About two years ago, I read in a religious publication that a mother can work outside the home successfully as long as someone is around to pick up the slack. However that publication failed to mention, “What constitutes the slack?” In other words, there was no definition for what the slack was.
So, I got to thinking of some possibilities. I have to thank a discussion with my mother for helping me with one possibility. “Your father was great with childcare, but when it came to housework … forget it!” It’s plain to see that someone has to watch the children while the mother is at work.
However, my mother did have a second good point with the housework thing. You can not keep the same standard as you did when you stayed home, if you even stayed home at all. The best advice I ever saw in regard to that was something I read in Wake Up And Smell the Coffee! One of Ann Landers readers stated, “I stopped striving for clean and realized that neat would do.”
So it looks like to me “the slack” means the housework and childcare. But then you have to ask the question, “Who should pick up what slack?” Unfortunately there are no hard and fast answers. It depends on the household. What works for the single mother is not going to work for the married one, and vice-versa.
Some women have the luxury of nearby relatives to help out with the childcare, others have to hire a babysitter or use a childcare center.
Some men like my father, will handle childcare but not housework. Others like my husband, will handle housework but not childcare. There are men who won’t do either. If there is one who will do both, I’d sure like his phone number. He needs to teach other men how to do the same thing.
There are women who can afford the housekeeper. There are women who can’t and therefore, delegate chores out to the children.
So, what are the wisest ways to handle the slack and who picks up what?
Look at your situation. Do you have a relative nearby that you can trust to babysit? Or do you live far away from anyone? Or are your relatives just plain untrustworthy?
If you have a husband, how comfortable do you feel with your husband taking over certain things? Is he willing to take over those certain things? If not, what can you do to keep order in your house?
Are you willing to hire a babysitter for an extra hour? How about hiring a housekeeper? Are you willing to delegate chores and put up a chart to avoid confusion? How comfortable do you feel letting the children trade chores on certain days? Are you willing to lower the standards on certain chores and skip those until the weekend or your day off?
Remember whatever solution you devise, you must be happy and your children must be happy too. If you have the husband, he too must be happy. A happy family cannot be one unless everyone is happy.
