We’ve been talking about wives who work from home and what would a series on working from home be without talking about the soccer mom syndrome. What is the soccer mom syndrome? It’s a personal phrase that I have coined (though someone else out there may give it another name) that refers to the wife who tries to do it all – to the point that she exhausts herself.
The Soccer Mom Syndrome
Who is the soccer mom? She’s that mom who’s always on the go. She provides transport to her kids, the neighbor’s kids and more to go to a variety of activities. She gets up too early in the morning to try and get household chores done. She works hard to make sure that she prepares all the meals and that when her husband comes home, he can feel comfortable with putting his feet up and not affected by the fact that she is working as well.
She gets the kids squared away for bed and likely goes back to her home office to work late, leaving very little time for sleep and even less time for romance. She juggles so many balls in the air and she can keep things running smoothly – but if even one ball drops – it can create an avalanche effect.
Going too Many Different Ways
Does this description sound familiar? I’ve gone down this route and let me tell you, as rewarding as it can feel to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and still be ‘that mom’ who does everything else too – it’s exhausting. You can be going in so many directions that you can’t keep track of where you are and when just one thing goes wrong – you’ll feel out of control and more likely to be depressed and stressed.
It’s great to be the wife who can do it all and your husband likely admires and respects that about you. But it’s also important to be the wife who has enough time for herself and her husband and who isn’t so exhausted all the time. It’s a hard balance to strike, especially when you work from home – the office is always there, always waiting for you and you may have a hard time walking away from it – but some nights you have to and some days you do too.
You should also involve your husband more, there is a drawback to being the wife who can do everything – her husband may not feel needed. Our husbands need to feel needed and yes, that may mean asking them to help. My husband likes to be asked for help – and he says that sometimes he needs to be asked because I always seem so capable.
Do you have soccer mom syndrome? How do you cope with it?
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