First Person Friday: How Do You Do It All?

Today’s First Person Friday comes to us from Liz O’Donnell, who blogs about feminism, politics, work and sometimes family at Hello Ladies.  Liz is one of my favorite fellow travelers: a mother, a worker, a blogger, a self-proclaimed feminist — and a terrific writer.  You can follow her on Twitter at Hello_Ladies.

People always ask me, “How do you do it all?”  I am a full time working mother –in fact I’m the family breadwinner.  I am also president of the PTO, chair of a town committee, organizer of  an annual event for 400 attendees, and I moonlight as a freelance writer.  “It’s easy,” I tell them. “But my house is always dirty and I have no friends.”  And then the person who asked the question always laughs.  But I’m not joking.

My house is dirty.  While my husband has the time to clean, he has no interest.  And I have neither the time nor the interest. Type As like me thrive on checking things off a to-do list and cleaning never comes off the list; by the time you get through all of the rooms in the house, you need to start over.  I don’t choose to spend my time cleaning. Not do I choose to spend my time fighting with my husband trying to get him to clean.

We used to fight about it.  Big, ugly hairy fights. But fighting wastes precious time and for a working mother, time is currency.  The fighting just didn’t add up. Do the math:

Ask husband (three times) to remove unfolded piles of laundry from couch and put them away: 3 mins.

Yell at husband for not putting laundry away, disrespecting all of my wishes, being an insensitive lout, never listening, and not knowing the meaning of love: 20 mins.

Give husband silent treatment: 30 mins.

Apologize for slightly overreacting : 2 mins.

Simply push piles of laundry to the other end of the sofa so I have a place to sit down and snuggle with the kids: priceless.

As far as friends go, I do exaggerate, but just slightly.  I actually have two and a half friends – two of them I’ve known for thirty years. I talk to one of them almost every day during my commute. And I go months without talking to the other one but our friendship is strong enough to withstand the long silences.  And the half?  Well that represents all the lovely acquaintances I make through my many activities.  I would befriend them but then they’d expect me to call, email and socialize.  And I don’t have the time.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed, like when I have too many deadlines, I’m tired and there are thirty-eight plastic dinosaurs on my living room rug. Just recently, one of my cousins stopped by on a  weekend morning.  Over coffee, I unloaded on her that I was exhausted and couldn’t manage everything.

“You need to lower your standards,” she said.

As I slid the previous night’s dirty dinner plates out of my way so I had a place to put  my coffee mug, I said hopefully, “Really, do you think that’s the answer?”

My lifestyle is not for everyone.  Like all working mothers, I make sacrifices. I will never go scrapbooking, for example, or host a book club meeting. Hell, I won’t even be invited to join the book club. But despite my busy schedule, I always have time to read a book to my child.  Now if only I could find the damn book somewhere in this mess.

If you are interested in telling your working mother story, email The Mama Bee at mamabeeblog at gmail dot com with the subject line “First Person Friday.”