How Am I Always Rushing and Yet Never Ahead?
Do you ever suffer from homemaker’s stress? When you reflect on your day as a homemaker, do you ever feel like you look around and can’t even tell you did anything? You remember rushing, feeling stressed, you hardly sat down, you scarfed a cold lunch, you were the first one up for the day and know you worked hard but…on what? You’re so busy you hardly have time to make homemade meals or any social plans, yet you’re usually running late for anything you do squeeze in.
You have dreams of doing more with your life but you can’t understand how other people do those things! Maybe you want to grow a garden, start a business, learn to cook from scratch, homeschool your kids, or learn to sew. But you’re barely keeping up without any of those extra things.
There’s just not enough time.
What if…there’s actually too much?
Before you get angry and click away, please know I’m right there with you. It almost sounds insulting at first, but hear me out. No one could accuse me of “having it all together”. I’ve often wondered, to be totally vulnerable here, if there’s something wrong with me. Why do so many other women seem to float through life easily, adding hobbies and projects, working part time on top of homeschooling 6 kids and homemaking, and I can’t get my 3 children to church on time! Even though I’m far from being “that mom”, I’ve grown over the years and I think I have something to share that might help you.
1. We Fill the Time We Have
There’s a topic of conversation going around the internet right now that I’ve found thought provoking and immensely helpful when it comes to homemaker’s stress.
It’s the idea that we as humans will always fill the time we have. You might also have heard of the “over-dink-around move”? e.g., You have a couple of hours to kill before an appointment so you start walking around a store, try on a few tops, grab a smoothie aaaannnd now you’re late!
The problem begins when we actually have a lot of time to fill and we fill it with the wrong things. We as a society have rejected housework as drudgery and view food preparation as a necessary evil. We try to either completely cut these things out by outsourcing them to machines or hired help, or at the very least trim them down to take as little time and energy as possible on the very fringes of our day, so that we can focus on the “important” stuff.
But…since when did preparing nourishing food become unimportant? Since when did caring for our things become such an inconvenience that we’d rather buy things as cheaply as possible and throw them out the minute they show signs of their inferior craftsmanship?
To put it more simply, we’ve crowded out traditional skills and tasks in favor of convenience. I’m not saying I’m not guilty of this! But there’s another layer to this as well that struck me that I actually found encouraging instead of guilt-inducing.
2. Shift Your Perspective, Reduce Homemaker’s Stress
So yes, we all know we should hit the drive-thru less and eat more whole foods. We know we should “slow down” and “get off our phones”. We’ve heard this messaging everywhere (ironically, from our phones more than anywhere!) But what I want to share is less about that and more about a perspective shift.
I’ve been on a journey for a little while now to do all the things listed above. I’m failing pretty hard at the slow-down-and-put-the-phone-down thing. But do I get any points for the fact that the content I consume is at least related to those things??? *wink wink* In all seriousness though, there was a long time where I was feeling very much pulled in two directions: I wanted to slow down and prepare foods traditionally. I wanted to spend quality time schooling my kids. I wanted to care for my home. And yet, I’d feel guilty that I didn’t have more time to volunteer or participate in church events, social outings, homeschool groups, and the like.
Quick Side Tangent
There’s a bit of an unspoken belief that stay-at-home-moms should be the available ones. Especially homeschoolers! I hope it goes without saying that this isn’t true. We have to safe-guard our time like those who work full-time out of the house. That’s not to say that we can’t incorporate field trips, church events and other things into our school day occasionally, but no one knows what anyone else’s personal schedule is like and there shouldn’t be pressure on stay-at-home moms to be more involved than any other group of people. End tangent.
Quiet Your Inner Critic
I started to realize that I was feeling guilty and maybe a bit silly about how much of my time was given to preparing, cooking, eating and preserving food, cleaning, caring for my kids and trying to hold to our routines. I had an almost subconscious sense that others were judging me for this as well. While I have no reason to think anyone else really thought that about me, you probably have that same little voice inside your head too, right? The one that sounds like someone, real or imagined, telling you everything you’re doing wrong? Mine is very loud and very mean sometimes.
It was that voice that was telling me, “This meal took you an hour? And now you have to clean the kitchen? Can’t you throw together a 30-minute meal?” Or something like, “You seriously have to carve out 3 hours to get groceries every week? Can’t you just InstaCart it like everyone else?” Or my favorite, “How much of your brain space is taken up with recipes, meal plans, veggie gardening and nutrition? Do think anyone else is spending this much time on something as basic as food?“
That’s not to even mention the internal debate about saving money vs. buying high quality ingredients.
To cut to the chase (finally), I think homemakers, and those who have homemakers in their lives, need a shift in perspective. These skills and tasks are not a waste of time. Or money, for that matter. And this all goes back to my original statement that it’s not that we don’t have enough time, it’s that we’ve had too much and filled it in ways that society tends to dictate. We have washing machines and dishwashers, Instant Pots and microwaves, delivery services, and so on, and no, I’m not trying to get you to ditch all of them. Rather, if we’re saving so much time, what are we doing with it?
Magnify Your Role as a Homemaker
Lisa Bass of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast recently talked on this issue and used the example of washing clothes. If you ever read the Little House series you might remember that for the Ingalls family, washing clothes was an all-day event! We can be thankful for our washers and driers and still care for our clothes and take the time to do laundry well. Instead we have the mind set that we can do it anytime. Throwing a load of laundry in and walking away is so easy. But, as Lisa’s podcast guest mentioned, what’s easy to do is easy not to do. And so we put it off, it piles up, then it’s an enormous task, and we’re cursing the task of laundry in general even though we’ve simplified it so much already. I’m as guilty of this as anyone! But I’m trying to look at it in a different way.
What do I have to do that is so much more important than laundry? Or dishes? Or cleaning the toilet? I’m not saying that these are the most important, or that I have nothing better to do. I’m not diminishing our roles and tasks as homemakers, I’m actually magnifying them.
So what do we do about this paradox? In theory it all sounds great, but how do we put it into practice?
3. Treat Your Job Like a Job
Remember that your tasks and routines are important and worthy of taking time to do well. Don’t let your inner critic, or any real critics, convince that you need to push these things to the fringes to make time for more “activities”. Don’t feel guilty for treating your job like a job!
This might mean saying no to a volunteering opportunity. It might mean limiting your kids to one chosen sport or activity per season, or even per year. Maybe you and your husband need to have an honest look at your calendar and start working on cutting back in order to have more time at home.
I still remember when my own dad told us at the dinner table that he was quitting the Volunteer Fire Department in order to spend more time with our family. Even though it was something he enjoyed and a way to help people, he already had a full-time job with a commute, various church responsibilities and positions, and often played pick-up basketball games with his buddies as well as playing on and sometimes coaching the church co-ed softball team.
Sometimes, something’s gotta give in order to treat your homemaking job like a job, and enjoy it in the process.
4. Is Your “Rest” Increasing Homemaker’s Stress?
I have to say in all honesty that if I have a spare moment or two my eyes go straight to my phone. I’ve had seasons where I’m much better about reading and different things, but falling into the phone trap is so easy. And I think it’s the most counterproductive.; not only because we’re not doing something else that needs done, but also because we tend so often to compare ourselves to others when we’re scrolling away, leaving us discontent and feeling down.
It’s also a major time-suck and can sneakily eat up a half hour before you know what happened. I’m reminded of the words of Charlotte Mason here that, “a change is as good as a rest.” Not changing from one difficult chore straight to another, but changing entirely the type of task, the amount of mental energy vs. physical energy, and so on. Instead of curling up on the couch and wasting 30 minutes and not feeling good about it at the end of your “rest”, why not finally start to learn to crochet, or pull out that dusty sewing machine?
If that doesn’t sound at all restful to you, maybe you’re not into crafting and would rather journal, bake, read, play guitar, sing along to good music, go for a walk, or pray (anyone need more prayer in their life?) How about taking a nap?? Whatever it is, even if it sounds less restful than giving in to your need for instant gratification in the moment, I promise you will feel more rested and fulfilled if you’ve produced something at the end, or truly rested through sleep or prayer.
Check out my post about Mother Culture for more ideas on this subject.
5. Practice the Habit of Full Attention
I certainly love to have a podcast going while I’m doing the more mindless tasks like scrubbing dishes or sweeping the floor, but I’m also aware that even then, I can’t also be giving attention to my children. If I am listening to something in the background, I make a point of pressing pause if my kids need my attention, even just to stay something silly or have me peel a sticker for them (which is often the case!) We all know multitasking usually produces poor results, so giving our attention to a task will not only allow us more efficiency, but we’ll also have a better sense of satisfaction with a job well done.
I’m also trying to be honest with myself about being overstimulated. Sometimes I can get a little snippier than necessary with my kids for not using their “indoor voices” but if I’m really honest, I know it would help to not have the extra noise from my phone speaker.
6. Stop Overthinking
We’ve established that modern conveniences free up our time and that as a rule we will fill that time, and one of the worst outcomes of this is overthinking everything. Going back to the laundry example, one trap I’ve fallen into before is working the task up in my mind and debating with myself about it for longer than it would take to do the darn thing!
These tasks that we start to see as “optional” because of how easy we’ve made them used to be just part of the flow and routine of homemakers. On laundry day we do laundry or we won’t have clean clothes. On cheese-making day, we make a heck-ton of cheese so we don’t starve this winter. You get the point. It’s just what you did. Yes, at some point the laundry will get bad enough that you have to do it or you won’t have any clothes, but by then it’s an enormous task.
If you find yourself seriously questioning if you should feed your sourdough starter because you’re not 100% sure that you’ll get around to making bread dough and you’ll have to find the recipe and check the time table and what if it isn’t quite at it’s peak or you have to put it in the fridge at some point to slow the ferment…then you’re probably overthinking it. Just feed the starter. Just throw together some flour and water to autolyse. Add the starter and the salt. Fold it throughout your day. You’ve got bread. (Ask me how I came up with this detailed example…)
Use the 3-2-1 Trick
The mental energy of beginning a task is honestly the hardest part. Remember, a job begun is a job half done. If you fall into this often, try the ‘3-2-1’ trick. Count down from 3, then just do it! (You don’t count up from 1 because it’s easy to just keep counting. Think of any kid ever jumping off the side of a pool. 1, 2, 3….4, 5…)
Bringing it All Together
So if we’ve given our tasks and routines the placement and respect they deserve, truly rested in our downtime instead of giving ourselves more burdens and more to think about, given our full attention to the things we’re doing, and just started, all that’s left is to enjoy our jobs as homemakers. I have another post coming all about ways we can enjoy homemaking more.
For now, thank you for reading. I pray this was helpful in some way to you and that you are able to move through the rest of your day with these principles in mind and enjoy your job as a homemaker.
-Tara
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