What can a woman do about this dismal state of affairs? If she is a busy mother who has trouble getting her household rolling under any circumstances and who has gone to work outside the home to earn more money for the family, get away from the frustration of the house, succeed, all of the above, there are several things she can do. Remove the rose-colored glasses. Many women never slow down enough to realize what a stressful situation modem women are in. They think they can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and still be a beautiful, sexy lover that evening. The sentiment, “I am woman; I am invincible,” does not work well on the day-to-day housekeeping level. It’s more like, “I am woman; I am exhausted.” Make changes in your favor. Whether you are married or not, employed or not, have kids or not, the truth is that many women, especially Messies, have more to do than they can comfortably cope with. Many are drowning. Be alert to every opportunity for changes that will make your life easier. Then make them, even if it means transferring extra jobs to reluctant family members. Simplify wherever possible. This can be done by setting up a convenient base to work from, which means living as close to job, grocery store, doctors, schools, and piano teachers as possible. I know that the best piano teacher lives far away or the best doctor is worth a very long trip. That is your choice, of course, but except in very unusual circumstances, there are probably good ones closer to you. You might be surprised. It also helps to live where older children Facilities, and stores. (Making the change is painful, but continuing this strung-out way of life is painful also.) Use all the help available. A mother are uncommonly generous about not bothering other people. If the bottled-water man comes to a mother house, she will say, “Just put the bottle there in the living room,” to save him the trouble of carrying it, even if her kitchen is presentable. A Cleanie would have him bring it all the way in—no extra work for her and certainly no water bottle cluttering the living room even for a minute. Mother are always willing to run errands for others but very unwilling to ask others to run errands for them. When this point was raised at a recent M.A. self-help group, a voice piped up, “Do you suppose that’s because mother really have a low opinion of themselves?”“Yes!” came the spontaneous response from everyone in the room.
Consider this. Studies show that the more money a woman makes on her job, the more her husband helps around the house. Notice that it is not how much time she spends at work but how much money she makes. It seems that as her time becomes more valuable at work, it also is seen to be more valuable at home. What does this say about the woman who doesn’t work outside the home and shock absorbers makes no money at all? Does her time of life. have no value at all? Is that why she is asked to do the errands, pick up after
people, and so on? Perhaps she is willing to accept all of the overflow others don’t want to do because she doesn’t place much value on her time either.does, the more the couple fight about it. This adds stress to the relationship between the husband and wife. Obviously, willing help is not always easy to get, although in 15 percent of marriages, there is equality in division of housework, and many husbands do a great deal to adjust and help out the swamped wife. Organize. The problems of overwork apply to most women today, but they apply more directly to mother who have enough trouble juggling a normally stressful life, much less the incredible schedules modern choices have put us into. Organizational techniques are the shock absorbers of life. The ones used in this book can help a whale of a lot to smooth life out to the point where it is a comfortable ride. Use them. A word of caution is in order. Do not use organizational techniques to stack your life full of more activities. The first order of life is simplify. Then organize your life into a meaningful flow. Life should be like a Japanese flower arrangement—a few significant pieces skillfully handled. Instead, we too often choose the English country- full, wild, and random. Finally, the bottom line is this: People today should be very careful of the commitments they a make for themselves and their out families because modern life a deceptively large amount of time and effort to carry out of family goals. Once those goals set, however, every member .” of the family should try—out of love and fairness—to work together toward an enjoyable.