Adapted from an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: Are parents with little kids bound to be exhausted while still doing the bare minimum all the time? My kids are 3.5 and 1, and my husband and I both work full time. We have a reasonable amount of child care and paid help (no family nearby), and we keep up on the day-to-day chores, but I still feel as if there isn’t time beyond that, so I’m always playing catch-up.
My husband insists that this is how it is with little kids. His work hours vary week to week, whereas mine are stable, so while he does his share on his light weeks, I cover a bit on his heavy weeks, and he also needs time to rest. And I’m the one who cares about the clutter piling up, such as outgrown kid clothes and toys to sort and donate, but also our things that we boxed when we moved and now mostly need to go.
We have another scheduled move next year, and I want to have cleared out as much as we can by then, but I just can’t find any motivation at the end of a long day. Do I just need to wait until my kids grow up a bit?
— Exhausted Parents of Littles
Exhausted Parents of Littles: I’ve said before, if every co-parent feels as if they alone are doing 100 percent of the work, then that sounds about right.
I found life with little kids to be flat-out exhausting. Not everyone has that experience, but I think those who do can claim to be perfectly normal.
I have also found that tasks I can’t face but can’t put off forever become (more) doable when broken into short, daily, scheduled intervals. For example, 15 minutes a day toward decluttering, with two days off per week for good behavior.
READERS’ thoughts:
• The one thing that struck me in your note was “I’m the one who cares about” the sorting, the donating, etc. Although that may be true, it doesn’t make it less of a HOUSEHOLD task. So, unless your husband is taking on some similar task, this is not necessarily a problem that will go away once the kids are older. What helped with my family was making a list of ALL the tasks, based on how often they need to be done and how much work they are. Then we split them up.
• Does he give YOU time to yourself to rest during his “normal” weeks? Please schedule some personal time to recharge yourself. It will get better, but in the meantime, you need some self-care. Don’t be a complete martyr.
• Make an appointment with your doctor for a full checkup. Get your thyroid checked. Make sure your doctor runs a full panel and not just the TSH. Get your ferritin levels checked, too. Being low in iron can affect energy levels, as well as having low B12 levels. Get all that checked out.
• You’re not crazy; the tiredness is real. When I was in that point of life, I would set a timer for 15 minutes or whatever, do as much cleaning — table clearing, Goodwill boxing, snack preparing — as possible, and try to be done with it. That way it didn’t feel like one more thing to do that would stretch on forever. It does get better.
• Do what you can, then move into acceptance mode. It gets easier in some ways, harder in others as the years go by. One thing you can be sure of is that things will change.
