Reframing My Experience of Time as a Working Mother

When I started working from home (and around the same time I became a mother), I thought a lot of my problems could be solved through “time management.”

And I’m not alone. Oliver Burkeman has written an entire book (called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals) about this cultural misunderstanding of time.

That’s kind of what I learned in school, too: employers want you to go to college to demonstrate that you can handle a massive number of tasks with limited time. (Ironically, or not, I did not learn this in college; instead I learned how to sacrifice FUN for WORK.)

Maybe, though, the solution is less about how I “manage” time and more about how I experience it.

This year especially, as we’ve transitioned the kids to learning from home (and in combination with changes to my work-from-home business), I’ve noticed this sense of “never-enoughness” with my time:

I didn’t spend enough conscious time with the kids.

I didn’t have enough time for myself.

I didn’t get enough time for the work I wanted to do.

And when will I make enough time for my partner?

Spend enough. Have enough. Get enough. Make enough.

Is this all about scarcity of time? Is this all about how time becomes currency? And, is it possible to reframe my experience of time?

Because cultural understandings of time will take awhile to change. But I can invite change within my own experience right now.

What happens when I consider that -

• early morning chores don’t require me to quickly rush through; maybe it’s an opportunity to work (slowly) together with my kids
• washing dishes after every meal isn’t a waste of my energy; maybe it’s an opportunity to let my mind wander for awhile
• helping my youngest put on her winter gear several times an hour isn’t (only) time-consuming; maybe it’s, for some reason, the opening she needs to share with me her most thoughtful thoughts

The learned-feminist in me questions (1) why I’ve chosen these examples, all stereotypically the work of the “traditional” woman or mother, and (2) why I should have to reframe these experiences at all.

Have I devalued these moments of my day because they’re mundane? Or have I devalued these moments (and myself) because that’s what I’ve learned through cultural-conditioning?

(Probably both.)

And sure, sometimes I will hate these tasks and despise the number of responsibilities I hold as a mother — despite my attempt to reframe any of it. But I don’t think it’s possible (or even necessary) to examine and reframe every moment of my day, always.

It’s this contrast between the frustrated mundane and the sacred mundane that happens within my lived experience that illuminates what really matters.

(In this case, my presence within the experience.)

This week, partly because I’ve pulled apart these big questions about how I experience time within everyday life, I’m paying close attention to the little moments — especially the ones that feel “not enough.”

Is it possible that the short-and-sweet conversations before breakfast, when everyone is a little bit groggy and hungry for pancakes, is enough? Is it possible that the conversation-cut-short with my husband, about which New Girl character is the best, is enough? Is it possible that the half-yoga-practice between activities, or the few moments I can enjoy a still-hot cup of coffee, are enough?

I think so. (I hope so.) When the frustrated mundane becomes sacred.

xx, alycia buenger

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