The secret to having more good days as a new parent
“Welcome to motherhood, where you rarely get to do the things you actually excel at. We’re all beginners here. We might as well embrace it.”
"C's mom is really smart. She’s a nurse. She helps sick people get better." My first grader was telling her grandmother about the neighbours as they walked home from school.
My mom agreed, "That is an important job. She really helps people." Always competitive, she added, "Your mom is really smart, too. What's your mom good at?"
My little girl thought for a minute.
Then, "Face painting,” she said. “Mom's good at face painting.”
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
Remember what it was like to do things you were actually good at?
Now, I have some skills. I have a couple engineering degrees, athletic and leadership awards to prove it. I can explain physics and math concepts. But face painting??! My skills are absolutely mediocre.
Welcome to motherhood, where you rarely get to do the things you actually excel at.
You spend your days questioning your competence because you’re new at this. New skills. New tasks. New little people who you only met a few months or years ago. Your team is demanding, unreliable, and oh so messy!
We’re all beginners here. We might as well embrace it. Adopting a beginner’s mindset allows us to
Acknowledge we are learning instead of expecting ourselves to already have all the answers.
Be curious instead of critical, more often.
Extend grace to ourselves and to our family.
What does a good day even look like for a new parent?
Remember when a good day meant you impressed a client, met a deadline, closed a deal? These days, it’s a good day if you get a shower? It’s a tad discouraging, isn’t it?
I know! People assure you that what really matters is that your child is alive and fed and healthy. It doesn’t matter if the house is a disaster and your hair hasn’t been brushed in days. And they’re not wrong.
That reasoning works in a crisis—when a child is sick or you’re sick.
But you still feel like crap.
When barely surviving feels like a reasonable goal? And you can’t see that changing anytime soon? When brushing your hair is a luxury?
Most of us wouldn’t call those days good ones.
How we decide if it's a good day
We tend to think having a good day means getting a lot done. Being prompt. Competent. Impressive.
I’ve noticed, when Jamie comes home at the end of the day and asks, “How was your day?” my first response is to start listing what we did.
Get a lot accomplished = good day.
No check marks on the to-do list = bad day.
I’m not alone. Advice on how to be successful focuses tends to focus on goals and measuring progress. We know at some level that “[t]he way you measure success in your personal and professional life can be different”(Indeed Career advice). Yet, we still let the number of check marks on a to-do list tell us how our day has been.
Has our day been good? Successful? Useful? Worse, have we?
“Being productive—getting a lot of stuff done—is not a touchdown. It’s not how you win the game. It’s just one play in the playbook. It’s one way to move toward your goals.”
Don’t ignore your added load
Suppose you ran 5 miles every day. You’ve been doing this for awhile now and it takes you between 45-48 minutes most days. Now, suppose today you go out for your usual run with a 50-lb pack on your back.
Would you expect to keep the same pace? Of course not!
When we ignore the mental and emotional load of parenting, we expect ourselves to keep our old pace. To accomplish just as many tasks as we could before we had kids.
No wonder we’re exhausted!
No one sets a personal best when they're carrying an extra 50-lbs! Neither will you.
What productivity hacks get wrong
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are places where efficient systems can serve us really well - in the kitchen and laundry room, for instance. But, the goal of parenting is never for Mom and Dad to become so super productive that they can do ALL the things.
That’s what productivity hacks get wrong. Parenting isn’t about Mom learning to juggle even more than she already is! It’s about guiding and teaching and helping children grow in independence and competence, by letting them do more—not less—for themselves.
We need to learn to let our kids pitch in. We need the help and they need the practice. We won’t be washing their laundry forever.
“No one sets a personal best when they’re carrying an extra 50-lbs! Neither will you.”
What makes a good day when you simply can't get much done
In a goal-oriented professional setting, we expect to complete tasks. We present findings and submit reports. We get things done. But life with little people comes with a very different job description.
Letting what we got done—or failed to get done—determine whether our day was successful will leave us discouraged and frustrated. That metric simply doesn’t fit this season of our lives! Here’s why:
Your most critical tasks are never done. You change a poopy bum and voilá, the diaper is full again! You feed a hungry child, and by the time you’ve cleaned up, they’re hungry again. Same goes for laundry, naps, and house cleaning.
Children move s-s-s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y. Also, they are very easily distracted. I’ve noticed kindergarten teachers spend a solid six weeks focusing on teaching routines. You will become more efficient at the baby things—loading car seats, packing snacks and diaper bags—but as soon as your little one starts “helping”? Doing any task efficiently is a long way off.
Getting things done is not the point. This is a not a project that you can write up and submit and be done with it. Parenting is a long game. Remember that when the progress of one day seems dismally small!
Time for some new definitions
good adjective
ɡʊd/
1 of high quality or an acceptable standard
2 pleasant; that you enjoy or want
What if we stopped using our to-do lists as an assessment tool to determine how our day is going. (Or worse, how we are doing!?) What if there are other things that mattered more than accomplishing tasks on the to-do list? Time consuming things like nurturing and calming, resting, healing, moving your body, and getting outside?
We need to step back. Think differently. Ask what matters. If we are doing the thing that matters, then we can have a good day even when we don't see a lot of progress.
productivity noun
/ˌprɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/
the rate at which a worker, a company or a country produces goods, and the amount produced, compared with how much time, work and money is needed to produce them
What if the definition of productivity that we’re used to just doesn’t fit this season of our lives? As parents, we are not trying to pump out goods as quickly as possible.
You see, being productive is just one tool. It’s never the end goal. If parenting were a sport, being productive would not be the goal.
Being productive—getting a lot of stuff done—is not a touchdown. It’s not how you win the game. It’s just one play in the playbook. It’s one way to move toward your goals. It’s not the only way. And sometimes it’s not even the best way.
How to feel better about your day
The time you spend at home with a young child looks and feels totally different than a day at the office. (Obvious, much?) So, don’t assess whether is day is going well in the same way you would if you were at the office!
Next time you’re feeling like you haven’t gotten enough done, remember:
You’re new at this. You will get faster with practice.
Getting things done faster isn’t the long term goal. Take a minute to remember—or articulate for the first time—what are your long term parenting goals. What do you want your relationships and your children to be ten, twenty years from now?
You’re carrying a lot of mental and emotional load and those take a toll. You can’t keep the same pace as you did without the 50-lb pack—or child—on your back.
Productivity isn’t the goal. Feeling productive feels good, but it’s just one tool in your toolbox. Sometimes it the right tool for the job. Sometimes just stopping to listen or cuddle is a better choice in the moment.
May you have more days that you feel good about—even if your kids only care that you paint their faces when they ask.
Do you feel pressured to always be getting things done?
Are you torn between wanting to spend time with your kids, but also wanting to complete tasks? Keep reading to learn a smarter way to tackle your to-do list.