How Working Moms Juggle Work, Homework, Dinner and a Clean House

By A Mom and a Job  ·  9 min read

I am watching an extra child this week. One more backpack by the door, one more snack to hand out at pickup, one more person who has to be fed before anyone can sit down to homework.

Somewhere around Tuesday I caught myself wondering how I did this when my own kids were little. Not the extra child. The whole thing. Work, school, dinner, bath, bed, and a house that was supposed to look lived in instead of looted.

Then yesterday I ran into a friend of my mom’s in the grocery store. She looked at me, looked at my cart, and asked how I am doing the juggle now. She could not fathom it.

I laughed and said something like “one day at a time.” But the question followed me all the way to the checkout, because the honest answer is that when you are inside it, you do not feel the juggle. You feel the next thing.

When you are in it, survive first and thrive second

People watching from the outside see the whole mountain. You are only ever standing on the step in front of you. That is a mercy, and it is also the method.

On a hard week I stop asking how I will get everything done and start asking what has to get done today. Not what would be nice. What has to. Most days that list is short:

• Everyone is fed.
• Everyone gets where they need to be and gets picked up.
• Homework is seen. Not perfect, seen.
• The work with a deadline gets done.
• Everyone ends up in bed.

Everything else is a bonus. Surviving the day is the foundation, and once it holds steady you can start to thrive: a dinner we enjoy, ten minutes of real conversation with each kid, a house I do not apologize for when the doorbell rings.

I am not an organized person. I taught myself to act like one.

I want to be clear about this, because it matters. I am not naturally organized. My brain does not file things neatly, and if you saw my desk in the middle of a project you would believe me.

What I do have is a clear schedule and a habit of preparing ahead. Both were learned on purpose, because being unprepared kept costing me. Every missing permission slip and every 5pm “what’s for dinner” with an empty fridge ate time I did not have.

If you are not organized either, this is good news. It is a skill, and skills can be learned. These are the pieces that saved me the most time, and I go deeper on all of them in the working mom survival guide.

You are not imagining that it is a lot

If it feels like you carry more than your share, the numbers agree. In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey of families where both parents work full time, 57% of parents said balancing work and family is hard. Mothers were twice as likely as fathers to say they handle more of the household chores.

The time data tells the same story. American Time Use Survey figures cited in that report show full-time working mothers averaging about 1.7 hours a day on housework, compared with about 1.2 for fathers. For child care it was about 1.4 hours compared with about 1. And 46% of full-time working parents said they do not spend enough time with their kids.

None of this means you are doing it wrong. It means the work is real, and a lot of it is invisible, which is exactly what I wrote about in the mental load of motherhood. Asking for help is a strategy, not a failure.

A weeknight that runs on a schedule instead of willpower

This is the rhythm I keep coming back to. Your times will be different. The order is what helps.

Homework without a second shift

Homework is where many of us get stuck for hours. The research is kinder than most of us expect. The National Education Association recommends about 10 minutes of homework per grade level, which puts a third grader at around 30 minutes.

How you help matters more than how long you help. Psychologist Cara Goodwin, writing in Psychology Today, sums up the research this way: parents do best when they monitor, guide and encourage while letting the child work as independently as possible. Intrusive or controlling help is linked to worse academic performance.

In my kitchen that means setting up the spot, staying nearby, and helping when asked. I start my own task at the same table, like folding laundry or answering emails, so my kids see what working next to someone looks like. I praise the effort (“you stuck with that”) instead of the grade.

If getting started is the daily fight, how to get children excited to learn goes into what helps. And if homework regularly runs far past the guideline, tell the teacher. That is information, not complaining.

Dinner has three levels, and all three count

Some nights I cook. Some nights I reheat something I cooked earlier. And some nights dinner is cereal. All three feed my children.

• Level one, the planned dinner. Made easier by a double batch on a calmer night, a slow cooker on a busy one, or theme nights so you never ask “what should we have” from scratch. Let each kid choose one night.
• Level two, the 15-minute backup. Eggs, quesadillas, pasta with whatever vegetables are in the freezer. Keep those ingredients stocked and you always have a plan B.
• Level three, cereal. Or toast, fruit and yogurt. Call it breakfast for dinner. Nobody has ever remembered it as a failure, and the kids usually vote for it.

A clean-enough house comes from ten minutes, not a Saturday

I stopped trying to clean the house and started trying to keep it from falling apart. One ten-minute reset each night, with everyone taking part, does more than a whole weekend of catching up.

Kids can carry more than we think. Why kids should do chores covers what to hand over at each age, and it takes real weight off you.

Laundry gets the same lowered bar. One load a day beats a mountain on Sunday, and clean clothes in a basket count as done until someone has time to fold. The basket can wait. Your evening cannot.

Some balls will fall, so choose which ones

Here is what nobody tells you. You cannot do all of this at once, and you are not supposed to. Some balls will fall, and the only choice is whether you pick which ones or the day picks for you.

Before the week starts I decide what is allowed to drop. Dinner can be cereal. Laundry can sit in the basket. The floor can wait until Saturday.

When I drop nothing on purpose, something drops on its own, and it is usually me. That is how burnout starts. Working mom burnout describes what it looks like and how to come back from it.

The next time someone in the grocery store asks how I juggle it all, I will tell them the truth. I know what has to get done today. I let the rest fall. Most days, we are fine, and some days we eat cereal.

You can do this too. Not perfectly, and not all at once. One day at a time, with your drop list in your pocket.