Every month inside Kids Health Quest we have a member Q&A coaching session. In our most recent session, we spoke about how tired we are from doing all the things.
In talking about this, I shared how I was away all last week and in one of my conversations with Israel he thanked me for all the systems I have put in place around the house. He said it just made it easy for everything to tick without me being there.
I'm serious in saying that there is nothing in my home that only I can do. It's taken me a longtime to get to this point. Being truthful, it was a butt kicking from my coach Lisa Carpenter a few years ago that made me realise that I was exhausted because I was making everything around parenting my job. Housework, after school activities, before school activities, parent teacher interviews - all my job.
Lisa challenged me. She asked me if I want all this exhaustion and resent for Indrani if she goes on to become a parent. She asked me if I wanted Rilien to become the kind of partner that expected it to be the job of someone else to do all the things.
The response to both of these questions was a resounding no. She politely and firmly suggested that I was role modelling that it is the mum's job to do it all.
Look the reality is that if we're doing it all, we are training others not to do it. And, worst of all, we creating humans who expect others to do it for them.
Think of this. Every time you feel frustrated, resentful, angry, exhausted or saying you don't have time or are complaining about it, then these are red flags. 🚩 It's time to do something about it.
Hands up if you've ever been annoyed because your partner (if you have one) or one of the kids has just stepped over a basket of washing that needed to be folded.
Or because
- dinner has finished and everyone has left the table without carrying their plates etc back to the kitchen
- everyday you make breakfast, lunch and dinner
- you pick clothes up off the floor
- you meal plan etc
In equating love with needing to do it all for my family, I was exhausted, frustrated, angry, resentful. It was all my own doing. In not asking for help, I had trained my family that 'mum will do it.'
The moment I learnt all this, I saw those feelings and complaints as red flags. 🚩 It was my alarm bell to make time to systemise whatever it was that I was moaning about and empower others to do it.
Of course, an important part of empowering others is to enrol them in the WHY it's important for them to help you, otherwise it will just feel like you are dumping work on them.
I started it with an honest conversation about how I was tired and angry all the time. I asked them if they would like me to be less angry, less tired so I could spend more time with them. Of course, they said yes. Then we spoke about what it's like on a team (eg. basketball or netball) where there is a player who just isn't being a team player. What does it feel like? I explained that's what I felt like. We spoke about all being players in our team of the family and sharing the workload meant we could all be good team players.
Once you have this conversation, choose just one job you can start to train each family member in.
A word of caution. Don't expect miracles overnight. It will take consistency and persistency for this to become a way of life in your house. I have even been known to follow Ril with a video camera and record him dropping his clothes next to the wash basket rather than putting them in the wash basket. The old me would have picked them up and thought for 'f' sake. Instead I showed him the video and asked him to think about the consequences of his actions to me - his team member. He realised how silly it was for him to get so close the basket. His behaviour started to change. If I had of just bent down to pick them up, he would have kept doing it.
Sometimes you have to spend time, to make time and lighten your physical and mental load.
Think about your red flags. 🚩
Jot them down. Choose one and systemise it and empower others.
When that's a way of life, choose another one.