Sunday, the Lords Day, the end of the weekend, the beginning of the week, rest day, sports day, family day, whatever you call it in this house it always ends up being laundry day 🙁 . Try as I might I just can’t seem to not do laundry on a Sunday. Sure I do it other days of the week but so much is generated in this house of 4 people that the baskets are overflowing again by Sunday morning. Now this upsets the King no end. We live in an apartment where there’s no separate laundry room or basement to hide away and do ‘women’s work’ and he doesn’t want to hear the washer and dryer going all day. Laundry piles all over the furniture don’t sit well either.
The weekend is supposed to be for relaxing but all you mums out there know that its just another day and the kids still need you to do stuff and breakfasts, lunches and dinners still need to be made and preparations for the work week often happen on sundays. I’ve tried to wash the kids school clothes on friday afternoons but something always comes up and saturday is a sleep in day because by saturday all those 6:30am’s have taken their toll. There are family activities to do and the laundry gets forgotten. So it comes to sunday to get all those uniforms and sports gear and after school activities uniforms ready for the week ahead.
So how can we schedule our lives so we do have sunday off? How do working mums manage to balance time off and household chores and spending time with the family? It’s a dilemma for millions of women. How did life get so busy that there isn’t one day where we can sit and rest.
I think as women we have so much to deal with, especially those who work outside the home. It can be a very difficult balance trying to keep it all going smoothly and because we try so hard to be good mothers and good wives or partners, the person who ends up being last on the list is us. I was a working mum when Grand master D and Miss Gremlin were little and I had great difficulty keeping it all going. I was diagnosed with post partum depression and really needed to slow down. I ended up having to stop working and chose to focus on my children and my family and needed to get well. I was lucky I suppose because we could afford for me to do that. Many women don’t have a choice and of course, some women prefer to work, finding it difficult to be home all day. No one thing is right or wrong and it should be a personal decision that works for you and your family but we should not forget to have some ‘be kind to me time’. If we don’t keep ourselves healthy and well both physically and emotionally we can’t be the best women we can be.
No more sunday laundry for me!
With National Women’s Health week coming up May 13-19 (USA) I resolve to take my weekends back and relax more.
Comments 1
Let me start by saying that I admire any woman who has made the choice to have more than one child. I think that if I had a) been younger and not so into doing what I wanted to do b) found the “right guy” (if there is such a thing) c) been around people/friends/family where there were children, I might have had more than one child. As it stands now, I couldn’t think of my world without my girl Lucy! And, she makes up for all those children I didn’t have. I am definetly raising a child that is, independant, spirited, hilaciously funny (most of the time) and loving. I must mention, in relation to the recent blog, that not only do I have a 4 year old to contend with , I also live with a 40 year old that hasn’t progressed past the age of 16! So when it comes to doing household chores (the main one’s occurring on a Sunday when were all at home together) and setting the house to rights, I’m battling against 2 independant spirits, one who doesn’t know any better (yet) and one who should! The plan of attack at the moment is to convince the 4 year old that she can help Mama with things like, putting her own washing in the washing machine and I can show her (whilst supervising of course) how to turn it on (it’s working so far ‘cos she likes the pretty lights!) washing the dishes, that way she can play in the bubbly water. Putting clothes/toys/books away means she can earn a little pocket money to by the doll of the moment (Barbie) Now to convince the 40 year old . Sunday’s a day of rest? To old school now!