Our Two Need, Too

Amy and I both juggle a lot of clients: I have analyses and reports that various organizations have requested of me, and Amy sees does counseling and medication prescription for patients who come to her with any number of life woes.  As we are in the prime of our careers, we take our work seriously and have a lot of it to keep us busy and capture our energy.

We also two very important clients living within our own house.  Jada and Aaron are, of course, our children and therefore our responsibility.  They are also, like many children, dealing with special issues that require extra help and extra attention. So on the weekends, when Amy and I would love nothing better than to get through our chores and errands and then recharge ourselves for another tough workweek ahead, it is important to also make sure we tend to Jada and Aaron, to our relationship with them as well as to the distinct problem areas they need our help with. 

In sharing this I am neither complaining about our situations nor sainting our responses.  I do want to point out how these realities affect Amy and I somewhat differently. 

I spend a lot of time wishing things were easier, and a lot of time responding to my kids in a very calculating and clinical manner.  Not that I don't love them or that their bumps don't cause me to ache.  This is just how I deal with life's messiness: wish things were less messy, and then get down to the business of compensating for, dealing with, and if possible rectifying the messiness.

Amy is a lot more caring than I, but also a lot more introverted.  So her frustrations are different than mine, less about the reality of the problems and more about her wishing she had more time and energy to respond.  As it is, she responds in superhuman fashion, somehow juggling a very demanding job and the lion's share of the house chores with steady doses of TLC for our two.  But, in addition to it all tiring her out more than me, it hurts her heart more.

Not sure where I'm going with this.  But I assume that other parents out there can empathize.  Especially those who work and whose work entails tending to the needs of clients, and who slog through the fun and challenge of serving them while making sure there's enough in the tank to serve the kids at home.  Parenting is the world's greatest job, with the highest joys and the heaviest burdens, is it not?