What a week! We began this week with the incredible JCC benefit – with a room of over 300 people together celebrating all that we do here at the JCC. We then had Kesher on Tuesday evening where we met and discussed the way that our Jewish tradition thinks about transitions and liminal moments. Wednesday and Thursday we welcomed almost 400 special visitors into our school, and Wednesday evening we had the exciting official opening of our Pre-K art gallery in our common space. Then last night we welcomed almost 100 parents into our school community through our New Parent Cocktail party. All this on top of the celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) and the regular hustle bustle of our school. It is no wonder that when I got home tonight to write this newsletter I felt both dizzy and inspired!
As I was walking out of the cocktail party I asked a parent, “What am I going to write about for my newsletter?” She suggested, “Why don’t you write about balance?” My initial reaction was that this is no week for me to talk about balance. I have been out every night this week and I am spinning from the excitement and the over-scheduled nature of this week. But as I continued to reflect on the question of balance I realized that while I could not use this week as a demonstration of living life in perfect equilibrium, this is a week to share my own struggle with what it means to find balance amidst so many conflicting priorities. I offer myself as an example of a person who struggles with this goal rather than a model of a person who always achieves balance.
If one is lucky enough to have a full life there are many moments when one feels pulled between more than one commitment. It is easy to say we need to prioritize, to make time for the things and the people we care about. But what happens when we care about more than one thing? What happens if we have work that we love and that requires our attention and children whom we love and who require our attention? What happens when we need to work to hold jobs to support our lives and also have friendships that require time and attention? What happens when we want to spend quality time with a partner or family member but also want to fulfill our commitments to our broader community? These are not either-or decisions – we want to say “both/and!”
A particularly acute challenge that parents of young children face is that our children require real day-to -day care and attention. They notice when we do not put them to sleep. They notice when our attention is drifting from them as we answer the phone, reply to an email or even read the directions of a recipe. I know that I want so much to be an available parent. And while I have made peace with the fact that being present for my children does not mean literally being present at all times, I feel inadequate and disappointed when I am unable to be home for bedtime several nights in a week. I don’t want to spend my evening with my attention pulled elsewhere, and I don’t want to be away from my children. And yet, I can’t and do not want to put the whole rest of my life on hold until my children are grown. While our children may want all of our attention (and we may want to give it to them) we also need to attend to all of those other aspects of our lives – friends, family, jobs, chores, community, and maybe even exercise or reading a novel or the newspaper!
So what do we do? What does it mean to achieve balance given the high demands of parenting and the high demands of the rest of our lives? I believe that there is no one answer to these questions. Each one of us must find our own balance and the balance we achieve one day (or minute) may not be the appropriate balance for a later moment. I sometimes think back on advice my pediatrician gave when we asked about how we should assess whether my then 2 year old was getting a “balanced diet.” She suggested that we don’t evaluate her eating based on one meal or even one day but rather over the course of a week. She said that one day our child might eat more yogurt, another day more pasta, and yet another day she might not eat much at all. She encouraged us to look at the bigger picture, to look at what our child consumed over a somewhat longer period. This feels like valuable advice on so many levels. At any particular moment we may be leaning too far in one direction or another. My being out every night this week did not fulfill my vision for balance. I missed my children and I certainly anxiously await Shabbat. But I experienced many wondrous evenings, times when I felt proud to be associated with the JCC and with our school. And next week I hope to be home every night, to play more games with my kids and to hopefully share more than fly-by-night exchanges with my husband. Sometimes in fact it is not until I get way off-balance that I firmly pull myself back to the center.
The challenge for me is not to waste too much time berating myself for temporary lack of equilibrium. The critical voice inside that judges my being out of balance does not tend to bring anything positive. It tends only to extend the imbalance. Instead I am going to work to ease quickly and gracefully into the restful embrace of Shabbat, grateful to have had the full week behind.
Wishing you all a Shabbat of balance and peace.
Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master's Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.
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