Life as a Single Married Working Mom: Change vs. Routine

Change vs. Routine

Sometimes change is good, but sometimes the negative effects can outweigh the good.

The best defence against the negative effects of change is a good routine.

We’ve gone through a series of changes over the past year and a half, all leading up to the point where we are right now.

First, after 2 ½ years on the waiting list, we finally got into the daycare in our town.  It was just in time because we were at the crunch where I had to find a job and return to work.

It was a big adjustment for the kids to go from being with Mom and taking the school bus, to going to daycare before and after school.

They just started adjusting to that change when the next change came.

The Second change was my return to work.

I found a job and our new life began with me as a working mom.  This change was much harder on the kids because now they had even less time with Mom, and when we’re together I don’t really have time to be a Mom because I still have to be The Mom.  All those chores I did when everyone was at school and work now had to be done in the few short evening hours and on the weekends.

And sure, it’s easy to say that the chores will still be there tomorrow.  But, that’s the problem – the chores will still be there tomorrow.  Only they’ll be bigger, badder, and meaner.  The chores I don’t get done today are only added to the chores that need to be done tomorrow, and before you know it the house becomes unliveable and everyone’s doing the laundry sniff-test, pulling clothes from the dirty hamper to see if they stink too much to wear.

Then came change #3.  Dad got a new job.  This was also the reason I had to go back to work.  Our family income dropped drastically, both of us combined making less than he made before.  And, with the dropped income also came the added expense of daycare for two and the gas for my daily commute to work.

The financial changes probably affected the kids the most.  There was also the stress now of what to do with the kids when they get sick.  That was even more stressful for me than the drastic change in finances.

The most recent change is proving to be the hardest on everyone.  Dad has finished training to the point where the shift work hours have begun.  And it’s rotating shifts.  One week on days, one on evenings, and the third on night, then back to days.  Bye-bye stability.

Day shift – we see him in the evening only, no more mornings.

Evening shift (and the hardest on the kids) – we don’t see him at all for five days straight.  He leaves just before we get home for supper, and is sleeping in the morning, if he’s even come home by then.

Night shift – he gets home after we leave in the morning, but is home for supper and leaves shortly after that.

With the five day on rotating shifts and four days off, our routine is gone completely and that is probably making it much harder for the kids to adapt to this last (and worst) change.

We did briefly get into a routine.  Unfortunately, it was a routine without their dad around.

I even managed to get into a routine of exercising by rigging the laptop on the exercise bike.  I’m not exactly going hard core at it, but when your mind is not watching the clock because you are focused on working or schmoozing, it’s surprising how long you can go pedalling steadily without even noticing.  And with none of the aches and fatigue that I’m pretty sure are mental constructs from clock-watching.  I was even picking my pace up by the end of the week. 

Since returning to work, I have a painfully sedentary life (literally).  I spend long hours sitting in a chair at a desk without moving.  My weight is slowly inching up despite attempts to live on a weight-loss diet and I’ve developed painful leg problems that affect my already poor sleep, waking me with very painful leg cramps and muscle spasms.

With the stable routine that lasted for much too short a time, the kids’ behavior and acting out improved.  And, with the daily exercise I even shed a few pounds and stopped having the pain, cramping, and muscle spasms in the legs for a short time.  Of course, it also helped that on the four days off he took the kids camping while I had to stay home and go to work, so I was able to maintain the routine, especially the exercise part of it, for about two weeks.

And that was the end of our two-week stint of having something resembling a routine.

He’s home at different times, he’s not home, he’s off, he’s working.  We get him two out of four weekends a month, and if we’re home on a weekend when he’s on evening or nights it’s very stressful trying to keep the kids quiet so he can sleep, and they can’t have any friends over.

And when he’s home he wants to hang out (understandably) because he hasn’t seen much of us, if at all, for days.  But it also means I’m not getting done what I need to when I need to.

Bye-bye routine.  I haven’t been able to exercise once since.  Those few pounds came back and so have the leg problems.  The kids have been acting up more too, of course.

We’re still pretty new at this.  And I know we have a long way to go still to adjust to the new shift work life, working mom life, non-routine life.

I’m sure we’ll get used to it eventually, and get into some kind of routine that works with their dad’s ever changing shifts.  Hopefully, one that includes my being able to exercise regularly and still be able to spend those blocks of days he’s around when we are together like a normal family.

Having no routine is making it harder for everyone to adjust, especially the kids.

And having no place to go and nothing to do to keep the kids too busy to notice they haven’t seen their dad in five days is making it harder.  Winter will be worse.  We won’t even have camping then.  We don’t leave the house except for work and school in winter.

It would probably be better for the kids if that routine could include getting them involved in regular activities where they are too busy to notice they aren’t seeing their dad for days at a time.  But, to enroll them in a family membership at something like the YMCA (which has tonnes of programs to try, plus swimming year round and is pretty cheap) I’d have to get a second income.

So, I’ll keep working at building that routine, and keeping it routine, so we can have happier adjusted kids.

And as for me, I keep reminding myself that it’s not about me.  I’m here to be Mom, earn money to help support the family, and make sure everyone has clean laundry to wear, clean dishes to eat off, and a reasonably liveable house.

I feel like a single mother most of the time, with the kids’ dad visiting us for days at a time.  I work, I get the kids up and to bed every day, I look after the house as best I can.

I don’t have time to have friends or socialize beyond the quick Facebook comments.  And with the change in financial circumstances I also have no spending allowance.  What’s left of my income after daycare and gas goes to bills.  I can’t even treat the kids to an occasional ice cream or bowling or movie outing.

I stress over needing more money and how I can earn a second income while having to have the kids with me.  And, if I did have a second job outside the house I’d never see the kids and they would be essentially parentless.

I had a stressful job before becoming a stay at home mom.  The heavy workload should have been handled by two people, not one, and I had to deal with daily abuse and hostility from other staff because I was doing my job.  All those stress symptoms and health issues I was periodically plagued with had magically vanished overnight when I quit working to raise my kids (which in itself can be a stressful job).  Now, despite having an entirely stress-free job, those occasional stress issues have become daily symptoms.

But that’s just life as a single married working mom.