Can one use the word motherhood without some sort of connotation about multitasking? Is that even possible?
If I had the lack of ability to multitask that my husband seems to have, life simply would not function in this house. Which is really insane to be honest because my husband is fully capable of multitasking and juggling several very serious tasks at once while working, he just sort of powers down on his way home. Perhaps its the four children part that gets him overwhelmed? Who am I kidding that’s the part that overwhelms everyone.
Multitasking. I write this while drinking my coffee, breastfeeding and monitoring 1’s handwriting schoolwork. I personally don’t know what it means or how it feels to truly be still. I find ways to multitask for efficiency mostly out of necessity but also sometimes I think I do it because I just can’t be still. I walk into the laundry room to get a plastic bag for pulling weeds outside, but smell the liter so I change that while seeing the laundry I start a load, but the liter is now on the floor so I sweep the floor. . . All the way into the kitchen. This is where I see the pumping supplies soaking in the sink so I wash them, which reminds me to close the lid on the washer and where I find the plastic bag I started with, so I head outside to weed. My husband? He would’ve gotten the plastic bag and went outside.
The difference between the two of us astounds me. To be fair things that drive me nuts don’t seem to bother him. I simply can not walk passed a cluttered room and “leave it for later” it must be cleaned, even if we are running late to get out the door. Where as he absolutely can not function if a baby is crying. If 4 is crying I can guarantee you he is stressed and if one of the other three kids requires attention while 4 is crying, he’s anxious, snippy and frustrated. Where as I am all three of those things if there is clutter everywhere.
I don’t think multitasking is something that is learned. You either have it or you don’t. I’ve watched people learn to be incredibly quick and cycle through tasks efficiently and not need to multitask. But I truly think God gave all moms the ability to multitask. At least for the necessary tasks. I can not, for the life of me, watch a TV show and have a conversation, it’s one or the other. I can’t stand when multiple conversations are happening and I’m supposed to take part in each, I need to be able to invest fully in just one at a time. I also am not great at typing and talking.
But I can nurse a baby and make dinner! I can write a blog post while rocking a little one to sleep. I can teach 1st grade lessons while coloring with my toddler. If ever there came a time I could not multitask, man, the days would be long and the sleep would be even less.
Imagine for a moment motherhood without multitasking. You wake up and sit and drink your coffee. No news watching, no Bible study, no pumping, literally just drinking your coffee. Then you’d pump, or read the news, or whatever. When the kids wake up? You’d make them each breakfast, one at a time from start to finish. (Not possible, my kids come in like a freight train full of starving puppies ready to eat your hand if you leave it too close to their cereal bowl for too long). It would be much more relaxing but given the volume of things a mom does on any given day, there simply wouldn’t be enough time in the day.
I think in effort to slow down, be in the moment and relax a bit I am going to designate some portion of my day as the “no multitasking” time. Maybe I will just drink my coffee and not pump while doing it. Or maybe I’ll rock one child at a time fully enjoying them where they are in life. This of course will come at the expense of the other three losing their minds or quietly destroying the room they are in.
Multitasking is a survival skill of motherhood, and surviving sometimes is thriving. B U T maybe we, as mother’s, need to step back and single task long enough to catch our breath, relax and remember why we embarked on this crazy journey and enjoy the season we are in. I often find myself being a “victim of the urgent” but the urgency is something I put on myself. When we are out for a walk, I snap at my kids to just keep walking, but we are in no hurry to get anywhere I just have a list of things to do circling in my mind. It would do me good to relax and leave multitasking be for a while.
As moms we often compare ourselves to others and feel this need to do more, be more and also sometimes clean more. None of which is necessary. We have enough on our plates and schedules we certainly don’t need to add more. It is okay to stop adding more to our days, it’s okay to not multitask every minute of every day. Sure we C A N but we don’t H A V E to. Yesterday, I was pumping while folding laundry in the center of my living room floor and bouncing 4 in the bouncer seat with my foot. I laughed at the situation because I was doing it to prep for a trip so I could pack that evening but run while the girls ate lunch so I had to pump before I picked 3 up from preK. I was a victim of the urgency and while I was being incredibly efficient I was on the brink or overwhelmed.
Motherhood and stress also go hand in hand. As we add more children, or more kids activities (sports, dance, school what have you) our stress load capacity gradually increase in increments. We find what once would stress us out is now our new norm. I was talking to a friend the other day, she said everyone has a point where the scales tip and they lose their cool. I’m convinced my point is the same now that it was with one child, it’s just that my starting level of stress has changed. What I am comfortable with tolerating daily has increased but the journey from my normal level to my tipping point has dramatically decreased. My max threshold has not changed. We as humans, are only mean to handle so much.
So we multitask to manage the stress that is motherhood. My goal in this season is to say no more often when it comes to added engagements and tasks. I’m going to prioritize time with my kids and family so that I can B E in the moment truly with them instead of multitasking because I have created an environment in which I am a victim of the urgent.
Because time with my kids, focused on them, making a point to single task by only playing is what the long game is about. Whatever I think is urgent now, can’t possibly be as important as making my children feel loved, secure and valued in who they are. Raising kids is a marathon not a sprint. In the scheme of their lifetime going to bed 10 minutes late because mom said yes to extra cuddles is far more beneficial than it is detrimental.
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