I give up on the work-life juggle

There is no such thing as the perfect balance.

Most of the time, the mix of work and family is one big cacophonous jumble. Children don’t time their sicknesses so they coincide with the weekend. They wake me up at 3am (bed-wetting incidents, night terrors etc) when I have an important meeting in the morning and need to be at my mental best.

The best way to describe the mix of work and family is the Channel 4 ident (to non-UK readers, this is a TV station in the UK). Most of the time it is chaotic, messy or plain boring, and then for just a nanosecond, everything is perfectly aligned.

When work-life is noisy and there is a lot going on

When work-life is a little bit repetitive and monotonous

When work-life feels grim

When work-life is moving so fast it’s difficult to spot the ‘4’

If you liked this, I have more working parent -related stories over on my blog. It’s called The Daily Mum — come visit!