Sara Sweat, MA – Founder
It’s 3:20 PM on a Friday and the meeting that was supposed to take “just 10 minutes” has taken almost an hour.
The last minute problem that necessitated the meeting is still not resolved. Somebody has to take ownership. Maybe it’s a project plan that needs to be reworked, a client deck that needs to be created, or an analysis that is not yet complete.
Your leader glances at her watch and says the thing you’ve felt coming for the last thirty minutes. The thing no one is ever supposed to say – but they actually do.
“Hey guys, I’ve got to go get my kids, but we’ve got to resolve this before Monday. So, I’m going to hand this off to Jenny. She doesn’t have any little kiddos vying for her attention at home, so she can knock it out this weekend. Mmm’k?”
What happens next…is nothing. Nobody flinches. Nobody looks up from their laptop aghast at the potential HR violation that just escaped the boss’s lips. Two people actually nod, because it seems reasonable to them. I mean, when you’ve got an eight year old sitting in an aftercare hallway, watching the door, anything that wraps this whole thing up seems like a great idea.
No one clocks a thing – except you. Because you are Jenny.
Now it’s your turn to talk. And, man do you have something to say. Do you channel your inner Norma Rae and stand on a table holding a sign that says “Not It”? Do you kick off your TED Talk about how the fact that you don’t have children isn’t an agreement to serve as everyone’s back up until the end of time?
No. No, you do not. You sigh deeply, hoping someone will notice your inconvenience. Then say…”yeah, ok. I’ll get it done.” Because you are Jenny. And, Jenny always gets it done.
It’s Not Worth The Arguement
You stopped putting up a fight about this all years ago. Because there’s no good way out of these conversations.
If you push back, then you’re not a team player or just a jerk who isn’t willing to help out a working mother. I mean, who wants that label?
If you explain that you had plans, now you have to produce those plans for inspection. They must be weighed against the scales of everyone else’s expectations. Are they good enough to warrant a reprieve, or will your plans seem trite compared to the schedule of everyone else?
Even if they’re passable, everyone will assume you have more flexibility than they do. So, they’re more likely to say “can you move it?” than “we’ll figure something out”.
Now, if we’re being honest, you probably can move whatever you had planned for the weekend. But, that’s actually part of the problem. You have built the kind of life that can be rearranged. Now, everyone thinks they’re allowed to rearrange it whenever they want.
One In Three
If this sounds familiar to you, your experience is a lot more common than you might think. The Pew Research Center found that 35% of employed adults under 50 who don’t expect to have children say they have been expected to take on extra work or extra responsibility specifically because they don’t have kids.
35%. That’s one in three. And that’s only the people who saw the pattern clearly enough to name it on a survey.
Work is, by far, the easiest place to see this trend – on account of all the calendars and staffing plans and ownership cells in spreadsheets. At work, there’s a paper trail.
But, at home, the problem is even more common and often harder to see.
The Job You Were Never Offered
You’re the one who takes your father to the cardiologist, because your sister has the twins and your brother has “work.”
You’re the one with a house big enough to have a guest room where your cousin can stay when he’s between apartments.
You’re the emergency contact on school forms for several children who are not yours, because you could probably be there on short notice if they were sick.
You’re the one who drops everything and hops on a plane when someone you love gets a scary diagnosis, because your availability isn’t reliant on childcare.
You host the holiday. I mean, obviously you host the holiday. You have the most room, and by “room” everyone means square footage, but also disposable income – which no one ever says, but everyone believes.
Nobody ever asked if you wanted all these jobs. They were just assigned to you – about the time everyone else started having kids and you decided you would not.
So, you’re the one everyone asks for help. But, the truth is, that even when nobody asks, you do it anyway. Because you’re the one who can.
You know your mother’s supplemental coverage lapses in November. You know your brother is not going to call his doctor back after that inconclusive scan. You know that if the caterer isn’t booked by the ninth there is no Thanksgiving dinner; there’s just eleven people standing in a kitchen at four o’clock making increasingly aggressive suggestions about ordering pizza.
You do it all because you can see it. And, as it turns out, seeing what needs to be done creates its own kind of contract.
So you end up holding all the work that nobody else will do. And, all the work nobody else will do well. Plus the enormous crap ton of invisible work nobody else even ever sees. Until you die.
Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic – but you get the drift, right?
I Was Jenny
I know all of this, because – before becoming a parent – I spent decades as the “child free default adult”.
I was the person who was “happy to travel” to visit everyone else since I had more flexibility in my schedule & only one flight to book.
I got handed the projects no one else wanted and used it to climb the corporate ladder faster than anyone else my age.
I hosted every gathering, every holiday, and helped out every struggling family member and assumed nothing would ever change.
Then, my son was born. And, I learned something I could not have learned any other way. That free time is not guaranteed.
I had no idea how little sleep, how little support, and how little care a human being can survive on until I wasn’t allowed any of it.
Parenting is harder than anything I have ever done. Harder than the career, harder than the caregiving, harder than all my other experiences combined. Early on, there were days when I was so exhausted I would have handed the keys to my house to a kind looking stranger if she offered to take my child to the park for an hour.
I understand the impulse to make someone else the default adult of everything in life that isn’t about survival – because that’s what you’re doing for a little while with tiny humans. Surviving. And, when you are that far underwater, you’ll reach for anyone who looks like they’re standing on the shore.
But, I remember what it felt like to be on the shore, too.
To watch everyone in the water and see the waves and the sharks and all the chaos coming for them. To know, deep in my bones, that I couldn’t just sun myself on the beach – a right I had earned, by the way, through years of hard work and grit – and let them just figure it out.
I knew I was gonna have to go into the water myself and start pulling people out. Perfect summer tan be damned.
Free Is Not The Same As Available
Because, the reality was – I did have more free time than my colleagues with three kids under ten. I did have more discretionary income than my family members that made different choices. And, I did have a more satisfying social life than my friends who had small kids.
I wanted to be a team player and a good family member and a great friend. So, I let my desire to love people and my need to rescue them become the priority.
Over my own health. Over my own peace of mind. Over me – living my own life.
It was only when I had a child of my own and had all of my free time evaporate into thin air, that I realized what I had been giving away for years.
I learned that just because something was free, didn’t mean it was available to everyone else.
Hang in here with me, because this is an important distinction to make.
Free is not the same as available.
Free time is time that you get to fill with whatever you want. Available time is time somebody else can request.
When you’re a new parent – all of your free time is requisitioned by the crying, pooping, adorable little tyrant you’ve brought into the world. And, you have no choice but to hand it over with a smile.
When you’re the child free default adult – everyone assumes your free time is available to them. That if you’re not drowning, you need to get your butt in a boat and help.
And, that makes such logical sense, doesn’t it? So, we agree to play by those rules, as well.
Until we’re resentful, frustrated, and burned out – from being everyone else’s personal energetic ATM.
We stop being able to keep anything for ourselves without guilt or shame weighing us down. We just keep giving until we’re so fried that we’re no good to anyone and finally give ourselves permission to stop – just long enough to have the mental breakdown to which we are entitled.
Taking Your Time Back
But, there is another way. And, it’s deceptively simple. Are you ready for it? Here it is.
All your time is free.
That’s it. That’s the whole lesson. You see, somewhere along the way, we Monarchs stopped believing our lives belonged to us. We began viewing ourselves as the means to an end for other people to exist.
Our time started getting divided up into the functions we perform in other people’s lives until we realized there was nothing left.
But, the truth is, our time can’t belong to anyone or anything without our permission. It is ours. And, it is all free.
We can choose to devote some of our time to a career because we want financial stability and, ya know, groceries. But, that is still our choice.
We can donate our free time to our friends, our family, or the causes we care about. But, it’s all ours. And, unless we dog ear it for something specific – it’s all free.
You can have fifteen free hours on a weekend and not a single one available for anyone else. Did you know that? Like, did you know that was a thing? That you can literally have a bunch of time free – and just not give it to anyone else?
You can decide you need those three free hours on Tuesday night to binge watch your favorite show.
You can use your weekend to go on a trip and tell everyone your phone won’t work where you’re going – them doomscroll Instagram until your eyes hurt.
You can tell your boss that your “calendar is full”, but you’re happy to start working on that project first thing Monday…and then not explain anything else.
Because the time, dear one, is yours. It’s all your time. And, all your time is free.
Now, we both know you’re not going to use all your free time to lie around on your chaise being fed grapes by a grecian god – though, it might be fun to try. You’re not going to suddenly become someone who doesn’t care about the needs of others.
Your choices all still have consequences and you value your relationships and your career and a whole bunch of other things. But, you’ve got to start allowing your time to be invested where it matters most to you – not where it’s expected by everyone else.
Because being the child free default adult doesn’t just cost you the hour of free time you’d reserved for something else, it costs you the ability to enjoy your life.
The constant expectation that you’ll just figure it out is why you stopped signing up for that pottery class you loved. Why your international trip keeps sliding down the calendar into next year. Why you don’t pick up a hobby that takes eight consecutive Saturdays to complete, because you have never had eight consecutive Saturdays that stayed yours.
You have been living on the standby list of your own life. But, it’s time to start booking the flight.
Your Time Has A Purpose.
Here are a few things I’ve learned that might help get you started in reallocating all that free time you’ve built up.
Name what your time is for, in advance and out loud. Say it before anybody asks, even just to yourself. Your plans need to exist in the world as a real appointment with a calendar invite and everything – instead of a blank Saturday you’ve reserved only in your mind.
Stop producing evidence. “I’m not available Saturday” is the entire answer to anyone’s request for your time. There can be no appeals process, if there’s nothing to appeal. You do not owe anyone a receipt for your own life, and every time you offer one you teach people to ask for more.
Make one thing standing. Same day, same time, every week, so you only have to defend it once and then it holds on its own. Book the pottery class. Sign up for yoga. Go play golf. Just secure the time consistently and with other people – so you won’t be tempted to trade away your life.
Let one thing fall. Pick something small, something you always catch, something that won’t actually end anyone’s world if it drops. Then, just watch what happens. Some of it will miraculously get handled – all on it’s own. When we’re the default adult for everyone else, we also deny them the opportunity to figure it out themselves. And, that’s a skill we all need to have.
Ask For The Casserole
Once you’ve got some boundaries protecting your space, you need to start pouring back in.
When your friend has a baby, six people organize a meal train. When your uncle has surgery, somebody sets up a schedule to ensure someone’s always sitting with him at the hospital. When you have a hard month, people say “let me know if you need anything,” which has never once resulted in a lasagna arriving at anyone’s door.
Because you look like the person who’s got it all together. And nobody brings comfort to the people they think are already comfortable.
The Monarchs I know without kids are the very worst at asking for help. Worse than the parents. Worse than the caregivers. Even worse than me, and I once skipped a prepaid massage three times because I couldn’t bring myself to text a neighbor who genuinely likes my kid.
They’ve done the math. Compared to a woman with three children, you do have more freedom. So how could you possibly ask?
But, having fewer obligations than someone else does not mean your life is easier. You are just as busy with things that matter to you just as much. The only real difference is that yours don’t come with a socially approved excuse note attached.
Your Tuesday counts. Your rest counts. The thing you’re building on those Saturdays counts, too. Not more. Not better. But, it does matter, too.
So, when you’re feeling burnt to a crisp – ask for help. Ask badly, and awkwardly, and preferably before you’re desperate.
Ask your friend to bring over dinner. Ask your sibling to take something off your to do list and own it start to finish. Ask the boss what the plan is when Jenny is busy.
Because Jenny is about to get herself a life.
The Other Version Of Friday
There is a version of that Friday afternoon meeting where somebody looks up from their laptop and says, “Hold on. Jenny can’t just pick up the slack again.”
I would love to tell you that person is one of your colleagues or even your boss. But, it’s probably not. Most of the time, everyone is so busy trying to keep their own heads above water, they’re simply not going to notice yours.
The person who speaks up in the meeting is going to have to be you. You’re going to have to take back all that time everyone assumes you’ll give away and take up the space you actually need.
I promise you – the people in your life will figure it out. It’s not going to get done the way you would have done it, and it’s not going to be easy. But, the people in your life are mostly great humans working off of bad information.
They’ve been using the instruction manual you gave them years ago. You’re allowed to update your instructions whenever you want.
You did not choose a life with fewer obligations so you could inherit everyone else’s. You chose it because you wanted your life to be yours.
Now is the time to actually live it.
If you’re tired of your time belonging to everyone but you, come find me at www.monarchsup.com/contact. You deserve to have the life you want – even if it inconveniences everyone else. Subscribe to stay with me for free.
