NOTE: This article was originally published by Jewish Echo Magazine in Ask-the-Therapist column
Question:
As a 35-year-old working father of five, I often find myself feeling frustrated. Between my responsibilities as a breadwinner, father, husband, community member, and learner,I often have difficulty juggling everything. How do I prioritize all these responsibilities?
Answer:
First off, I do hope that your wife appreciates being married to such a wonderful guy who is identifying himself as breadwinner, father, and husband; who also makes time for the community and learning. I am not going to call you a rare breed, because fortunately, our community excels at producing Alpha Males, but acknowledging the difficulty in juggling all these balls is the sign of also a serious, thinking person.
I notice how you do not ask which balls you should drop and kick under the couch, but how to prioritize them in a way that you can better manage them.
You haven't been clear in describing your frustration, what triggers your frustration, and how your frustration manifests itself, but I will address your concerns globally that you can extract whatever fits your questions, letting other readers extract what fits their needs, making everyone happy.
In order to address your question, it is important to understand that as a healthy person, all these roles you have identified are crucial to achieving quality of life. We go through developmental stages, beginning as infants, and continue until we reach the golden years—which are only golden if we successfully navigate all the stages and all these roles. So I like the way you asked about prioritizing them rather than renouncing any of them.
Beginning as a teenager, your task was to create an identity for yourself. That paved the way for choosing the community you live in, the shul you daven in, the people you are friends with, and the clothing you wear that is the outward signs of your identity. As a young adult, you married and entered the work force, though not necessarily in that order, proving that you could manage the tasks of engaging in work and social relationships. You are the husband and breadwinner you describe.
The stage of development you are presently in is of the mid-adult whose task is generativity versus stagnation. If you are not generating, you are stagnating. In this phase, having established self identity and relationships with others, you must go beyond yourself in order not to stagnate emotionally and even spiritually. And this mid-adult state propels you think beyond yourself as you raise children and begin to give back to the community. You are the father and community member and learner.
As you move onto the the older years of late adult, which would begin about the time you become a grandfather—years that we call the young old, the old, and the old old—the tasks that become most important are those that build on what you have done until now and push you onward to deeper spirituality and connection to your religion, the meaning of life and purpose, and to work towards goals and achievements that you can look back on with satisfaction and peace.
So it's wonderful that at 35, you have created a foundation upon which you are moving successfully from one stage to the other, building upon your successes of the previous one.
But you are frustrated because it's a lot of roles to perform, and the guy, Erik Erikson, the development psychologist and psychoanalyst who identified these life stages was definitely not doing what you are. He married at 28, only had 2 children, was not involved in the community or chessed, learning or attending minyan three times a day!
Here is what I would advise—because all are important to your psychological well-being—identify what you must do as a responsible husband, father, and Jew, what you want/love to do, and which are obligatory chores you are basically doing because someone else thinks it's important.
So, for example, you feel as a responsible father you should play baseball on Sunday with your boys, go out every week with your wife, attend a shiur every morning, and volunteer with Chai Lifeline weekly. Okay. Now examine your schedule. You may decide to combine the volunteer work with spending time with your boys by involving them in what you do, freeing up your Sundays for leisure time or exercise. You can find time during work hours to enjoy lunch with your wife instead of the evening, leaving you with time attend the shiur you love.
You may want to cut out the stress of learning with your sons, engaging a tutor, so you can rather enjoy their company with activities you both enjoy. Take your daughters to work with you on Sunday when you are finishing up a project. Text your wife throughout the day to feel connected and buy flowers out of the blue.
You may decide to cut your work hours, earn less, but have more time to volunteer to deliver meals. And take your kids along in the car.
Don't say yes to community projects if you really don't want to do them, and they come at the expense of your home obligations. Don't attend the shiur just because it looks good, if you really want to learn with your children instead. Don't agree to visit the elderly man in the hospital if you really need to be home with your wife. If you are fulfilling your task of generativity, it must be with activities you truly love and feel are meaningful, not feel obligated to do because of societal or community expectations or pressure.
It is true that generativity cannot replace the all important task of building your relationships, mainly with your spouse and children. And work cannot replace the lofty meaningfulness of community involvement or developing one's talent. But when family members and work obligations don't allow you to develop into the person you want to be and become, frustration sets in.
And if you feel yourself frustrated, then figure out why you are frustrated.
Are you frustrated because you have no time for meaningful activities? For building relationships with your wife, children, and friends? Because you feel under-appreciated and overworked? Analyze where you are living for someone else instead of yourself.
Maybe your wife has you running errands all Sunday; perhaps the rav of your shul is asking favors you want to refuse. Maybe your boss is taking advantage of you, and your children are not enough self-sufficient. Perhaps.
Of course there are times that household errands must be done and work projects will have deadlines. Of course. Yes, you committed yourself to your marriage and to your children, and that takes precedence; but you still must carve out a place for your spiritual and psychological needs, to teach your children values they will take into their own adult lives.
And for all you women out there reading this column, don't throw the eggs at me yet. You should be examining your lives in the same way to balance being a wife, mother, career woman, and community member in much the same way. Because although having children and a spouse is an incredible gift, meaningful living is not defined by the people in your life, but in the person you are as an individual.
Because Sundays are much more fun without errands.
My book, Therapy, Shmerapy, can be found in bookstores or online