If you're stuck between a rock and a hard place (okay, this guy isn't stuck, he's just there) with kids who need your attention and parents who require your time, you can feel squeezed. There's got to be a solution to the time crunch of life in the sandwich.
As a single mom, I feel the time crunch even heavier than some of my married friends (at least according to them). I've always wondered how they do it with two sets of parents to do for, take care of, and manage with children still at home.
I have one set of parents and two children still at home, two grown and a granddaughter. My life seems to never stop. Even when I do lie down at night, I feel the pull of work left undone. Those hours between bedtime and daylight when I'm supposed to be sleeping are often filled up with concerns about how I can get one more thing done than I have time for the next day. Sometimes, I wonder how I can be in two places at once, then I realize I can't be in one place. Something has to give.
The struggle to maintain a life and live in the sandwich gets to be too much. Generations cover you up and overwhelm your day, even when life is going normal. By home schooling my children, I've learned that there are times when I can do more than one thing, using time to teach as part of my work time. While I'm working at a writing project, I can instruct my children or help them with research. Often a research project for them becomes a writing project for me. I give them an assignment and write my project, while they're researching theirs. (That may be why some of my writing projects seem a bit on the outside of normal.)
As a single Mom, I must carry it all. There isn't any one to pick up what I drop, so I have to carry the load. At least that's the thought that crosses my mind on those nights when sleep doesn't come and I've left work undone.
Would it be easier if I wasn't home schooling my children? When this question came up during a conversation a few weeks back, I realized that my children often share part of the load. By participating in our lives 100% of the time, they often carry part of the load. Not necessarily work, worry or stress, but their education is based on our lives, so we're not rushing off to a basketball game in the middle of math class, but rather math class is part of our experience of life, the basketball game is free time. Attending a basketball game can be family fun or even playing basketball can be an afternoon out. Home schooling makes education a part of the life you live, rather than education being what you do in life.
The solution is to get involved in the life around you. Whether it's older parents, children, college age adults or toddlers, do whatever you choose to do with gusto and dedication. Give it all you've got, joyfully, and experience the moments, each and every moment.
Take time to feel the joy!
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