In my house, I’m the glue that holds the family together. I do not mean this in a prideful way because I would love to give someone else this title, at times, just so I can breathe.
I have to remember, I am used to this role. I’m built for this role with almost all of my working career being in a management role, but some days I want to scream.
After my 12-year stint in management in radio, I went back to work the newsroom briefly, taking on the role of an assignments manager. This manager is the brain of a newsroom and gets pulled in many directions, daily. Assignment editors work in a newspaper office, or radio and TV station, where they develop, select and assign news stories to journalists, photographers, and reporters. As an assignment editor, you monitor the activities in a newsroom, manage news crews, and make sure all areas of production are covered. After working this job for a few months, I stepped away to help my husband open up our family business.
What I did not realize is that from the time my first son was born until when my oldest son failed Kindergarten, I was not always the best version of myself. I went in too many directions, worked too many jobs, and spread myself way too thin.
Yes, it takes a village to raise a family, but it also takes Mom not falling apart.
When my oldest was failing Kindergarten this year, that’s when I realized that as a mom, I cannot afford to fall apart. I am the glue that is holding the family together. Before kids, I worked multiple jobs, running on caffeine and having no sleep. After having children, I tried to keep doing the same until I fell apart… until the family fell apart. In our household, I am Mrs. Fix-It, the cook, the housecleaner, the scheduler, the bill payer, the dog walker, the medicine giver, and more. If I’m not repairing a sink, I’m scheduling an appointment for the boys, drinking a cup of coffee, all while I’m unloading a dishwasher. I was trying to do all of that, daily, while working full-time and working multiple freelance jobs. Of course, I would fall apart.
It took tough love from a good friend of mine to talk sense into me. She saw the train derailing before it crashed. I was trying to juggle too much and needed to re-shift my focus on raising my boys first with everything else being secondary.
Mom, in some households, is the glue that holds the family together. It is okay for mom to slow down, and say “no” to things not important to take care of the family.
