As the rain trickled down my windowpane, I couldn't help but feel the familiar twinge of guilt as I saw my children's eyes fixated on their video game screens. This spring break has been a balancing act of keeping up with work, managing my kids' screen time, and finding moments for self-care. On today's episode, I'm laying it all out on the table - the messy, imperfect reality of being a working parent. We'll explore the complexities of nurturing our children's growth without the crutch of digital babysitters, as I share a page from my cousin's playbook on limiting screen time, and take a hard look at why self-care often slips through the cracks when family life gets hectic.
Takeaways
Finding activities to keep kids entertained during rainy days can be challenging, leading to increased reliance on video games and electronic devices.
Excessive screen time can have negative effects on children's mood and behavior, but sometimes it is necessary for working parents to use technology as a means of occupying their kids.
Working mothers often put pressure on themselves to balance their children's needs and limit screen time, but it's important to recognize that sometimes compromises need to be made.
Taking care of oneself can be difficult for mothers, especially when everyone else is at home. It's important to prioritize self-care and find ways to maintain personal well-being.
Recognizing and accepting imbalances in household responsibilities can help reduce tension and conflict between partners. It's important to communicate and find ways to support each other.
As children grow older, it becomes easier to find time for personal pursuits and self-care. With time, it's possible to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances.
As the rain trickled down my windowpane, I couldn't help but feel the familiar twinge of guilt as I saw my children's eyes fixated on their video game screens. This spring break has been a balancing act of keeping up with work, managing my kids' screen time, and finding moments for self-care. On today's episode, I'm laying it all out on the table - the messy, imperfect reality of being a working parent. We'll explore the complexities of nurturing our children's growth without the crutch of digital babysitters, as I share a page from my cousin's playbook on limiting screen time, and take a hard look at why self-care often slips through the cracks when family life gets hectic.
Takeaways
Finding activities to keep kids entertained during rainy days can be challenging, leading to increased reliance on video games and electronic devices.
Excessive screen time can have negative effects on children's mood and behavior, but sometimes it is necessary for working parents to use technology as a means of occupying their kids.
Working mothers often put pressure on themselves to balance their children's needs and limit screen time, but it's important to recognize that sometimes compromises need to be made.
Taking care of oneself can be difficult for mothers, especially when everyone else is at home. It's important to prioritize self-care and find ways to maintain personal well-being.
Recognizing and accepting imbalances in household responsibilities can help reduce tension and conflict between partners. It's important to communicate and find ways to support each other.
As children grow older, it becomes easier to find time for personal pursuits and self-care. With time, it's possible to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances.
Hello everybody, welcome to day three of the Spring Break series for Steel Roses podcast. This podcast is created for women, by women, and we're. Basically the goal here is to elevate women's voices. This week is the special series, so I am doing a mini sewed every day. I am doing a mini-sode every day, documenting essentially the survival of spring break in my house whilst it is pouring rain outside. I've been complaining pretty much every episode and I will continue to complain even into tomorrow when the rain stops. So very interesting observation, basically, I wanted to share. So it's day three. Um, we're getting, you know, a little weary of arts and crafts, not as excited about that stuff, um, and we finished out all of our kits that we bought already, so that's kind of off the table. We've gone through pottery, painting, drawing, pretty much, you name it. Um.
Jenny Benitez:
So today, unfortunately, was pretty highly focused on video games. I didn't have any time off today during the day, so I was working for the full day, which is why I did rely more heavily on the kids playing video games and being on devices. I know the literature, I know that this is not beneficial for them, I know it's detrimental to their brain, I know it's detrimental to their personalities, to their moods, but I also know that I had to work, so it's one of those catch 22s. Basically I couldn't sacrifice the whole day. So I did my best to try to mitigate and everything. But today was just, it is what it is. It's raining out and I had to work and I had to just roll with it. Sharing this because I think that we especially I mean we as women in general, but we working mothers put a lot of pressure on ourselves to stay on top of keeping up with things that are great for our kids and keeping them away from things that are not so great. And it's almost to a fault. There would have been no way for me to work today while also having my kids home if I didn't have them do play with their electronic devices. So I just had to bite the bullet and hope that. You know that won't happen all the time, and there will be days where we're outside all day and they don't get on their devices at all. So it's sort of like a I have to deal with it for now, and when the weather's nicer, hopefully we don't have to go that route anymore. Deal with it for now, and when the weather's nicer. Hopefully we don't have to go that route anymore.
Jenny Benitez:
I will say this I do notice significantly the impact on my kids. When they are at home cooped up and stuck on devices, their mood swings are much more intense. My son specifically. He has a really hard time disengaging from the device. So that's always a problem and that always causes a big blow up and you know it's not pleasant and we feel bad, like myself and my husband. Both we don't like that, that it happens that way. But again, we both work, so sometimes it just it is what it is.
Jenny Benitez:
But you know I will say that I do notice a pretty big difference and my cousin and I talk about this quite a bit because she very, very much tries to keep her daughter away from screen time. She did an excellent job, I think. The first few years of her daughter's life there was no screen time at all. And you can tell the difference when your child is not given a screen until much later because their brain develops in a better way. And you know I had to deal with all three of my kids being little at the same time, so I did lean a little bit more on technology for support. But for moms out there that don't need to have that, and you can just engage with your kids all day. While it might be exhausting, it really is to their benefit and it is better for them to do it.
Jenny Benitez:
But, with that being said, I was like pure survival mode when my kids were little, so it was what it was, and they're fine. I mean, they're okay, they're smart kids. My kids are very intelligent, articulate. They'll talk your ear off. But I do kick myself quite often about that. Nothing I could have done at the time, but just something I'm sharing with you guys because, again, we all go through these things and I think it's important to acknowledge you know what. This is something I regret. It's something I wish I could have done better. Maybe I can share this with you guys and you can do better for your kids.
Jenny Benitez:
So there's that other observation, and I've actually noticed this before when my kids are home, I take less care of myself, and not just my kids. When my husband's home too, when everybody's in the house, I pay less attention to my own needs and less attention to what I need to do for myself. Case in point when I am home alone, I eat a very balanced diet and I drink probably around 60 ounces of water or tea and or know and or tea throughout the day, because my water goal is always about 60 ounces. I get up and exercise for about 45 minutes-ish. You know, I'll walk on the treadmill in the garage or I'll take a walk around on the block and I will actively make sure that I am prioritizing things for myself. Okay, when everyone's here, that goes right out the window. Summer months are interesting around here. You're all going to hear about it, because this just is what it is.
Jenny Benitez:
I have to get better at continuing to maintain myself and continuing to care for myself while everyone else is home. I have a very, very hard time. I struggle quite a bit with taking care of myself and I mentioned I always talk about advocating for yourself and yesterday, on the episode I recorded last night that aired this morning, I did talk a little bit about like prioritizing your health and prioritizing your healthcare and actually getting yourself to doctors and all that I do very deeply, firmly believe that, but I also very deeply firmly know that I have a really hard time with that and I'll use this myself as my my poor example here is I was, but I've been meaning to get blood work for well over a year and I still haven't gotten it done. It's just stuff like that, but the water thing and the food thing I noticed specifically today Now, the first four years that my kids were alive, I was very overweight, very obese and I struggled so much, trying to just take care of myself because I just didn't. To be quite frank, I just didn't, and I think I mentioned it on the other episode that, like I didn't go to the doctor for like three years, I just couldn't wrap my head around taking care of myself, and symptoms of that are still present today.
Jenny Benitez:
The few things that I do prioritize, no matter what, is meditation, affirmations and visualization. Those are my three big tickets nearly every single day. I overslept this morning, but those are my big priorities every single day is making sure that I have those few five minutes for each process to make sure that I am getting myself in flow and that I have a calmness about me the exercise is something that I do struggle with a little bit and making sure that I'm getting up and moving and taking care of myself, whether it's like a 15-minute yoga or if it's, like I mentioned, like walking outside or walking on the treadmill. I do try to make that happen. So I'm saying it here and I'm saying it out loud, because I'm at a point where I want to make this change. I want to make this happen, where I am making it a point to prioritize myself.
Jenny Benitez:
Today I did get I worked out in the afternoon and I was laughing to myself because it was about 5.15 and I started getting antsy because I knew I needed to make dinner and my husband's training me we're doing weight training in the garage. That's our little home gym is in the garage and he was like, okay, and now after this one, we're going to do this. And he kind of just kept going with the workout and then I stopped him. I was like I have to make dinner, like I can't just continue to work out because it's going to get to six o'clock and then you're going to be staring at me. Everyone's gonna be like what's for dinner? So I laugh about this because I think that many of us experience this or we observe it. Where men are able to just compartmentalize and prioritize, like if it's working out or you know doing something for themselves, they're able to disengage that and not have to like think about anything else, or they won't think of anything else, whereas I think, as women, this goes alongside with, like the mental load.
Jenny Benitez:
The whole time I was working out, I was thinking about cooking dinner what's the turnaround time for me to cook dinner? And then one of my daughters wanted to play with me, so I was thinking about that. And then I wanted to make sure that I played with my kids after everything was done, because I didn't get to really hang out with them today. And then, outside of playing with my kids, I'm like well, I got to make sure my one daughter wants to play with me. I got to make sure I spend time.
Jenny Benitez:
This is what's running in my head and I just find it hard to stop these things and to not feel under pressure. And this is coming to you from a place of like I'm sharing this with you because I think we all go through this and it's very difficult and we get really frustrated and pissed off. And I used to get enraged because I'd be like my husband would be telling me oh, prioritize your workout, and I'd be like okay, who's going to fold the laundry? Like I mean it just sort of would balloon into this massive fight Cause I'd be like, okay, fine, I'd be, I'd be happy to prioritize myself for an hour a day. Who's going to take care of everything else that I do during that hour? You know, and it's things like that that, I think, cause those major rifts between husband and wife because the husband is able to disengage. Now, no matter how helpful your husband is I know you know I have, I know someone whose husband is incredibly helpful around the house but there are still these barriers that they just can't seem to get past, you know, and it makes it even worse when there's like long commutes involved in the whole thing. So everyone goes through it and I think that it's just a matter of like recognizing it, acknowledging it and then moving forward from there. You know, you don't have to get stuck on that and beat it to death and argue with your partner and make it a huge issue. Like sometimes you just sort of have to accept, like you know what? Like it's a little lopsided, yeah sure, eventually it's going to even out.
Jenny Benitez:
I will use as an example the fact that I'm recording a podcast right now. Would have never happened three years ago. No way in hell, no frigging way, would that have happened three years ago. There is no, not a is not a shot in hell that I would have had time to do anything like this. But now I can. My kids are older, they're bigger, they're self-sustained. I hear two of them playing upstairs. I think it's playing. I can't tell. We might be arguing, we'll see.
Jenny Benitez:
So with time, I think, comes some recognition of like yes, it's difficult but I can pivot and I can figure something else out, and that's basically what I've been doing this week. I was very excited this week or today because I knew my husband was going to be home halfway and he's going to be half of the day and I know he's going to be home the rest of the week. So I'm like all right reinforcements. But yeah, it's a lot of push and pull and give and take. So we're right at the halfway point of spring break. I am still incredibly bummed out about the weather, probably going to be upsetting to me for the rest of the week. But you know, we'll see where it goes from here. So thank you all for listening, thank you for hanging in with me.
Jenny Benitez:
I actually hope that you're enjoying the little little spring series here, spring break series. I'm hopeful to be able to do something similar to this in the summertime. Just a little quick hits, because I know everyone's schedules change a little bit in the summertime. I know mine sure, my schedule sure does. So you know we'll see how it works out. But I'm just going with the flow and kind of seeing where it takes me.
Jenny Benitez:
I do have some great guests coming up in the spring series. So the way that everything's being structured right now is we're in our springtime series. So this is, yes, spring break. Our spring series, the steel roses spring series, will run through May into June and then in June starts the summer series and it's a whole different shift in like how, um, the podcast is going to be formatted and the kind of topics and everything we're going to talk about. So stay tuned for that, um. Thank you so much for hanging in with me. I greatly appreciate it. I hope these little mini shows are helpful to you in some way. If anything, some solidarity and the fact that you are not alone in losing your marbles. We're all losing our marbles. So until next time, take care everybody, and I will catch you on the next one.