Out of Time

The woman who wrote to the Washington Post advice columnist, Carolyn Hax, wanted to know why her friend, a new mom, no longer had time for her. Ms. Hax's response--though not too gracious--was dead-on-accurate in its portrayal of the life of a mom with young kids:

“When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

Or, as Ms. Hax puts it, “It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.”

So how does the mom with young kids make the best use of her time when she doesn’t feel like she has any time?

We'll look at the best deals for moms (and yes, there are some!) this week.

(HT: Boundless)