Am I ever going to satisfy my ambition?

Ambition. How do I satiate your appetite? Motivation. Where did you go? Time management. I’m sorry we had to break up. Child. Yes, I can play with you some more.

This is what I am struggling with. I am only 21 years old, but I have two sons that demand my attention. I have one semester left on my associate’s degree (community college first!) How do I juggle my family and my own goals?

Here’s the dilemma: women have the misfortune of assuming the second shift. Typically, but not always, working women come home and take care of the children, dinner, and the house. In comparison, men usually come home and relax for a while. This is present in some families not all. Women assume the shift because we have historically been responsible for raising children and cleaning the house. When women entered the work industry, we merely added an activity to our day. Or so it seems.

Even in this age of equality and change, women are still more likely to pull this second shift. Shout out to the dads that are killing the parenting game on their own!

This is true especially for student moms like myself. I have to find time to research, proofread, keep up with assignments for up to four classes, and potty train my toddler. Don’t even get me started on what my infant needs. Say I wake up early to do my schoolwork. Cool, my baby eats at 4 a.m. anyway! By the time we are done feeding/changing/rocking back to sleep, its 5:30. That leaves an hour and a half before he will want to eat again.

Thankfully, I have a husband that does his best to help me with the kids and takes care of them when I need to do school. He gets home at 3 p.m. That’s only two hours before dinner needs to be done. Not started. Done. How about after the toddler goes to bed? I need to go to bed early so I can get up at 1 a.m. to feed my infant. And the cycle goes on and on. My second shift is making time for school.

This amount of stress wreaks havoc on my emotional health, and sometimes on the health of my marriage. Don’t act so surprised! I am busy juggling and dropping all of my balls, so guess who doesn’t get laid? Both me and my husband. Thank god I decided to take a semester off!

Struggling with motivation to do schoolwork, or go to work is normal. The National Institute of Health recognizes how stressed mothers (and fathers) can be. These feelings of fatigue, and inadequacy are completely normal! And justified! I actually looked at the research. (Working Mothers: How much working, how much mothers, and where is the womanhood? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3151456/ )

So here is my plan. I am taking this fall semester off. During those six months I am going to get my infant on a schedule similar to his brother’s. I am going to potty train my toddler. I am going to set myself up to succeed in the spring. This blog is not going to end with an answer. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find this answer. I can only hope that by prioritizing my boys now, I’ll be able to prioritize my school later.

If anyone does have the answer, please share! For now, I can accept that I have to press pause for a short time.