Since stress is a sense of “losing control”, the best way to reduce it is to bring life under control. Good habits are a means of bringing life under control without even thinking about it. However, planning must also bear a level of flexibility in order to avoid slipping into OCD. As with everything in life, a balance must be struck.
People say the first year of marriage is the hardest. I think the first year a child arrives is the hardest! Marriage was pretty simple when we were both working, got a reasonable amount of sleep each night, and weren’t captive to the feeding schedule of a tiny human. Our little girl is the light of our lives, totally worth those first six weeks (the primary period of “what-on-earth-is-happening”), but her arrival required some major adjustments to our relationship. Our marriage changed when Adeline was born; it changed in five distinct ways.
Staying home after working an 8-5 for five, seven, or ten years is a transition. But contrary to theory, full-time work and full-time motherhood have much more in common than meets the eye. In fact, my seven years working a desk gave me an edge as I moved to full-time home management.Â
I recently finished the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Shulte and was so challenged by the research Brigid shared. The book questioned many of the norms of work and home – particularly the concepts of the “ideal worker” and the “ideal mother”. An ideal worker is the person who stays late, does more, answers emails after hours, and is invested in her job at the expense of all other priorities. The ideal mother is the woman many of us attempt to be because we think we should – spinning plates of work, home, parenthood and marriage all at once, by ourselves. Quite often, the ideal worker and ideal mother are combined into one completely overwhelming individual we measure ourselves against every day.
I’ve often thought the negative stereotype of moms as stressed out, overwhelmed, and run ragged with responsibility was a little unfair. It’s true that motherhood is exhausting at times, and the more kids you have the harder it is (as the oldest of six, I know what it looks like). But I don’t believe stress is God’s intention for our lives. I believe that even in motherhood, we can manage our time in a way that allows us to enjoy our children, enjoy our hobbies, and fully live the lives God has given us.
So with thought, prayer, trial and error, I developed my daily routine.