Juggling Family Activities
By Alisa Ikeda

Being a working mom is much like being that woman at the circus, the one frantically running back and forth to keep all her plates spinning at once. Only your plates are full of budget reports, brown-bag lunches and Girl Scout patches. As your children become more involved in after-school activities, those plates multiply, and your act requires a new level of mastery.

Keeping It All Straight
When it seems like you, your spouse and your children are all going in opposite directions, you need a system for keeping it all together.

Go Digital. Toss the sticky notes and flyers in favor of personal digital assistants (PDAs). These handheld organization wizards come with calendar software that allows you to keep track of band practices, ball games, and business dinners for the entire family. Sync regularly with your laptop or desktop computers to keep everyone in the know.

Stay in Touch. Be sure you and your spouse are accessible by phone, cell phone or pager at any and all times. You'll be the first to know when a tutoring appointment has been rescheduled or a music lesson canceled, so you can make alternate arrangements.

Make Allies. Befriend your children's teachers and coaches as well as fellow parents. They'll remind you of field trip sign-up sheets and soccer tournament dates even when your children fail to keep you in the loop.

Volunteer. You may not be able to swing the tennis match on Thursday, but maybe you can man the tennis team's carwash on Saturday. You can contribute your services, stay involved and informed, and show your child that her activities are important to you.

Being Everywhere at the Same Time
"Coordination, cooperation, and organization are essential," says Drue Ann Hargis-Ramirez, who's familiar with the weekday whirlwind of work, school, soccer, baseball and cub scouts as a working mom to two busy boys in Pomona, California.

With solid scheduling and continued communication, you and your spouse needn't ever experience that last-minute panic over who's expected to take whom where and when. Drue also pairs up with other moms to share driving and chaperone duties.

Your employer may be more family-friendly than you think, says Laurie Segal, CSW, founder and executive director of F.A.C.E. I.T. Inc., a NY-based wellness program designed for families. "Many moms find that if they go out of their way in the workplace, the employer makes a mental note of it and will be more flexible even in an inflexible environment." Plan ahead, she suggests. Do a little overtime now to free up hours for a special event later. Schedule routine doctors' appointments for the evening or early morning in order to save personal days for special events. Set aside vacation days, and ask your employer if you can split them into half days so that you can accommodate your children's schedules without missing a full day's work

Missing Out
When events are frequently scheduled in the afternoons or early evenings, it is impossible to attend every event so you need to prepare for inevitable disappointments. A seasoned working mother of five, Segal offers several recommendations:

Take turns. If you can't make it to every child's events, use a rotating schedule of which events you attend. "Then, when there is a conflict, it's not a personal thing -- it's not like you're favoring one child over the other. And it's not like picking out of a hat, where the same child could possibly get it twice in a row."

Drop the sales pitch. "Don't try to convince your child that this is the best possibility. She's not going to buy it, and she's just going to be resentful. Explain in a calm and very neutral way that you're not going to be able to make it, and you feel badly."

Tame your guilt. "Don't try to make up for your absence in other ways ('I'll take you out for ice cream instead'), and don't make promises you might not be able to keep ('I'll be there next time for sure'). Your child might feel like you're minimizing his feelings about you not being there this time. Just be honest and human."

Send a representative. Recruit siblings, grandparents, aunts, friends, and babysitters --"anyone who will be clapping, waving, smiling, and doing all the things you would be doing" - to attend in your absence.

Record the event. Arm your representative with a camera or camcorder. Soon afterward, go over the photos or videotape with your child. "Be specific and ask detailed questions, because your child may have some anger, and it may take a little bit of prodding to encourage her to talk about what happened. But once she does, it feels closer to your having been there."

Making Activities Important
"Even the most seemingly insignificant event can be monumental in a child's eye," Segal reminds us. So treat it as such. If you're up for adding just one more plate to your spinning act, consider creating a family newsletter. Keep it as simple or elaborate as you like, but be sure to include columns for each child and adult and document everyone's events in as much detail as possible. It not only makes everyone feel in touch and important, but it also makes a wonderful family keepsake.

Alisa Ikeda is a mother and writer in Marin County, California.

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Recently modified: Wednesday, April 06, 2005

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