Why Do Women Feel They Have To Do It All?
After about four weeks of jotting down items we were out of in our pantry, I knew our family was on the brink of desperate measures as I tried to think of how we could use the last few canned items (baked beans and water chestnuts) to make one last meal before supplies ran out.
For two weeks, I’d been trying to find a time to make it to the grocery store for anything beyond milk, veggies and fruit, but hadn’t found the chunk of time I needed, so another week had rolled by and the shelves looked emptier and emptier.
That’s when I did it. I made a last-minute decision to try www.ShopWoodmans.com. Yes, this is an unabashed advertisement for their grocery services, however note grocery prices are slightly higher than in the store, which is how they make money.
Anyway, back to my story. On Thursday evening, I logged on and selected the groceries I needed for the next week. I clicked the time I wanted to pick the groceries up and hit the submit button. The next day, I literally drove up to Woodmans, let them know via a button on my email, I was there, and someone walked my entire grocery order to the car and loaded it for me.
Woodmans picked, packed and delivered my groceries to the car. It saved me 1 ½ hours in the store. Brilliant. Totally brilliant.
Why do I tell you this story? Because I think many of us feel we need to do it all. Especially the women reading this. Brene Brown, in her research on shame, defines shame for women as: a self-held expectation that we need to do it all and do it all well. Brown explains when we don’t do it all, we believe we have failed, and then shame swallows us into the abyss of unworthiness.
It’s time we, as women, talk with one another about how we don’t do everything, and we certainly don’t do everything well. It’s time to share ways to manage, along with our families, all the priorities wrapping us tightly into impossible no-win expectations that we can and will do it all.
I’ll start with just two ways I’ve come to terms that I can’t do it all:
1. Groceries and meals. We’ve tried a number of things from a meal service to online grocery shopping, and are still trying to land on the best option here. Regardless of where we land, I can’t (nor can my family) manage an amazing three-course meal each night. And, that’s okay. We try to cook 2-3 nights a week and eat leftovers or breakfast the other nights.
2. Housecleaning. I’ve come to terms that I don’t have the time to clean the house to my own standards. We have someone who comes twice a month. She cleans for a morning, and I walk in and sigh at the beauty of what she’s done. It’s amazing. I like to clean, but I simply can’t do it each week, not with everything else we do.
What’s interesting about admitting I couldn’t do everything in the housecleaning areas was the incredible embarrassment I’ve felt for choosing this option. It was so embarrassing, my best friend didn’t know we had a cleaner for three years because I was humiliated at the thought of telling her, because of what it said about me. Silly, maybe, but my feelings were real. When I finally confessed, I had a housecleaner, she exclaimed, “Well, I’d hope so. It only makes sense
with everything you have going on.” Clearly it was me holding myself to unrealistic expectations no one else was holding me to.
I’d love to hear the ways you save time and what you do to manage all the competing priorities in your life – and so would all the other women who need encouragement to be free of the shame of not doing it all.
Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.
I’d say I pretty much let the kids raise themselves as that saves me a bunch of time, but more realistically some weeks we cook better and others we don’t. I’ve dreamed of having someone clean my house since I went back to work 10 years ago, but have to settle for a house that really isn’t that clean. (Truth be told, I think all my good housekeeping skills were used up when I was a kid.) It has been good though recently to decide that these are skills we need to teach our kids now that they are getting older. The hard part is deciding if I look past some of the things they miss or call them on it. Depends on how I am feeling and if I will treat them well in the process or just get irritated and make it worse.
Thanks for posting what we all know, but strive not to show – that we are real people and not perfect.
Hi Carol,
Thanks for the comments. You introduce another thing we, as parents (esp moms) struggle with – are we doing our kids a disservice by having help come into the house. I’ve talked through this with other friends who feel they’re kids lose out by not learning how to do chores because a service comes in to help.
We compromise. We clean every other week. Cleaning is a life skill. Now cleaning to my definition of clean – that’s another story. You are right, we have to pick that battle. Can I do it while being kind and loving or am I going to be more irritated and unkind when correcting them?
The questions and struggles we face can be endless. The reality is our kids will be fine either way, but we have to decide what we prioritize and how.
I love this, Sarah! As a mother of 4 and full-time HR professional, I have struggled to manage the high expectations I place upon myself (thanks for my annoying perfectionist tendencies) and the guilt I have for not spending every waking hour with my kiddos (despite the fact that I actually have to put food on the table). The social norm around a mother’s role being in the home raising children and not in the workplace are definitely changing. However, we are not there yet. I still hold this “stuff” inside of me – it is my mental model – and it is the source of my struggle!
A few years back, I had a little bit of a “break down” / “break through” – whatever you want to call it. After having complete FIT about the fact that my husband wanted to hire someone to pick up the kids from school, shuffle them around, and help them to do their homework, I realized my FIT was an important moment that created awareness around the importance of “Outsourcing” parts of the Mom Job. I was MORTIFIED that he would suggest that we “Outsource” that part of the job: It is one of the critical parts of the work! I want to be there for them, be in the car with them for the dash-board chats, be a part of their homework (well………this is debatable).
At the end of my FIT, I realized I was just making the call about what parts of my “Mom Job” I wanted to keep “in-house” and what parts I was willing to “outsource.”
I have a cleaning service today. I order more of my household and grocery items online. And I even stepped up the “outsourcing” to my kiddos! After all, we are in this together. I want my kids to know that the new social norm is that being part of a family is being part of a team. There are no “gender” roles in our home. We are all important and all contribute in different ways!
Thanks for making me feel normal.
We are here for each other through this social transformation!
Maggie