Hello! This is Kanekiyo. I have three children, as of June 2024, they are my daughters, a high school freshman, a junior high school junior, and a sixth grader. Now they can take care of themselves without the help of their parents anymore, and I should not have to follow around and take care of them from 1 to 10, but I am busy every day! I even feel that my time is taken up by them so much that I wonder if it is not much different from when they were in nursery school.
So, I would like to think about my work-life balance by reflecting on what I do with my time every day as a full remote worker.
What kind of things do you spend your time on?
In the morning, until I send them off to school (about 5:30 to 8:30)
Breakfast Preparation
Prepare water bottles
Make lunch boxes (only for the eldest daughter)
Wake him up (it’s hard to wake him up!!!!)
About my hair (I can’t fix my sleeping habit, so help me! or look to see if it’s not too springy! and so on)
Each person is sent off while asking if he/she has forgotten anything (everyone leaves at different times).
This was a smooth day with nothing irregular happening.
It tends to happen in the morning… I forgot to send out a letter from school and it’s due today and I need you to write it right away. They forget to prepare something for class and tell me in the morning (like an apron and a triangular hood for cooking class, or an empty plastic bottle for calligraphy class, etc.). Then, they ask me to drive them home because they are going to be late because of all the time it takes to get to school. My second and third daughters go to nearby schools, so it’s still OK, but my oldest takes a little over 20 minutes by bicycle to the nearest station, and if she misses the train, which only runs once an hour, I have to drive 20 minutes each way (more if she gets caught in morning traffic) to drop her off. It is usually between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. when all three girls get to school safely and say “Whew!
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Things to do at home before starting work
Run the washing machine while the children are out and dry it later (some days twice).
I feed my adorable cats, change their water, and clean their hairy beds.
Breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen that was not cleaned up the day before
Cleaning the whole house (not every day)
I work up to this point and usually start work between 9:30 and 10:30.
Other.
cook dinner
Shopping for groceries and daily necessities
The children have to go to the dentist because all three have braces, an ENT because all three have hay fever, an ophthalmologist because the oldest daughter has contacts, and a pediatrician when they are sick).
Evening and evening pick-up and drop-off for lessons (currently concentrated on Thursdays and Fridays)
School events at each of the elementary, middle, and high schools (these are often not mandatory, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I like to participate as much as possible)
I am a PTA board member at the middle school this year, so I have evenings and weekends to attend board meetings and lectures.
I am a member of the executive committee of a local event that we do every year, so I participate in the executive committee on a monthly basis.
When I write all this down, it seems as if I can work during the day without anything taking up my time unless I have a special school event or a hospital visit, but for about two months since the new school year began, I have been really busy and unable to concentrate. Why is that…?
Looking back on the past two months
The rhythm of my eldest daughter’s life changed drastically when she entered high school, and my second and third daughters also had some changes in their environment when they each moved on to the next grade. Because of the new school year, all three of us have separate events this year, and all Saturdays from April to June are filled with school-related schedules. In addition, there were also a few events for parents to attend on weekdays. There were also some days off due to illness.
I wrote down what I spend my time doing and thought, “Unless I have a special school event or hospital visit, I can work during the day without spending time on anything,” but there are quite a few “special school events and hospital visits,” and it is difficult to concentrate on work when the children are home on vacation. I thought “I will be able to work without having to take time off from work as long as I don’t have to go to the hospital.
Looking back, I realized that I was being pushed around by my eldest daughter’s school commute due to the drastic change in her environment. Unlike when she attended an elementary and junior high school near our home, she had to use public transportation to get to school, but there was only one train or bus every hour in the area, and on rainy days, she had to be picked up from the station or school…. Not only did the actual pick-up and drop-off take up a lot of time, but there were also many days when I had to worry about my return time and whether or not I needed to be picked up, which may have been a factor in my inability to concentrate.
Work-life balance
Image by Adobe Firefly
During the past two months, when the new school year started, there were many school events for each child and the rhythm of daily life had not yet been established, so irregular events occurred more than expected. In order to work smoothly in this situation, I think it is necessary to be able to work with a certain degree of flexibility.
I have been given 6 hours a day to work at mgn. This is the maximum amount of time I can spend at work right now. And sometimes I start earlier than usual and finish earlier, or I start at noon and work for 6 hours from there. If I can only work 4 or 5 hours, I can offset the shortfall by working more on other days. I am glad that mgn allows me such flexibility in my work schedule so that I can continue to work.
Even though my child has grown up and is gradually becoming less demanding, I still have a lot to do and think about, and I don’t have a lot of time to spend only on myself. Even so, I hope to strike a good balance and enjoy both child-rearing and work.
What I can do to have more time for myself, like work time and hobbies, would be to try to get my family to help me a little more with the housework or cut back on it. I also think it is possible that I am taking unnecessary care of my children by working remotely and being at home. If I were not home, the children would have to manage on their own. I am afraid that my presence is causing them to do things that they would have to do on their own if I were not at home. The only way to change this is to change my and the children’s awareness. I would like to update my awareness and the way I spend my time with my children as they grow, even if it is little by little from now on.
