God.
00:18:06
Speaker
and possibly your spouse. Sometimes they get what you're going through and sometimes they don't. And that's okay because we all have our own crosses to bear our own walks in life, right? Don't give some stranger on the internet power to control your actions. Don't give an in-law or a sibling or a neighbor or anyone else
00:18:24
Speaker
Don't even let yourself be influenced by how you think others' lives are going because we really don't know. Imagine this. I've thought about this before. What if I knew that a friend of mine was comparing her life with mine and coming up short? That would break my heart because she doesn't know how bad I'm failing and I would tell her.
00:18:43
Speaker
But we do that to ourselves all the time with strangers on the internet and everywhere else and even people we know. We think that we know their lives and we think, well, if she can do that, why can't I? And we all have these unique paths and we just have to keep forging along those paths and see the good in all of the things that we are doing and see where we need to improve and continue that as well. But to never, ever, ever look at someone else's life and think, well, if she can do that, I should be able to. It's just your own path. Yes.
00:19:11
Speaker
That totally reminds me I know
00:19:14
Speaker
goodness, we ought to just have her sign us up as sponsors. We talk about Miranda and the live free creative podcast all the time. And we even interviewed her a couple episodes ago, but her episode that she did on climbing out of the comparison trap, we'll link to it in the show notes. That one was like therapy for me. Seriously. I could listen to that one like three times in a row and still not get everything out of it. So if you're really having trouble with comparison and comparing yourself to others, man, go listen to that one. It's a good one.
00:19:45
Speaker
Okay.
The Importance of Presence in Success
00:19:46
Speaker
My bonus tip is to be present in what you're focusing on at the moment. I alluded to this earlier, but if you're trying to juggle all the balls, your focus won't be on any of them. I don't know. I'm not, I can't juggle, but I've tried. And I've been told that you can't focus on one ball. You have to kind of focus on all the balls and where they are. Is that correct? Do you juggle? Nope, but I'm assuming you're right.
00:20:14
Speaker
Well, I'm assuming they were right because I can't juggle either. But if you're present and focusing on what you're doing at the moment, so you're spending time with your kids, or you're reading your Bible, or you're working on work, if you're focusing on that, just that, it has such a higher likelihood of being successful.
00:20:34
Speaker
than if you're trying to focus on all the things at one time because then part of you, part of me, my mind works like this. It says, but I'm not getting this thing done and I'm not getting this thing done and my focus is like divided. I'm trying to focus on all the balls at once and I drop them or I'm not doing as good as I could be on the one that I'm supposed to be focusing on. Man, that is such a great tip and I'm so glad you shared that. I have several posts on my blog about
00:21:03
Speaker
finding happiness as a mom because I just think it's something that's so essential for us. And one of the tips that I share all the time is looking into your kids' eyes. So how many times have you gone through your day, just like in the hustle and bustle of every day of just being a household manager and keeping kids alive, that you haven't really connected emotionally with anyone?
00:21:22
Speaker
Um, I've just been like the, yeah, like the manager and not the mom, right? Like here's food and here's this, you know, just throwing things at people and then, and I get overwhelmed and I get, and I'm not emotionally fulfilled. And then I stop and I sit down and I pull a kid on my lap and I look at them and I talk to them and I read them a story or I play a little game with them or something. And all of a sudden.
00:21:41
Speaker
I get that rush of, of, you know, positive hormones, emotions and realizing what I do matters. But because I was focused on all the things and all the time, you know, and in the back of my head, I'm coming up with something for work. And, and then I'm thinking about this other thing I have to do for a church obligation and that friend that needs, yeah, it's just to be present and calm and consciously doing one thing at a time will revolutionize
00:22:06
Speaker
your stressful life.
Valuing Daily Responsibilities
00:22:07
Speaker
It just will. It will make you realize that you are doing an excellent job in the here and now. And what you do tomorrow or what you did yesterday does not matter. You're doing great right now. And then in another hour, maybe you'll do something else and you'll do your best at that, but we can't be our best at anything if we're trying to do multiple things at a time, right? It's a lesson for me. Right. Right. I was just thinking of this little analogy that if I went because I was trying to trim my baby's fingernails
00:22:33
Speaker
earlier. And two of the boys were running around playing tag. And I was thinking, okay, if I watch these boys misbehaving, and I'm trying to manage their behavior while I'm trimming my baby's fingernails, I'm gonna cut my baby. So I had to focus like I had to completely tune out their little naughty game of tag that they knew they shouldn't be doing in the house. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm trying to say.
00:23:02
Speaker
Well, and it takes a lot of mental discipline, right? Sometimes when I'm doing the drudgery of motherhood, the dishes or the potty training or diaper changing or whatever else, I like to escape mentally, right? And I'll start dreaming about a project I want to do or something, a date I want to go on with my husband or anything to get me out of the mundane aspect of mopping the floor or whatever.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I'm not saying you can't daydream, but I think that especially when we're dealing with people or important projects, if we're not focused, we do ourselves and that person a disservice by not giving them our full attention. And that's a struggle for me. I really struggle with that.
00:23:43
Speaker
All right, and our final bonus tip is just our tagline, lower your expectations. You're most likely doing amazing. If you kept your kids alive today, you win. You deserve a medal. You kept people alive today. You deserve chocolate at least. Bring chocolate. You can talk to your spouse to get an honest, unbiased feedback about what your priorities are. And if your priorities are right,
00:24:12
Speaker
Then, you know, it's like we talked about in our goal setting for mom's episode. You're like, you're on the path, you're on the journey and you were successful on that journey today because you took another step. And so like focus on that instead of, oh, I didn't reach the goal today. I'm really just kind of talking to myself here. You know, I kept, I kept nine kids alive today and I got the baby's fingernails trimmed. So hey, winning, right? Totally.
Resources for Personal Development
00:24:42
Speaker
Okay. So we're going to wrap up with a few recommendations. Audrey, you want to share yours? Yeah. Um, I'm going to link to that ultimate interview with Joanna Gaines and, um, the climbing out of the comparison trap episode of the live free creative podcast.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, and I was there for that interview with Joanna Gaines and she really is as cool as everybody thinks she is. I just, she was awesome. I never watched the show or anything. It was just kind of a late coming fan, but once I heard her speaking in person, I thought, this lady knows what she's talking about. So she was really cool. Oh, you want to confession? I'm a total late coming fan too, because when she was going to be the keynote speaker there, I was like,
00:25:17
Speaker
My husband said, oh yeah, she's really cool. I like her stuff. And I was like, okay, I need to go check this person out. How do you know who she is? And now I've been, I've totally like, I went through the fixer up the, the, um, Magnolia blog and I went back through all the episodes, a fixer upper. You can look through the pictures and the befores and afters. And I just love that kind of thing. So I've been totally, um,
00:25:44
Speaker
wasting my time. Yeah, don't tell me that. I would go back and binge on all that stuff because I love that too.
00:25:52
Speaker
I have a link to those blog posts I mentioned about finding joy in motherhood. And then also I wanted to share the book Essentialism with you guys. So it's been really popular of late and you've probably heard of it already, but I'm finally reading it and it is mind blowing. My friend kept recommending it. I was like, yeah, I get it. A book that's going to tell me to focus on the essentials, which it is, but it's so much more. And it really is kind of a spiritual book, helping you get back to your
00:26:17
Speaker
your roots and figure out what's important and what's not, and how to say no to those things that are infringing on your time and taking you away from the things that matter most. In fact, I will share one thing from the book. In one of the first chapters, he says that the root of the word priorities was never plural.
00:26:35
Speaker
Like when we first started using that word or someone came up with it, it was priority. There was only one. That's fascinating. And now it's morphed into priorities. We have priorities. Well, that doesn't make any sense. What's the most important? We don't know. So that just tells you a little bit something about our society right now, right? Yeah. So thanks for listening, guys. We know you're doing a great job. Forget about the balance. Throw that out the window. Be intentional. Be focused. And you're going to make it.
00:27:05
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast. See you next week.
00:27:27
Speaker
Give me a second here, Bonnie. I'm sending a kid a text. My kids sound like a herd of elephants clumping around downstairs. It's been so nice because I have this, you know, this little field trip we're taking tonight. And all day, I've been such a mean mom. I've been like, now remember, you don't want me to take away your little field trip.
00:27:47
Speaker
Me too. Do we have anything fun on the horizon? I will take that away. What a jerk. We should, we should call this episode demything the motherhood balance. Oh my word. I'm just going to stop talking.