Working Moms: A Work-Life Balance is Possible with the Right Attitude
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I'm not saying this to brag; rather, I am saying it to persuade you that you can be a working mom -- even a single working mom -- and still live.
How? The biggest change you need to make is to your attitude. You have to toss out dusty old myths that hold us back. We're not in the 1950s anymore, homegirls.
Housework Is Not Your Job!
What is the heaviest yoke around our necks that is preventing us from moving forward? Housework.
In the twenty-first century there are still commercials featuring women delightedly dancing around their bathrooms with their new soap-scum products, singing along with animated characters. In real life, we'd call these women deranged.
I am not talking about child care here, only cleaning. There's a world of difference between time with the kids and time doing housework. Your kids will grow up fondly remembering the times you threw a ball with them, played Monopoly with them, and chatted around the dinner table with them. Your oven will not fondly remember any of the times you scoured it. The less time you spend doing housework, the more time you'll have with your kids -- or for yourself, to read, to dream, to strategize, to think.
Housework is a job that, ideally, you are going to farm out. That is more doable than you may think. And if you are so strapped that you can't pay for a little help, then you are going to make sure that everyone in your home who sullies the kitchen and fouls the toilets shares that job equally.
Once they are walking and speaking in sentences ("Mommy, don't!" is a complete sentence), children are old enough to clean up after themselves. If they can expand photos on an iPhone, they can do chores.
For more of Lisa Bloom's empowering "reclaim time to think" tenets, such as "it's okay for your kids to be miserable sometimes," find some actual time in your day to read her actual book. (Or visit www.think.tv for a sampling.)
Lisa Bloom, author of "Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed Down World" (Copyright © 2011), from which the above is excerpted, is an award-winning journalist, legal analyst, trial attorney, mom of two, and the daughter of renowned women's rights attorney Gloria Allred. She is currently the legal analyst for CBS News and for The Dr. Phil Show.
Also see: Family Health: How Your Stress Affects Your Kids