Avivah Werner

Needing time for self

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Avivah

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>>and the more I see the pic the more I just cant stop being baffled at how you dont lose your mind from having this clan home every single single live long day. I just cant imagine how you dont need your space for a few hours every day to just do your thing without needing to respond to some child’s request. For the life of me no matter how many blog entries I’ll read, I will not be able to fathom the concept of being home with your entire family every single day of the year.<<

I’ve written about how can I stand to be around my kids all day, and I think part of the answer is that there are some things you just can’t understand until you experience them.  It’s not just that my kids are home all day and most other families have their kids in school during the day, but the mindset about it that is a big difference.  But I wanted to respond to a different point since it touches on something I’ve been thinking about these last few days.  And that is the importance of having time for yourself.

Don’t think I have a superhuman ability to push off my own needs to take care of everyone else 24/7.  I really enjoy spending time with my children, but occasionally I feel like I need more ‘self time’ than what I’m getting.  It’s not about them and how well-behaved they are or aren’t; it’s about me not carving out time for myself.  When I ignore my needs, I get the same feelings of burnout that everyone else does and I feel less calm and happy and more irritable and edgy.

I’ve been recognizing a few warning signs that I’ve been neglecting making that quiet time in my day.  When my mind gets too full or feels too busy, it’s like I subconsciously do things to create some space that aren’t effective or helpful.  Things like sometimes looking through my kids when they talk to me, giving instructions that aren’t clear because I’m too busy thinking about the next thing to be precise in what I’m saying that moment (pick ‘that’ up, put ‘this’ somewhere) or starting a thought and then not finishing it, and spending too much time on the computer (which can have a zoning out effect).

But the clearest warning was that a few days ago I told my husband I wanted to go away by myself for a day or two.  Not that I’m going to do it, since I have a nursing baby and taking him would defeat the purpose, but I was really feeling like I needed to be left alone for at least a day.  No noise, no people – just a hotel room where everything stays where I put it, no one needs me for anything, and I can rest and read as much as I want!  Sounds good, doesn’t it? 🙂

I find that feeling overextended or run down usually develops gradually, until you get to the point that it’s so obvious it kind of smacks you in the face.   Particularly since I’m going into the busiest season of the year with Pesach (Passover) less than a month away, it’s important to reevaluate how I’m spending my time and why.  That helps me to realign what I do with what I really believe is the best thing to do – which I haven’t been doing.  I’ve been doing everything I think is important and lots of other stuff, too!  The important stuff isn’t the problem – it’s the not so important stuff that I let myself get busy with.

And physically I know there’s an effect – the baby is 9 months old but the extra weight hasn’t come off as I expected it to (and no dietary improvements have shifted this).   I’m pretty sure my metabolism isn’t functioning well due to my adrenals being exhausted and my cortisol level being out of whack (which changes the insulin response of the body), both directly related to  sleeping too little.  And I haven’t wanted to look at this because it means making changes in my schedule that are hard for me to make (like going to sleep really early) and doing less than I want to do.  But you know that little voice of intuition inside?  That’s what it’s telling me.

I have plenty of things I need to do every day, but I’m going to be cutting down or cutting out some things entirely.  And because I know I can psych myself out by feeling like all my little improvements aren’t going to make enough of a difference to be worthwhile, I’m consciously crediting myself for small changes – like going to sleep earlier and taking a walk around the block once a day to get some fresh air.  I’m also being careful to be aware of and limit my time online.   So though I don’t plan to significantly cut down on blogging, if you see I’m not posting my usual 5 – 6 posts a week, you’ll know why!

Avivah

Comments

16 responses to “Needing time for self”

  1. yael Avatar
    yael

    Amen, sister! Can I join in that pact with you (even though I don’t have as many as you, bli ayin hara)?

    Reply
  2. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I was inspired by the thought of crediting oneself by the little things that can help like a walk around the block and going to bed earlier. These are things the Yetzer Hara would lead us to believe are a waste of time. Thanks for the great post!

    Reply
  3. mindy Avatar
    mindy

    Case in point: There has been no cheder since thursday. Friday was a snowstorm, shabbos, purim, shushan purim, and I couldnt wait to get back to normal today and – wham bam, 4 1/2 yr old woke up with fever this morning. I’m not freaking out, but my schedule is severely disturbed. I have a lot of pesach cleaning to do, and he is running amok in the house destroying things and going out of his mind with a need for structure and companionship. I feel really sorry for him. I’ll have to take him to the doctor, which interrupts my day again. Tomorrow I do my weekly grocery shopping, and I can’t do it with 2 kids. He’ll ahve to go to cheder tomorrow, no matter what, IYH.

    It’s something I can’t fathom. I can’t do my housework or errands when I have to keep occupying my 4 1/2 year old. He would go LOONY to be home every day. he THRIVES on his friends, his rebbes, his structure. Not to mention all the things he’s learning in cheder, which I can’t teach him.

    It’s diff strokes for diff folks, definitely, but the more I see your pics and the more I see my life the more I just can’t get over it.

    Reply
  4. LN Avatar
    LN

    I think part of it is the attitude if you can or you can’t do it.
    Avivah here has the attitude that she CAN do it, and she probably has well past mastered the art of shopping with 2 kids, as she goes with many more than that 😉
    Mindy, you on the other hand, are still learning how to manage what works for you smoothly so it seems impossible to you.
    There is a learning curve that is constantly changing in parenting, and Avivah has successfully figured out the right balance of what she is capable of even if that hasn’t been the right fit for your family dynamics.
    In a way, having 2 children may even be harder for some things than having more as you can’t redistribute some of the load as much as Avivah can. I am not saying having 9 kids is easier. It’s just different!
    It’s hard to imagine how someone else does it, but you have to take into account so many variables affect how individual lives work.

    I had the zechus of sitting next to my rebbetzin by megillah laining this year, and I was shmoozing with her before laining started.
    She was telling me how when her children were younger, they were all in bed by X time, no one ever really got out of bed in the evening after bedtime, and her husband managed to learn at home when she left for work then. Now, with older children, it makes it harder for the younger children to wind down and they are out of bed more often these days than when she had a “younger” family. She said it’s not better or worse. It’s just different.
    Responsibilities have changed; dynamics of family life have changed.
    And personality also differs from family to family.

    But I think the first step to being happy is to try to free one’s self from negative self-fulfilling prophecies of how we can’t manage. If it’s not a choice when we are faced with a situation, change the thought from “This is impossible” to “Ok, this is what I am faced with. How will I make it through since I need to do so either way?”

    When I was stuck at home in the snow with 3 children 4.5 and under and we had no where to go and were confined in our small apartment, I had to come up with things to keep us all sane. It wasn’t easy and at the end of the day, yes, I was pooped, but I didn’t have a choice and we managed.
    We baked away (homemade rolls, falafel balls, hamentashen, granola bars, etc) and broke one spoon and one cup in the process, but we had a good time and it was all quality time.
    My 4.5 year old took at least an hour long bath as an activity which also rewarded me with some free space to breathe.
    Sometimes I feel like the energy I use for taking care of my children is not just running around tending to all their needs but mental energy to avoid getting into bad situations and always being one step ahead of them. That is what exhausts me and I need a breather from the most but without using that, I would be even more irritable because I would then have to react to situations that I wouldn’t have wanted to occur in the first place. Being proactive and avoiding those fights, boredom tantrums, etc is what keeps me sane.

    Reply
  5. Miriam P Avatar
    Miriam P

    Mindy, you explained the difference yourself — “but my schedule is severely disturbed.”

    Aviva’s schedule includes having her kids home. Yours doesn’t.

    My 4 1/2 year old and 2 3/4 yr old children are home with me full time. They’ve been worked into my schedule, they have each other to keep them busy, and they play very nicely together.

    The other 6 of my children (yes, I also have a whole bunch) are in school most of the day, and when any one of them is sick, it throws off my schedule and my day/week, because I’ve planned around them being in school.

    I have all 8 (soon to be 9) home every summer, though, (we don’t do camp) and we actually don’t drive each other crazy, plus the big kids happily amuse their younger siblings and help me around the house, etc. Is that 4 1/2 year old your oldest? It will make a huge difference when you also have a “big kid” to help rather than hinder you.

    As fro grocery shopping, I don’t usually do the shopping — in our house that’s my husband’s job, and he goes sans kids, but when I do need to go, I usually have at least 2 kids with me (the ones home all day) OR I wait until my big kids are home and leave them babysitting, and then perhaps take a middle kid or two with me as a special treat, or even the littles and a big kid, so that I can concentrate on shopping and the big kid can help keep the littles in line. When I do (rarely) take all of them, I assign partners so that each little kid is more or less taken care of and I can find what we need.

    Having 2 kids with me at the store doesn’t faze me, because that’s normal (or even traveling light) for me. It isn’t normal for you, so for you, it’s hard.

    It’s the same as people who don’t keep Kosher just shaking their heads in disbelief that I can keep all the laws straight, and sighing that it would “just be too hard” for them. But it really isn’t so hard for me.

    Reply
    1. mindy Avatar
      mindy

      Check below what I answered Aviva, it applies to you too.
      The only other comment I’d like to make that it would be vastly unfair for my husband to do the grocery shopping; he is out of the house from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm every day, and my job as the homemaker is to keep the home running which includes doing all the shopping. Plus I would really go out of my mind without going on a few errands twice a week!
      (He does small emergency shopping on the way home from work if I forget something, but the big grocery/butcher orders I do myself, since I know what we need for the week’s menus, and it’s not fair to saddle him with another thing to do, as if he isnt busy enough bringing home the dough!)

      Reply
      1. Avivah Avatar
        Avivah

        Mindy, Miriam was sharing strategies for taking kids shopping, not telling you to send your husband to the store! It sounds like doing errands is something you enjoy, too.

        Reply
  6. Orthonomics Avatar
    Orthonomics

    Mindy-I don’t want to be intrusive, but it sounds like you have two issues: 1. when your are home they aren’t part of your home life and 2. destructive behavior.

    Regarding #1, if you want to be able to “not go crazy” you need practice. I have at least one kid home with me all day, so I have a good deal of practice and I’ve learned to integrate our schedules and read their signs. E.g., I have a daughter who takes a good deal of quite time, so when I see her settling into quite time, I will grab some work to do for clients or tackle a big project. But unlike another kid, she doesn’t like shopping at all, so I started making less trips out when she is with me. I try to set up the house in a way that works for them. But I’d be clueless about any of this if they weren’t with me regularly.

    Re: destructive behavior. I know this is uninvited, but best to come down hard on destructive behavior because kids need to know their limits and need to know you are in charge. The longer you wait to make this known, the harder things will get.

    Reply
  7. Avivah Avatar
    Avivah

    What well-thought out and helpful comments!

    Mindy, thank you for your honesty. I think sometimes a mother can get so busy with the things that she needs to accomplish that she loses sight of why she needs to accomplish them. When you focus on the cleaning and shopping you need to do and feel like your child is an intrusion and gets in the way of doing what you need to do, it sends a negative message about how you view him whether that’s your intent or not. The problem starts in our mind when we feel that we need to do more than we need to be.

    Relationships are at the heart of the home, and fortunately you don’t have to compromise having a smoothly running home and spending time with your child. I recommend getting your child involved in what you’re doing – you get the things done you need to do, you build the relationship, and your child goes away from the interaction with a stronger sense of esteem. Win-win all the way around. It’s true that working with your child seems to slow you down, but when you take into account the time you have to stop what you’re doing to deal with damage control, you’re really not less efficient at all. Plus, your child is involved with you, and learning skills that will be helpful later on. Doing this requires a change in mindset but can be very enjoyable.

    The only thing in the comments above that I slightly disagree with is that when you have older kids it will be better. A larger family and older kids present their own challenges, and I don’t think it can be assumed that they’ll be helpful and enjoyable to have around without teaching them that (and the teaching that starts right now!). You’ll just have that many more people who are vying for your time and attention, bigger meals to cook, bigger messes to clean up, and without them being taught to be helpful and pleasant, I can pretty much guarantee that a bigger family with older kids will be a lot more stressful.

    As far as shopping with kids, I had no choice but to take my six oldest kids (ages infant through 9) with me everywhere I went until about three years ago, when my oldest was legally old enough to be left in charge. Kids can be taught to behave well in the store and believe it or not, stores can be enjoyable outings for everyone! (Not on erev Shabbos, though – way too many stressed out shoppers around.) It’s nice that now I’m at the stage that I usually have a choice whether the kids come along or not, but errands don’t have to be hairy just because a child or two are along with you.

    Reply
    1. mindy Avatar
      mindy

      My 4 1/2 yr old can only help me do certain things. Yes, we cleaned soem toys together yesterday. Yes, he helps me unpack the grocery order. But yesterday we did heavy duty cleaning – the bedroom for pesach. (my cleaning lady comes once a week from now til pesach to help with heavy stuff). I had to keep him occupied somewhere else in the house, which usually involves story tapes, which he loves, but when he’s done listtening to a tape for an hour, he is wild. He cant exercise his energies cooped up in a house like he can when he is among 20 kids his age.

      It’s okay; every child and every mother is different. My son would not be able to survive staying home every single day of the year. He needs companionship.

      Having him be older wouldnt help him, he would still need companionship. And I would have even fewer ways to occupy him. A 9 yr old doesnt enjoy a story tape anymore. And a 9 yr old boy would rather roughhouse with his friends in the schoolyard than peel potatoes.

      It’s fine, I’m not going to comment anymore on ‘how you do it with a family at home’ because i’ve totally come to the realization that it wouldn’t work for me or my kids, we just don’t have the same lifestyle set up – I live on a small, top floor apartment, I don’t drive a car, I don’t have a yard for them to play in, etc. Even in the summer, when we go to the countryside for the summer, he goes to five hours of daycamp a day, because there are only so many hours he can free-play with crayons, play dough, bubbles, trikes etc., without a structured setting and discipline, which I’m very bad at.

      Reply
      1. Avivah Avatar
        Avivah

        Mindy, you’re totally right that everyone’s life is different. Are you happy? Does your home run the way you want it to? Do you have the relationship with your children that you want to have? If so, then that’s what really matters. Maybe you can share with us your strategies for achieving that – being a mother takes a lot of effort, and we could all benefit from your experience.

        No one here is judging; many people do actually live in very similar situations to yourself and were trying to share what has been helpful for them.

        Reply
  8. Miriam P Avatar
    Miriam P

    Having older kids has been very freeing for me!

    BUT, I guess since I have always had several (up to 4 under school age) at home all day with me at once, I have trained them to be helpful from a young age and they naturally grew into being helpful tweens. (Not that they never fight or throw temper tantrums — they are still children, of course.)

    Most of mine did not start school until age 5. The oldest started at 4 because he seemed to need more structure than I was providing — and I already had 3 younger children at that point. Until then, since he needed to get out of the house more, we (all) got out of the house more. My schedule was built around what he needed, and what the other children needed, not what I needed.

    I second Aviva’s advice about involving your son in household tasks when he is home (and not sick). I’ve made up work for a two year old such as flipping the mushrooms I’m about to slice, and letting them dump in the contents of the measuring cups when I’m baking. They can run and put away their own laundry, help sort the dirty laundry… 4 1/2 is certainly not too young for chores done with Mama. Even if it makes things take longer, it will be good for him to see himself as helpful, and more likely that he’ll grow into a helpful big kid.

    Reply
    1. Avivah Avatar
      Avivah

      I agree that kids who have been taught to be helpful are a big help once they’re older! But I’ve also spoken to a number of people who haven’t done that and it looks a lot less pleasant down the road, which is why I made the comment I did. Too many people say that having older kids will make it better, without qualifying the statement and saying ‘if you raise them to be helpful while they are young’.

      Reply
  9. mindy Avatar
    mindy

    actually I’m very unhappy with theh way I run my home and with my relationship with my kids, but that’s a conversation I need to have with a therapist or life coach, not with your blog :D.

    Reply
    1. Avivah Avatar
      Avivah

      Hugs, Mindy. Sorry I haven’t been able to be of any help.

      Reply
  10. mindy Avatar
    mindy

    You HAVE been helpful! My issues with housekeeping and parenting stem from ADD, low self esteem, and internet addiction :). Nothing to do with you.

    Reply

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