Women and Balance

I am from a generation of women, with few role models before us (when younger) to guide and help in learning to balance all the demands of life, in an age where women were pursuing professional careers. Only prioritizing, focus, and strong faith brought me through such a time. Being a single Mom, with a philosophy that being a good mother was my primary purpose. This ideal really helped to guide and balance me. I knew in order to make a better life for me and my child, would require me furthering my education. This education (getting an MBA in the early 80's) would enable us to survive and be prepared to thrive. It would also enable me to command higher pay for greater expertise. Also being a naturalist this included making my own baby food as I didn't trust the off the shelf mass production stuff. I would study while making the baby food. l would pump while reading a book, and washing clothes, finish then work some more.

By this time the result of my prior work, I had become an expert in health insurance payments for all kinds of health and human service providers. It was a natural progression to start and manage my own business full time. This would allow me the flexibility to attend to my daughter's school to observe classwork, go on class trips, and show up unexpectedly. No way was I going to leave something as important as my child's education, up to a teacher I didn't personally know or have an idea of their values regarding children and education. So I showed up in class to see. I know this kept many a teacher on their toes. Occasionally, I would run across one or two that needed to be whipped into shape and become clear that this mom wasn't playing with her child's education. Although not intentionally, regrettably, I had a few teachers terminated, principals involvement in assessments, and a host of modifications like sending my 7th grader to Drexel University Math Diagnostics to be tutored by a college professor. This was to insure she got it. While I had an MBA, 7th grade math was challenging after so many years. The demands of self employment including writing proposals for funding, getting contracted work completed with quality, juggling multiple clients, balancing how many I could successfully handle at one time was truly a learning curve Forget a personal life. This was it. In all sincerity it was so rewarding. My child's education thrived, my business thrived, and while busy, there was never a dull moment, I was pleased with the outcome.

In efforts to overstand- how I could be most productive I sought advice from elders- usually male as at that time I knew few black women in business, who could advise me.. A few times I had an opportunity to sit with a wise and successful man known as the Father of Leaders, Mr. Sam Evans, founder of AFNA. What he told me something, I'll never forget. "We all have 24 hours in a day- 8 we spend working- 8 sleeping- 8 we need to be certain how we use this time. If you need extra time, take it away from sleep and be careful how we use the rest.  I interpreted this to mean, put the child to bed and work some more, throughout the night if needed. I follow his advise until this day. He also asked me, "What does living Holy mean". As I stumbled with my reply, he shook his head no, then Mr. Evans said, " living Holy means Higher Order Living- Yield". That made even more sense. From the wisdom of the elders.

Please review what a colleague Helen Tinsley, now working on her doctorate, has to say about Creativity and Balance as a woman.  http://theliterarytearoom.blogspot.com/2013/08/academia-vs-creativity-finding-balance.html -  Hope you gain insight into how to handle all this stuff.