12 | Why You Need Working Hours at Home Too

12 |  Why You Need Woking Hours at Home Too

This episode is about why consciously defining the hours you're working on household responsibilities or care tasks matters. Women are raised to always be working and always giving our time to others. Therefore some unlearning of this pattern may be needed.  First, I share why the idea of working hours at home is critically important. Then I'll share my experience, including exactly how I decided to define and implement the concept of working hours.

Whether you are an unpaid working mother at home or a paid working mother, actively setting boundaries on your working hours is truly essential to your mental and emotional well-being. Every minute you spend contributing to the success of your household is work. As a society, we are raised to believe that women's time is endless. This belief is one of the central issues, and it's the primary reason defining your working hours at home is essential.

I invite you to get curious about the number of hours each day you're currently working, paid and unpaid. Setting boundaries by explicitly outlining for others when you're working and when you're not, teaches them how to treat you and your time. Following this framework is hard, and feeling guilt or resistance is natural as you begin shifting your mindset. But if you are ready to change how you approach working hours at home and want support in this area of your life, I am excited to take that journey with you.

In the meantime ask yourself these questions to determine if your believes are aligned with how you want to be showing up:

• What was I raised to believe about the hours a woman should be working?

• How are those long-held beliefs serving me or contributing to my exhaustion?

• How could clearly defined working hours give me permission to drop the guilt and restore my energy?

MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE: 05 | The Myth of Domestic Perfection

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• EPISODE 12 TRANSCRIPT

  Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast, we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household, and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.

  Amelia: Welcome to Episode 12: Why You Need Working Hours at Home Too.

  Let’s start with a few reviews! JessyO wrote, “Amelia has a kind and honest approach to this work. The podcast is like getting loving advice from a super smart friend. Highly recommend for anyone who is managing ‘too much.’ Awww – I love that we’re getting to know one another through this format. Sweetgrass Jenny shares, “Amelia knows people and real life. Listening to her smooth and friendly voice is a treat and she comes to us with practical and inspiring ways to look at our relationships with ourselves and our stuff.” I had the pleasure of meeting Jenny in real life recently, and it was such an honor to learn more about her too!

  Alright, so today’s episode topic stems from my own realization about how I was spending my precious moments in the early days of motherhood. Today, I’m a Certified Fair Play Facilitator, which is Eve Rodsky’s groundbreaking approach to household labor, and as I was planning out this episode, the connection between my earlier awakenings and Eve’s experience and subsequent work became even more clear. Overall, this episode is about how we, as women – or those of us socialized as women – are raised to be always working and always giving to or thinking about others. More specifically, I’ll share my strategy for implementing a limit on that particular thought and behavior pattern. In future episodes we’ll return to the topic of women’s time over and over, because it impacts our homes, our working lives, and our identities.

  So, to give you a roadmap, first I’ll share why the idea of “working hours” at home is critically important. Then, I’ll share my own experience, including exactly how I decided to define and implement the concept of working hours. Lastly, I’ll impress upon you that whether you are an unpaid, working mother at home (stereotypically known as a “stay-at-home mother”) or a paid working mother, actively setting boundaries on your working hours around all things home life is truly essential to your mental and emotional health.

  First, let me state plainly: the unpaid, unseen labor you perform within your home is work. Whether you’re remembering and celebrating the milestones of extended family, tossing our expired food from the fridge, or making sure that your auto policy has been reviewed, every minute you spend contributing to the success of your household is work. It takes thought, planning, and follow through. Each task takes time.

  And THIS is why your days feel non-stop. From the instant you rise each morning, you assume one or more of your roles: mother, partner, daughter, caretaker, homemaker, executive, or community supporter. You wear these roles like clothing. You put them on, depending on the context, then you try your best to take them off at the end of the day. The more roles you adopt, the more ways that others see they can make requests on your time. Defining and limiting your working hours will be an additional strategy to add to your toolbox to support this mental transition.

  Let’s better define the challenge you’re facing. I’m sure you know it quite well. As a society, we’re raised to believe that women’s time is endless. This is one of the central issues, and it’s the primary reason defining your working hours at home is essential. Think about the last time someone made a request on your time or energy, and the automatic, default response out of your mouth was “yes.” Not, “let me check my schedule” or “I’ll get back to you.” Eve Rodsky aptly uses the analogy that women’s time is seen to be like sand. You’re infinitely available – for volunteering, for watching grandchildren, for dropping everything to respond to your partner – your time is infinitely available like each grain of the Sahara Desert. The world knows that you’ll find or make the time to bring order to the disorder in your kitchen. Men’s time, on the other hand, she describes, is viewed like diamond – precious and finite.

  For most of us, this wasn’t (or isn’t) the case when we were single and without children. When you’re solo – and I mean without obligations or responsibilities to others beyond yourself – your days are anchored by your income producing hours. These are your working hours, in the traditional sense. You also had non-working or leisure hours. When you’re solo, there’s an assumption that you have more conscious, intentional choice over how to spend the minutes of your day because there are fewer requests on your time that seem obligatory. When you become a parent or a caregiver, however, your default thinking radically (yet unnoticeably) shifts. Others and their needs occupy more of our mental energy, and the way we’re raised kicks into overdrive.

  Historically, those socialized as women have always expected by their partners and community to always be working towards the betterment of their households and towards the moral improvement of their children. For many European communities (and Puritanical American white society) this was the result of forced economic dependence on male members of the household and the patriarchal system that limited women’s income producing abilities and their mobility outside of the home. This dynamic still exists in many cultures and communities. If you’re just joining the podcast, there’s more on this topic in Episode 05, “The Myth of Domestic Perfection.”

  For Black women, in particular, slavery broke apart familial connections and forced women into servitude for others. This translated into Black women having no control over their time. When, where, and how they were to use their waking hours was determined by the plantation owners and sharecropping systems. Jim Crow perpetuated structural racism by again limiting the movement of women of color and limiting the types of employment available.

  Today, you can see elements of this time concept play out with how society values women’s paid time too. Women, as a whole, make less than their male counterparts at work, are penalized financially for taking maternity leave, and women of color as the dominant group in lower paid, caregiving professions. In order to make ends meet and to provide for their families, women heads of household are often working multiple jobs and providing care support at home.

  If you’re thinking that the podcast has gotten off track, I promise you, it hasn’t. I point out these key generalizations around the use of women’s time because these foundational beliefs have been passed down through generations. Your sense of ownership over your own time has been directly impacted by the way you were raised and that your family members were raised. The effects and traumas of past generations exist in our bodies and in our mindsets. Women, as a collective, have been conditioned to believe that we should be always available and focused on being productive every single minute of the day. Naturally, this leads to burnout. It leads to the negative internal self-talk you’re familiar with. It also leads to a bottomless, never-ending to-do list. Defining your working hours at home is critically important because your wellbeing is dependent on it.

  Before I shift into my own story around this topic, I want to acknowledge my privilege. My choice to stay-at-home for a dozen years was bolstered by the emotional stability of my marriage and an extended family I could rely upon if a true crisis was to occur.

  Honestly, I didn’t think I wanted children. They weren’t initially part of the grand plan of my life. Yet my husband wanted five. After some hilarious negotiations, we landed on 3. Once I became pregnant, my biological clock promptly encouraged the second, then the third, all in a 4.5-year time span. Then, it said loud and clear to stop. He and I arrived at this decision by talking through our future plans, defining what we wanted individually, then discussing our wants collectively.

  I wanted to pursue a Ph.D. I also wanted to be a stay-at-home mother. These two seemingly conflict which is how I ended up pursuing both. When my eldest began to enter preschool, I’d left my Ph.D. program. With three children under four, time for myself was non-existent. The thought that I could “do it all” wasn’t readily apparent to me, but instead showed itself through my working hours. My waking hours were dedicated to attending to my children’s needs, managing our household, and maintain my sanity. There was budgeting, changing diapers, road trips to see family out of state, constant toy management, teaching kids to wait their turn and use utensils while eating… y’all know what I mean. My husband was traveling frequently and working long hours. As an adult, I was alone a lot. My working hours were every single minute I was awake, and our division of labor was traditionally divided: I managed the home and kids, he was the breadwinner.

  Then, I had stretches of 2 to 5 hours where I’d be either alone or with one child. All day, I focused on household chores and organization. I kept our calendar up to date. I prepared the food and the gear for afternoon activities. I attended every scheduled school meeting and activity. I indulged in “human giving” because I didn’t know any better or any different. I truly believed that this is what parenting and partnering as an unpaid, working mother required.

  Once the kiddos started going to school full time, I noticed that I felt guilty and anxious about resting during the hours when they were gone. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s one after effect of patriarchal socialization, those deeply ingrained beliefs. The guilt and anxiety made it difficult to rest or do something for my own pleasure. On occasion I’d read or nap, then second-guess how I’d spent my time. My husband, on the other hand, took his downtime and leisure time without guilt or a second thought. I’d be resentful of the ease at which he could rest, then wonder why he wasn’t doing all the noticing and anticipating what needed to be done like I was. I was exhausted from being always available, and even when I wasn’t physically doing, my mental load was churning in the background.

  This was all until I decided to consciously implement working hours.

  My first aha moment was when I realized that my children needed my support during specific times of the day: in the morning, wake up until school drop off, and the end of the school day through bedtime. My kids, my partner, and my household didn’t actually NEED me during the day. I just thought they did. Sit with that for a moment. Now think about it for yourself. There are certain hours of the day when other humans are actually in your space, and there are certain hours where they aren’t. This was a revolutionary thought, and now I help clients become even more clear about their specific working hours.

  I realized that my non-working hours were while they were at school. (Now, this was before I launched my business AND a key realization that led to me believing that I could return to work.) My non-working hours were the essential hours for me to rest, nourish my body and mind, and restore my energy. They were not hours that I had to dedicate to children and family. If I did, that would be a choice, not an obligation. These daytime hours were hours dedicated to me, my personal interests, and eventually my business. Just like my husband chose what to do with his non-working hours, I had complete authority to do with mine as I saw fit. To get to that point, I had practice shifting my attention and focus to the framework of clearly defined working and non-working hours.

  With this new framework, my weekdays typically looked like:

  non-working hours: 5am-6am (I’ve always taken time to wake myself up before waking the kids up.)

  hours working in service of kids + household: 6am-9am

  non-working hours: 9am-2pm

  hours working in service of kids + household: 2pm-9pm

  If I chose to spend my daytime, non-working doing chores or household responsibilities, it was a conscious choice that had an opportunity cost. This placed the ownership and control squarely with me and not others, and this was liberating. The guilt and shame around meeting friends for lunch, taking a walk or a nap, or saying no to a volunteer commitment slowly lifted as I redirected my mind towards this concept of working hours and non-working hours.

  If family members made requests on my time during my non-working hours, I explicitly shared: “I’m not working right now. How could you solve this yourself?” Or I’d redirect them towards a sibling or my husband. Most things aren’t critical – even though they feel urgent - and could wait until the hours where I was “back to work.”

  To recap, both paid work and unpaid work – care tasks, household responsibilities, emotional labor – both things are work. This is the first space of unlearning or relearning I invite you to embark upon. Get curious about the number of hours each day you’re currently working (again that’s paid and unpaid). I’m sure you’ll be both shocked and not surprised. Then quantify the actual number of non-working hours you have set aside for yourself. If you’re working for pay outside of the home, this work is even more essential to your wellbeing.

  Next, ask yourself the following questions: (I’ll put them in the show notes.)

  What was I raised to believe about the hours a woman should be working?

  How are those long-held beliefs serving me or contributing to my exhaustion?

  How could clearly defined working hours give me permission to drop the guilt and restore my energy?

  This shift is a process and a practice. Your time is valuable, and you’re no longer being forced – like previous generations - to give it away. In most instances, it’s your inner voice, your own expectations that are driving you to “keep up the house,” “get things done,” and “be responsible for it all.” Trust me, I get it. At first, it will feel equally hard when you start to ease up, to share the care tasks with your partner, to let your standards change. Yet, you’re more organized than you think. Looking closely at whether the unpaid tasks you’re routinely performing align with your family values is a great way to assess which ones are no longer a priority. Choices are always being made, and you’re in charge of all that fall within your realm.

  Now that I work full time as a Clutter Coach, I’ve restricted my working hours even more. I stop working in the service of my household at 8pm. My brain doesn’t operate well after that hour. My kids are older, and I invested time in teaching them how to do for themselves when they were younger. The payoff of that investment is starting to happen. My husband and I have practiced communicating about what needs to be done around the house so that he notices more frequently, and I allow him to do more things his way. His working hours have increased as a result.

  Your time is finite, just like everyone else’s. That’s why you need working hours: to sustain your health, the health of your family, and to show up in the multiple roles you inhabit. Setting boundaries, by explicitly outlining for others when you’re working and when you’re not, teaches them how to treat you and your time. Practice, make adjustments as needed, and repeat. This work is powerful and will change your self-image. It truly is a win for them as well. It empowers others to take the same step forward in their life too. And, if you’d like support around this area of your life and home, that’s what I’m here for. Book your consultation at www.apleasantsolution.com/booking. Talk to y’all soon.

  Outro: Thanks so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you liked this episode and know of just one other person that can get value from it too, I invite you to share it with them. I'd be more than grateful. I'd love to stay connected with you too. Make sure to follow this podcast to connect with me on Instagram @apleasantsolution and join my community at www.apleasantsolution.com. Talk to y'all soon and remember, you’re more organized than you think.