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I've always expected my juggle to get easier as my children have grown more independent, and it has. But I still have plenty to learn about keeping my life on an even keel, as I realized this month.
Nothing in recent years has compared to the white noise of my early years as a working mom the nonstop fatigue of juggling work, parenting small children, marriage, housework and extended family. During my second pregnancy, I was so exhausted some days on my commute to my downtown Chicago office that I once told my husband, only half-joking, that I could easily have lain down in the middle of that city's Wacker Drive, a major thoroughfare, and taken a nap between the lanes of speeding traffic.
While I find parenting older kids less tiring, I'm learning that it requires more advance planning. Cruising along last March and April, I was focused almost entirely on work, and our family life was going well. My son was finishing high school, and I was looking forward to my daughter's return from college for the summer.
Then a quick succession of happy but time-consuming events knocked me off course. My daughter arrived home for a few weeks' vacation before starting summer school and her summer job. The rare pleasure of having her around the house, starting interesting conversations and projects and inviting me to join her in marathon TV-watching sessions of 'Six Feet Under,' her latest find, gave me some good excuses to neglect work deadlines.
Then came my son's graduation, bringing on a celebratory party, visits from out-of-town relatives, a marathon midweek graduation ceremon y and a string of other parties and open houses to attend. He immediately trained for and started a lifeguard job, then enrolled in an independent-study college course, requiring some parental help with unfamiliar details.
All the while, deadlines at work were crashing in on me like sneaker waves at the beach those surging tides that submerge unwary tourists without warning. I soon found myself almost as tired as when my children were small. By last week, my editor was gently suggesting that I need a vacation. Looking back, I realize it would have been better to plan ahead for the family demands and ask ahead for a week of vacation to meet them.
While the demands of the preschool years were far harder, the waxing and waning of teen' needs impose challenges of their own. Elder care, I'm told, is even harder; while I could have planned ahead for my family activities which were essentially happy events — elder caregivers' crises tend to erupt without notice, give rise to sadness and impose all-consuming demands.
We've written before about whether people become better at balancing work and family as they grow more experienced. But how has your juggle changed as your children grow older, or as other family demands evolve? Is it easier in any ways? Or more difficult? 2009-07-23
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