The Art of Solo Parenting: Pillars

I feel like there are so many articles out there that talk about the routine of a work at home mom and they’re very….fluffy. It can be hard to fit those routines into your own life because A. you don’t have the same work style as that mompreneur B. your kids have different temperaments than theirs C. your work load is different D. Your partner may work away. So how do you actually adapt to running a business from home, with kids and a husband/wife/partner that works away?

I’m here to give you the nitty gritty inside scoop on how we stay (try to) sane, happy (not always) and how I continue to move my business forward with a husband that works away for 8 months of the year.

Let’s talk about Pillars:

I am a blend of a type A organized, driven, statistical, analytic person with a creative, earthy side. This means that personally I need some structure to my days, otherwise I feel like I am floundering and unproductive. I struggle with not doing anything to relax, and I also struggle with actively playing with my kids (thanks trauma, we be working on this). So one of the things I’ve found helpful in our day to day is creating pillars that provide stopping points where we can transition from one activity to the next. I learned about this somewhere in the internet sphere and it’s stuck with me as something that’s worked quite well.

Pillars are tasks you can incorporate into each and every day or into a specific day each week. A great example of this is meal time and snacks, another one could be switching the laundry over, a specific one to us is splitting wood and kindling for our wood fireplace. Pillars can either involve your kids, or it can be a time where you can step away briefly for a breather and to reset yourself.

Our meal time pillars are:

10am - snack: we use this as an opportunity to figure out what we want to do before my son goes down for a nap. Sometimes it’s a chore that needs doing, like picking up toys or wiping down window sills. My kids love to clean (more like they love to spray stuff out of spray bottles), so they are happy to help wipe things down.

2:30pm - smoothie time: this is our regroup break, we use this time to decide whether we are going outside for the rest of the afternoon or if we are going to play with toys, play chasing or have a dance party.

5:00pm - dinner time: the kids generally know that 4pm is around the time I start making dinner. I try to involve them as much as I can in this process, but often they will sit and colour or Mowat will play with his cars while I cook. Dinner is our signal for winding down. Usually it’s a bath to follow, and then we’ll make popcorn and watch an evening movie.

Chore Pillars:

We heat our home via wood, it’s an old farmhouse so it doesn’t keep the heat from our furnace well. This means that once a week we are outside splitting wood and cutting kindling to stock up our inside pile. This is a time where I am usually splitting wood, Mowat is pushing his truck around and Kalie is playing with the chickens. Once a month we also get a load of firewood delivered, we use this as a hefty outside time and even though my kids are both under 6 years old - they help. Stacking wood was a regular chore of mine when I was little, and it builds a certain kind of character trait that you don’t get with other chores.

Now I am not the kind of person to keep a meticulously clean home. Like I mentioned we live in an old, quite small farmhouse. If I were to try to keep it spotless I would never stop cleaning and organizing. And quite frankly - who really wants to spend 100% of their time cleaning their home? Not me. There is a lot more life to be enjoyed out there. Now that’s not to say we don’t clean each day, but while my husband is away I have to lessen my expectations of what a clean home is.

If you’ve ever hopped on a Discovery Call with me then you will have seen a floor covered in cars, markers, dolls and other toys. My home is lived in and it’s loved in. After each chore or meal time pillar I’ll spend 10 minutes picking up toys and odd ends and putting them away. After each meal I will do a general tidy. Before bed I’ll put my laundry in my bin, likewise with the kids, and of course I have to sweep the floor 869604 times a day. But Sunday - that’s the big cleaning day. It’s where we mop, put laundry away, clean the bathroom, wipe down what needs it (like walls), deal with the recycling etc etc.

The biggest aspect of this ‘clean home’ thing I struggle with is when our home is disorganized, it can easily become dirty. We also have an extra large dog who sheds year round, and a golden retriever who like to eat socks and cloths whole (I know). And when the mess builds, my anxiety increases and I start to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated with the amount of things that need doing to bring some sort of order to the house. As much as I try to follow the pillars i’ve highlighted above, I still struggle with some things. And when the stretch of J working away is a long one, it can be really difficult.

Bedtime Pillars:

Bedtime is the same time every night. No questions asked. By that 7pm time I am ready for the kiddos to go to bed so I can either settle into some evening work (usually) or watch an episode of This is Us (rarely). My son is also up at 4:30-5am right now, so not only do I need a bit of time without a toddler on my hip, I also need some time to wind down mentally so I can prepare for an early morning coming up. I aim to be in bed by 9pm every night, again your body and your circadian rhythm will thank you for that routine, what I do struggle with is evening screen time.

There are some evenings where I get into my genius zone of work, and before I know it it’s 9pm and i’m still at my computer. I try, really try to be off any screens for 8:30pm. My eyes, my brain, my body need that time away from the screen. It gets difficult though, when my husband is off work at 8pm and we are texting or talking on the phone. I’ve run through the guilt of my screen time over and over again, and it’s something I’m still working through. I’m still considering getting a flip phone, where only the most important people have the number and can call me. This would remedy my screen time quite a bit and also allow me to disconnect fully from work on the weekend. We’ll see if I decide to go this route.

Activity Pillars:

Look I am not one of those moms who have a million activities planned for their kids, we should probably go more places to get out of the house and stay a bit more ‘active’ with new things, but quite frankly with the cost of fuel and the bitter cold of Alberta winters it can difficult for me to want to do specialized things with the kids. I’m a big believer in ‘Let them be bored’, I think too many strict activities block the flow of life, imagination and creativity. We try to spend a lot of time outside - especially in the summer - just exploring, playing in the yard and walking over to the park that’s near our place. We paint, we draw, we build blocks, we bake - we do regular, everyday life things. Sometimes it’s enough for the kids, sometimes it’s not and they wind up whiny and just wanting to watch a show.

I think this really depends on who you are as a person and a parent. I tried to be that crafty cool activity based mom, it’s not who I am, I was constantly frustrated with doing the activity and with trying to plan something the kids would enjoy. Not to mention it felt like every activity I found online I needed to buy something for - not for me bub.

Work Pillars:

Let me start this by staying I put my kids in daycare 2 days a week. This was a hard decision for me to make, but it ultimately was the best one for my sanity with growing my business, the speed at which my business has grown, and it’s been fantastic for both of my kids as well. We are in love with our daycare, and I know that also makes a big difference in that decision. If you’re struggling with whether or not to put your kiddos in daycare, you can read about my decision making process in my upcoming blog post The Art of Solo Parenting: to Daycare or not to Daycare.

Those 2 days are when I pack my most important and focused work. Those are the tasks that I know I need my full attention for an extended period of time. I also try to schedule my meetings for those days as well. On the other 5 days of the week I work during Mowats nap time, this is anywhere from 1-3 hours, during that time my daughter is either doing her leappad, watching a movie or playing with the neighbourhood kids. I stopped feeling guilty about her watching a show during my work block when I realized that it’s also a bit of a break for her too, she can relax, enjoy and engage with Gabby’s Dollhouse, Blues Clues or watch something that makes her laugh. This work block is often interrupted by requests for a million snacks, stocking the fireplace, switching laundry over or any sort of other distraction. Like I said, all my focused work is on those daycare days.

Usually on those 5 non daycare days I will also get an hour or two work in the evening.

Weekends are a free for all, I really use that time to listen to what my brain and body needs. Sometimes it’s 6 hours of being outside and we will bundle up and head out. Other times I need to check things off my work list and will try to fit in power pockets of work where the kids are playing and I can create a graphic, draft an email, fix a design element or something relatively small. When we’re near the end of the work away shift though… sometimes it’s more screen time than I’d like to admit.

There’s the inside scoop on our ‘kind of’ routine, now I’d like you to add try to every one of those points. I try to keep snacks consistent, I try to get through our chores, I try to clean consistently, I try to engage with the kids and ensure we play together for at least 3 hours a day.

I try.

I try.

I try.

Ultimately though, it’s a lot of figuring out which ball will be dropped that day. My philosophy is that there is no balance - there is one ball that will be dropped each day and that’s fine. Somedays I suck at playing, somedays we don’t clean, too many days we miss walking the dogs. But then our priorities shift and another ball is dropped the next day so we can try to move that previously dropped one along. Solo parenting is hard, no two kids, parents, businesses, work styles are the same… so you really have to trial and error what works best for you and also understand that your expectations may need to shift too.

It’s not the end of the world if the house isn’t tidy.

Or if you’re behind on laundry,

Or your kids watch a little too much tv.

You need to leave yourself plenty of room to be human, otherwise you’re going to burn yourself out with trying to be perfect. You’re doing it all alone, don’t put so much pressure on yourself to keep everything tip top.

I hope this helps,

Cheryl