As a teacher mom for the past 5 years, I’ve found there are a few habits that I’ve taken on to help manage being a working mom and handling the responsibilities of both roles. These habits for working moms have helped me manage a lot of the stress that really weighed on me when I first added on being a parent to my identity.
Why Establishing Habits for Working Moms Is Important
Working moms manage two full time identities and jobs at all times. We literally never get down time. We work our regular job to then come home to our children that need us to fulfill their wants and needs. All with patience too. Phew! But establishing concrete habits for working moms helps take the overwhelm and fatigue out of managing both of these identities.
Habits for Working Moms
1 – Keep Tabs on Your Mental Health
Mental health takes a big hit when you are just constantly fighting to manage both identities. I knew that something needed to change for myself when I saw and felt signs this past winter. The things that usually brought me joy didn’t and I knew it was bad when people asked “how was your winter break?” And it was great – but I just meh about it. It was time to get back to helping my brain.
I have a great support system in my husband, especially after having my kids, I struggled quite a bit with postpartum depression and anxiety. But this time around, I took it upon myself to schedule my doctor’s appointment, talk about my feelings, and do what I needed to do.
If this sounds like something that you are struggling with, remember that there is nothing wrong with you. It’s just the chemicals in your brain aren’t getting where they need to be – there is no shame in that.
2 – Kid-Free Time for Yourself
Finding time for yourself that is kid-free is a great habit for working moms. There needs to just be some time during the day that we can “turn off” from our two main identities and just relax – even if it’s just for 30 minutes or an hour.
For me, this is going to the gym. I get to listen to my own music, and I am focusing on myself, it’s good for my health in more ways than one. My gym time is like an appointment – I don’t schedule over it because it is a super important time for me to be my best self for everyone!
3 – Meal Prepping
Alright, I’ll be honest. I was someone that slept on meal prepping for the longest time. But now that we’ve been making healthier food choices in our family, we decided to start meal prepping and this is a life-saving habit for working moms.
We have a list of 6 go-to dinners and a couple of lunches that we like to prepare for the week. This helps with figuring out what we’re going to eat each week and makes our grocery shopping list consistent each week. Through meal prepping, we’ve found that our grocery shopping cost has reduced so much each month. Plus the added bonus that we are limiting how much we go out to eat.
Overall, meal prepping has been a dramatic change when it comes to habits for working moms and for our family. If you are someone that has been hesitant on starting, do it! The decision fatigue and money that we have saved as a family has been mind blowing.
4 – Take the Sick Leave
As a working mom, and especially a teacher mom, I have always been hesitant to take sick leave because making sub plans is usually harder than just showing up to work.
But this year, I decided that I was just going to take the leave. If I need a day, or even taking a half day, is better for my mental health than not taking the time. Pushing through sickness and exhaustion doesn’t help anyone. Or if I just want to have some extra snuggle time in the mornings with my kids then I should take it. There will never be a time that I will regret that time with my kids – especially as they are growing up so fast.
When it comes to habits for working moms, these 4 have made a big difference in my ability to manage the workload I encounter as a teacher and a mom of 2 young kids.
