I was doom scrolling on Instagram the other night when I came across a thread about juggling work and kids. I was about to scroll past because I just knew it was going to be something annoyingly vague about “finding balance” and “centering yourself” while also “not being too hard on yourself, Mama!”, but doom scrolling rules dictate you must mindlessly go through each slide on a post, so I dutifully complied.

I included the thread at the bottom of this post if you’re interested, but it essentially discussed that question no one can really seem to answer – how can we have it all?? This question had been asked of author Nora Roberts at a Q & A session, who gave the deceptively helpful response that made me run to my computer to write this post.

Basically, your world isn’t just made up of general boxes – “Work.” “Family.” “Hobbies.” “Happy Hour.” “Screaming into the void.” It’s all those boxes, plus all the things that fill them up. Work is lecturing (hi, I’m a professor), grading, lesson planning, emails, office hours, paperwork. Family is kids and husband, but also my parents, my brother, nephews, in-laws, cousins. And within all that are school drop offs and pickups, soccer lessons and dance recitals, doctors and dentist appointments, vacations, field trips, birthday parties, family events, and the list goes on.

Nora tells us that unfortunately, we do have to learn to juggle all these balls. But surprisingly, this wasn’t just the generic useless advice (sorry, work-life balance coaches) about balancing a “work” ball with your “family” ball. It’s about taking those “lecturing/emails/grading” balls in the Work box, and the “soccer lessons/dance recitals/picture day” balls in the Family box, realizing that some of them are made of plastic, and some are made of glass – and then figuring out which ones you can drop. Because let’s be honest, some will be dropped – and a plastic one falling is no biggie, but let go of a glass one, and you’ve got shards everywhere that you’ll still be picking up three months later.

So the key then is not to always prioritize kids over work or vice versa, but to figure out which specific plastic ball you can sacrifice for which glass one. Easy peasy.

I say her advice is deceptively useful because on the one hand, I really did find it inspiring. I have spent many hours talking to many different folks, trying to figure out the secret to ✨balance✨, and I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer – not because they didn’t want to help, but because they were still trying to figure it out themselves. Nora had given me a more specific, concrete way to sort out and prioritize all the balls in the air.

But on the other hand, like…how? How do I decide which balls are glass and which are plastic? Some are easy enough to figure out. If I’m way behind on grading that giant pile of papers, but Kid #2 is lethargic and running a fever, of course the papers are now plastic and I need to take her to urgent care. If Kid #1 wants to play Magna-Tiles®️ (sponsor us please) but their dad’s home and I’m dealing with the flu – I am now glass and going to take a nap.

But take yesterday morning. The kids didn’t want to get ready, which meant we were running late for drop off, which meant I would be running late to work. I was in my standard pterodactyl screech mode, rushing the kids to PUT ON YOUR SHOES, GET YOUR LUNCH BAG, WHAT IS IN YOUR MOUTH, LET’S GOOOOO. And of course, my chaos mode put them even more on edge, and even more tantrums ensued.

Often in moments like this, I feel myself floating outside of my body like a spirit, hovering over the chaos with arms crossed and head shaking, appalled at how Physical Me is handling the situation.

“You know…if you just calmed down…they would calm down too…”

“You could get out of the house sooner if you just kept your cool…”

Spirit Me is really judgy.

But of course, Spirit Me was right. At rare miraculous times when I can keep my cool while my kids are having their big feelings, I’m able to talk them through it, and they end up calming down sooner. In those moments, what’s glass and what’s plastic is much clearer. But more often than not, we’re running late for something, and all I can see is everything else that’s going to be pushed back or messed up as a result, which then triggers Pterodactyl Me. In those moments, all the balls feel like glass, and I can’t afford to drop any of them.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see which balls that morning were glass, and which were plastic. Once the big feelings started, the kids’ needs should have taken priority, because matching their energies would have just made everything worse (and it did – we were sooooo late). Sure, it was important not to be late, but taking the time to de-escalate would have been so much more practical and productive. Plus, pterodactyl mode didn’t even get them to school on time, so what was even the point?

So now with this fresh perspective, I’m on a journey to parent a little less poorly. For now, in those moments of screaming tantrums, I’m going to try, instead of screaming back, to step out of the room for a few seconds, take many deep breaths, and remember it’s okay to drop some balls. More importantly, I will learn to remind myself that glass is heavier than plastic – and if I treat every ball like it’s glass, I’m eventually going to drop them all.

…

The famous thread!