Today I feel inspired to talk about a topic we all often dance around, but don’t explicitly mention, which is this:
The hardest thing I’ve EVER had to do was to figure out how to make my life as a caregiver of kids co-exist with my career. When you're in a creative field, long or weird hours are often part of the package. And...those hours tend to crash into your caregiver hours. Suddenly, you have to get REALLY good at compartmentalization.
The way I described becoming a mother to a friend: “It takes a while to find the shreds of your humanity and put them back together into a duct-taped shell that resembles your former self.”
Many people who aren't parents or moms get this feeling of being “eaten alive” by the needs of others, too. Let’s all agree to accept caregivers in all the forms they exist, okay? From fur-parents to those caring for relatives to those who just find caregiving for themSELVES a bit of a project.
While I do not claim to have it all figured out (who does??), I do have a few tips about how to nurture your creative self while nurturing others, which I’ll dispense here.
This is how I see it: since I can’t just make the constant needing of things “stop”, the following options remain to me:
Stop what I’m doing and address the need.
Delegate the need to someone else and go somewhere quiet.
Invite the distraction in and go about my life.
I want to tell you how I work with each of these options to help get more of my own time back.
1. When you choose to address the need, it doesn't have to take all day long.
When I'm in work mode, I approach caregiver tasks the way other people approach inbox management. Is the request of my time actually necessary - eg food, water, injury? Does it take 2 minutes or less? If it doesn't, is there a 2-minute version of it I can do for now? (eg heating up something frozen).
If the request is about me entertaining someone or takes longer than five minutes (eg Putting together furniture or something), I say “no” or “not yet”. In those moments it can be helpful to give the requestor a timeframe.
For instance, we have a bunch of sand timers in different lengths that work well for kids who can’t tell time yet. You can say “we'll put together the puzzle in 15 minutes,” and then hand them the 15-minute sand timer so they have a visual representation of how long that is. (Or put a digital timer on.)
2. When you choose to delegate, actually put physical distance between you.
There’s a chemical process that’s stimulated when you hear your child/children crying — if you have mammary glands, this is the same chemical process that stimulates milk production. It makes it physically painful to do ANYthing else until the crying sound stops.
Honestly I don’t think this is just a “person who’s had kids thing” — I think anyone who care-takes gets extra-tuned-into their charge’s needs. So, ideally if you’re going to delegate to another person, you get out of eye-and-ear-shot so that chemical process can’t happen, and so you can have flow. Bonus: this has the side effect of helping them realize a little bit more of their independence, and it keeps the person you're delegating to from pulling you back into things.
3. Create a co-existence protocol for when you're working. (Make a space for the distraction, but go on about your business).
I find that the majority of the time, getting away isn't feasible — for whatever reason.
So most of the time, I choose to "invite my distraction in", literally invite my child into my space and make them a space.
In my office I have a little desk where a young one can hang out and work on their own project while I work on mine.
Especially when I combine this with the methodology of #1, they learned that there is a certain protocol for being in my space while I'm working.
They've learned to use their headphones or keep the sound low. They've learned not to be super chatty. They've learned that there will be a delay in response time.
Despite that, it's quite lovely. It's companionable. They feel secure and they don't get distressed, which doesn't trip that chemical process from #2, and I get to experience "having it all" in the form of being productive WHILE still accomplishing mothering.
Is it perfect? No, nothing is perfect. But inviting them into my space instead of fighting it constantly probably saved my sanity. (And my productivity).
Happy Sunday! I'll leave you with the links to last week's emails.
-Cathy