Balance it Out, Single Parents. You Can Do It.

Get off when I tell you to or the merry go round is next.

The GBE2 topic is “balance”. The members of the Side Effects of Single Parenting Tribe had a Tweet and Meet on Twitter  and I noticed that in general, we have no balance. Not that we have issues or anything, just that things always seem either black or white, no gray.

One of the questions asked was something about dating. Almost all single parents said they either don’t date, don’t have time to date, or had no idea what dating was. That may have been me that said all three.

Another was referring to finding time for ourselves. Most of us answered that we do or we don’t. Almost all agreed that without the child/children we were kind of lost. Makes it hard to enjoy alone time when you just want your kid to come back.

We all pretty much agreed that we put up a front of not needing anyone; that we are hard-headed and know we need help, but will chew off our own arms before actually asking for help.

This is not a balanced life.

Maybe there appears to be an imbalance because there is no one on the other side of the teeter totter. We are sitting on the end with our kids and all of our luggage and purposely not allowing anyone else on the other end. I know in my own case that when someone has hopped on the other end, while they were up….I pulled the bully move and jumped off so they fell on the ground. Maybe they didn’t get off when they should have. Maybe they kept us in the air and wouldn’t let us down. Maybe they climbed up our house to look in the windows and scared the shit out of us. Wait. Nevermind the last one. Sometimes there just isn’t anyone to ask to jump on.

Granted, we have quite a bit to balance. Work, home, family-life, work, school, making sure the kids don’t eat paint chippings, etc. etc. I know it ain’t easy. Two parent families struggle with the same balancing act. In the midst of all of our juggling however, it is important that we find somewhere to breathe…to find time for us. Me.

This means specifically, we need to take care of ourselves. Inside and out. There is no law that says we have to leave the house in pajama pants and a dirty, oversized Disney, Tweety Bird, fill in the blank with a cartoon character, tee shirt. Money is tight. We can’t dress like the Kardashians, but at least put on a clean tee and brush thine hair.  (There are jeans that cost just as much as pajama pants, you just can’t use them for your sleepwear, casual wear, and evening wear.)

Finding some kind of balance in caring for yourself results in a couple things:

A.  You lower the risk of showing up on the People of Walmart website.

B.  You will appear to have your shit together.

C.  People will stop asking you if you’re depressed. Life happens. Move along.

D-Z. You will feel better about yourself. 

There are ways to make it work. You can take care of yourself as a single parent, and frankly if you won’t make an effort alone, why would anyone think you would with someone? Ask for help. Accept help when it is offered. Sometimes even date. Pay attention to YOU. Stop acting like you’re dead because you’re a single parent.

Life is definitely a see-saw.

It isn’t much fun though if we don’t figure out how to balance it. Single parents are not doomed to a life of imbalance just because we are sitting on the see saw alone.

***Tweet and Meet for Single Parents is Friday at 9:00 p.m. Central. Use the hashtag #singleparentstalking

and yes…if you want that means stalking.