Compromise: The Secret to Family Balance
With only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week, trying to manage your life and your family by living 30-hour days and eight-day weeks is simply impossible. Between trying to eliminate household chaos, putting out fires, building a career and paying bills, time is sacred, coveted and lost.
Balance is essential for living your life, rather than merely surviving it. How do you achieve balance among the various demands of life that seem to spiral out of control? Every thread that makes up the fabric of your family is interdependently interwoven and connected. To sacrifice the quality of one area seems to only lessen the quality of another area.
If I don’t work these long hours to get that promotion and raise, then we won’t be able to save money for our children’s college education. But with my intense demands at work, I can’t help my kids with their studies—and then what if they don’t even get accepted into a university?
As parents and leaders of your family and home, an exchange of compromise between you and your partner is the secret for achieving balance and eliminating defeatist attitudes. To find that middle ground, couples must:
Communicate
To switch from survival mode to actually living life, couples need to communicate. Communicate about daily tasks and personal needs. Communicate about how to compromise to accomplish mutual future goals and meet expectations. Determine your roles individually and as a team, and then prioritize responsibilities, which will in turn help you identify how to give and take. Compromise inevitably leads to sacrifice. Perhaps your family chooses to live off a single income so one parent can stay home to raise children. As a stay-at-home mom, domestic duties may fall more heavily on your shoulders so that the breadwinner can focus on work.
Be Leaders
Author of “Kid CEO: How to Keep Your Children From Running Your Life,” Ed Young explains that “striking a balance with kids” helps families bypass crises. Pastor Young explains that “married couples are letting their kids run the family, rather than assuming that leadership role themselves.” Try to avoid letting the “kids become the center of the family universe.”
As leaders of the family, compromise your time and attention with your children:
- Knowledge on how to build a substantial family foundation.
- Discipline that’s effective, rather than punishment.
- Intimacy for marriage maintenance.
- Structure for family safety and balance.
Stay Organized
Give and take is ever-changing— changing daily, weekly, monthly. Solidify a schedule with your spouse before the start of the week and discuss in length how tasks will be accomplished. Perhaps one evening you’ll have to attend a teacher-student conference, and your husband will have to come home from work early. Perhaps your husband’s company has executives in town visiting, and he won’t be home until late, once the kids are already in bed. For the greater good of the household, give with this take. While creating a family schedule, reserve a weekend evening or afternoon for mindful family time. With all of the separation from weekly compromises and sacrifices, allotted time for the clan to be together is imperative.
As a yoga teacher, mom and strong supporter of vegetarianism, Lauren loves sharing tips and recipes that help her readers live a healthy and happy life.
