When my kids were little I stayed at home with them and I loved every second but I wondered what I was missing in my career. Now that I’m back at work I yearn for those days when I could pick up the kids at school and watch them play with their friends while I connected with other parents.

The grass is always greener and being a working parent, having little time, and less energy.  It’s never easy to be on top of it all and trust me there are those days when things are out of whack, but I try to focus my attention around three key areas and they help keep a manageable work-life balance:

1. Establishing quality downtime with the kids
2. Staying connected with the school community
3. Continuing to evolve in my career

Quality downtime

For a long time when the kids were little I felt the need to involve them in everything.  Swim lessons, dance lessons, taekwondo, tutoring, skating, play dates, art class and gymnastics just to name a few – I get exhausted just thinking of all we used to do.  The kids got exhausted too. We have a new outlook on activities:

• Now we choose one activity a season
• If possible, both children pick the same activity
• A season usually lasts around 12 weeks so in the school year we usually focus on fall, winter and spring which gives the kids a chance to try three things a year
• We skip the summer since we tend to be outside a lot anyway and camps fill the need to explore new adventures and activities
• Tutoring (the one non-elective activity) is done during the week and during school hours

During the school year we have our special weekend time.  Saturday is a stay home day.  We sleep in, spend time together and cuddle up, watch a movie and play.  Sunday is laundry day, grocery day, errands and clean up time.  Simple and consistent and everyone can look forward to downtime. I found the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk especially helpful in keeping communication open and clear with the kids so we all reach our goals.

Connecting to the school community

As a working parent I find the hardest thing to do is to feel connected to the school community.  To keep in touch I attend parent meetings at our school when possible.   These meetings are run by a parent council, sometimes called the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) or the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) elected parents represent the entire parent population communicating parent feelings to school administrators.  Meeting topics include:

• Updates on upcoming events
• School plans and goals
• Fundraising plans
• Budget items and areas of need
• Principal updates with info on what your child’s experiencing in school

A great resource for parents is the PTO Today website which covers everything from great fundraising ideas, how to better plan and organize your PTO or PAC, plan events and other great ideas and parent information.

The BCCPAC has some great information for parents in British Colombia on PAC’s and offers parents information to support children in school.

Another key way to keep in touch at school is by email with the class teacher.  Our best years in school are when email is used to communicate both by the teacher to us and also when the teacher is comfortable to allow parents to email them. The communication flows much better and you don’t feel like you’ve missed out on what’s happening in the classroom.

Evolving a career

Time for me was a hard one to carve out. Being the mom who always put the kids first, time for me was last on the list of priorities.  As the kids got older and more independent I found it easier for me to put myself higher on the list. Looking back, I had sort of a ten year hiatus and then there was time again for me.

One of the first things I did when deciding to return to work was to look at my network.  I’m a bit of an odd case since I moved to a new country when I married my husband and we moved a bit so we were still establishing roots.  My work connections were nil, though I had strong ones before marriage, now that I was in a new town I needed to start over.

I started with LinkedIn and created a profile, filled out my work experience and connected with former contacts.  Then I connected with people locally I had met in our neighborhood, volunteered with and parents met at our school.  I realized I did have a local network and started talking to parents I knew about wanting to go back to work.

After some research I decided to go back to school to brush up on skills, and meet new connections.  I decided to look at locally based careers that would allow me a greater selection of jobs and a school with a strong alumni network.  I already had a bachelors degree earned 20 years before but I wanted something more timely so a two year program diploma at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) was a good fit.

Two years later, my littlest daughter in Kindergarten, I graduated from my program and headed back to work.  The timing was excellent and I had an internship placement that turned into a job offer.  Granted I had to take a step back in salary and responsibilities but my hope is that in a few years I can be where I’d like to be and continue to evolve in my career.

Interesting read about work-life balance

Heading back to work and focusing on a career again has been an interesting journey.  I picked up this article last summer and thought it had some good points about the challenges we face and sacrifices made to balance work and life:

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All by Anne-Marie Slaughter published in The Atlantic – is an opinion piece by the director of policy planning at the State Department with her point of view on motherhood and career.

For me the kids still come first since my greatest and most challenging job is being their mother helping guide them through life.  Second is my own personal career.  Maybe that will shift as I’ve already seen as they get older and become more independent.

I realize that what I give my kids in time, love, attention and guidance will help form who they are and in turn I learn from them everyday – they are the most important and fascinating connections I have.  The work – life balance is a challenge for most parents and it, like everything else, is a work in progress.

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