Being Indefinitely Time Poor {Always Somewhere to Be}

The term “time poor” popped up in a post on my Facebook feed one night when I was aimlessly scrolling and nothing has ever so accurately described motherhood for me before. Raising three kids, married, and with a job outside of the home, it seems there is never any extra time, much less enough time, to get anything done. I’ve also heard the advice that it’s not hard to raise kids or to keep a job, but doing both is nearly impossible.

I feel this, as my time is so stretched and it’s affecting me.

I am a busy body by nature, and I have often been reminded that I can work, I can be a mom, but trying to do both at the same time is just not going to go well. Well, nothing is truer than that. This notion of being time poor means that when I am at work, I am often rushing to get things done, running to the printer quickly for one last thing before I have to jet off to be home in time for the bus to arrive. It means that I have to jump out of a meeting to hop on Zoom for a teacher conference, distracting me from my work. And despite having meetings I need to be at or development opportunities available, I have to turn things down to be home for my family – making me feel a step behind often.

I know I’m not alone in feeling that working out of the home is a nice idea, but it comes at a cost. So much unfinished business as I am turning up short on the time needed to complete my thoughts, much less the work associated.

At home, when I’m supposed to be focused on the family, the many activities we are involved in leave us time poor, too – impacting dinner times and options, play dates and game nights. Keeping things fair between my kids, but also trying to schedule it so there’s only one place to be each day means we have somewhere to be Every. Darn. Day.

My husband works a lot in the evenings, so it’s me against this schedule, leaving me running and moving and out of time always. My kiddos have gotten used to grabbing snacks out the door, bringing a book to a sibling’s practice, class, etc., and being almost patient as I hurry to get dinner on the table before bedtime, which seems to creep up on us all the time. In between all this, I still have work emails popping up, evening sessions I sometimes have to attend via Zoom, and weekend events, too.

When my kiddos were little, I always felt short of time more because I was just so tired and trying to get any amount of sleep I could find. But now that they’re older and we’re trying to fit so much into every day, I can’t help but ask – this slows down, right?

I wish I could know what it feels like to have time with my kids without the distractions of work and chores and all the places we need to be. This balancing act is getting out of control and I am tired of feeling so time poor.