Home business is like a needy child | Mar 04th 2007
by Jacqueline Dooley
Sometimes I love my work. It provides blissful escape to the drudgery of household chores and Disney movies. It is tied to my self worth and is a source of pride. Rarely, my work even seems easy, but those moments are few and far between.
More often than not my business feels like a very needy and high-maintenance third child. It’s difficult and demanding - a source of worry and stress. When work becomes as relentless as parenthood, I’m in trouble.
When that happens, I can get lost in the minutia of day-to-day tasks that force me to work too much, sleep too little and juggle a million things that seem on the brink of crashing down on my head at any moment.
At first, I begin to obsess over little things such as unfolded laundry, messy beds, unreturned phone calls and stacks of bills that need attention. But those little things become monumental - transforming into a nonspecific and ever-present feeling of dread that I’ve forgotten something terribly important, or I’ve made a crucial mistake.
I handle this feeling by multi-tasking, but that only works for so long. I know I’m fighting a losing battle when I find myself helping my 5-year-old with her homework while chatting with a client on the phone and simultaneously checking my e-mail.
It must be what a hamster feels like when it’s running in its little wheel busily moving forward and getting nowhere. But perhaps I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective.
Maybe the hamster is completely content with the experience of running in one place and never getting anywhere. Maybe I can learn from that hamster and just enjoy completing tasks as they come up without ever expecting that I can finish everything. Maybe I should give myself a break.
Ups and downs
I realize these phases of frenzied activity are pretty typical for working parents and that my life is really a combination of extremely busy weeks followed by slower days or - dare I hope - even weeks of down time. Still, that doesn’t make me stop worrying about what balls I’m dropping or who I may let down.
Most working people experience ebbs and flows in their schedules. We get weekends and holidays off. We get to unwind in the evenings and recharge our mental batteries during slow periods at work when we can organize our process and feel energized for what’s coming down the pipeline.
But when you’re a parent, there’s almost no down time at all. And when you’re a working parent, you can forget about down time altogether. I’m lucky if I can even grab a full night’s sleep or finish a meal.
I work twice as hard as a mom as I do as a business owner, but when my business cries out for attention, my kids inevitably begin to protest in ways that tear at my heart. For example, my 2-year-old refuses to leave my side whenever I enter the room and cries inconsolably when it’s time for me to go. My 5-year-old insists I read to her four books in a row - no doubt because it allows her to sit next to me for a long time and focus my full attention on her. But this is working motherhood, and I accept that.
It isn’t always one crazy day after another and I have to admit working late for me means that I don’t get downstairs until 5:30 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m. Still, when you’re stuck in the hamster wheel, it’s hard not to feel like there’s no end in sight.
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This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 3, 2007.