I am aware that there are some critics out there who think that Andy and I are kind of loosey-goosey parents. Some think we don’t have enough rules or enough structure or discipline in our family. I’ve always felt really bad about this because, from one perspective, I can sort of see what they are talking about. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty about being a shitty parent. My thoughts before passing out each night, exhausted, are about how I could’ve done a better job today and that I really hope I can do a better job the next day. Tomorrow is a new day to make rules and implement them, right?
But I finally figured out what the missing link is for me and Andy and why we just can’t be the structured, rigid, disciplinarians that we “aspire“ to be. The other day I was picking up the kids. When we were driving home, my mind was racing with about 50 different things I needed to do at home and at work. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really present in the moment with the kids even though I had asked them how their day was. I tuned back into the conversation when Charlotte told me but she felt bad that she was one of the only kids in her class who didn’t go to church and she wondered why I didn’t believe in Jesus. In my head, I pushed all the other thoughts away and instantly thought, shit, shit, shit!
I thought I had a plan. I once had a big picture plan for how I was going to instill values about spirituality and faith with my children. But somewhere along the way the plan fell apart and I didn’t implement anything I wanted to do. So here I was on a snowy Monday night thinking about what to make for dinner and I didn’t have a good answer to give my kid.This exchange with Charlotte made me realize what the missing link is for us as parents.
Andy and I are strategic thinkers. Strategy, future planning, and innovation are professional spaces in which we thrive. Neither of us is in our flow when we are in the weeds dealing with particulars and details. Andy struggles with follow-through, especially at home. He’s got many projects that he started and he hasn’t completed. I am more organized so follow through and implementation are more comfortable to me but it is definitely not a place where I get my energy.
I realized I wanted to lead a team of people when I was given the opportunity at work several years ago. On an interim basis, I became the director of my office and, while it was daunting, it was when my wings finally opened and I started to fly. I had all sorts of ideas for how we could change and grow, as a team yet, at first, I didn’t know exactly how to organize it. It was Andy who helped me develop a template to then craft a strategic plan for my office. It’s that methodology that has carried with me for many years now.
It is Andy‘s job to help synthesize information and then support people in producing a plan of action moving forward. He is not necessarily, in his day-to-day work, the person who implements those plans. However, I am responsible for implementing the plans that I create but I have a team of people, who are often really good at details, and make our work happen.
It makes total sense to me now. I had all sorts of strategic, big picture plans for parenting. I had plans about instilling feminist beliefs in my daughters. I had innovative ideas for introducing faith and spirituality. I love strategizing about how we can be healthier in our daily lives. I am soaring at 3000 feet thinking about the mission and vision of my family. Where I struggle is how to take it down to a realistic place, on a daily basis. I want us to be healthier but I struggle with how to integrate exercise and healthy eating habits. I want the girls to explore spirituality and faith but I also can’t figure out how to fit it into our lives when I’d rather clean the house, go for a run, or the grocery store on a Sunday morning. I can bookmark 1 million Pinterest pages with ideas for how the kids can organize their rooms, their book bags, and their craft areas. But when I get home from a 10 hour day in the office, and my head is pounding and I peek into their rooms and it looks like dump site, I just don’t have the energy to sit my kids down and review the checklist that we made about what their chores and duties are each day. I just don’t have the capacity to remind them that their book bags go in the book bag bin and their shoes go in the shoe cubbies, and their coat should be hung up on the coat rack. I don't want to make the cauliflower-based meal I'd originally planned. When the girls start spatting, I crawl into my mom cave to wait out the chaos.
Listen, all of you detail-oriented, implementing-type parents, I want to do what you do. I want to be able to drop everything, clean up the situation and then make a scrumptious meal while listening to my kids tell me about their days and after, support them with their math homework. It just isn’t in my hard wiring.
They say that a leader is only as good as the people on their team. I have been so fortunate, in my professional life, to lead teams who take action. Everyone plays a role in taking an idea from theory to reality. Right now, my home team is not a well-oiled machine. My team does not include implementers. I also know, from professional experience, that the leader can’t be successful if no one else on the team wants to support the implementation. My model with my kids of late is: you do you and I’ll do me. I can't be the leader and the team at the same time.
I have learned, as a working mom, that there’s no such thing as work/life balance and often our home lives intersect with our work and our work intersects with our home life. I am surprised I didn’t see this connection before. It seems like I need to pull out some of my literature on managing teams and start applying it in the home not just in the office.
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