Mom: COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the Home
The mom of the home serves as the COO of most families. The very nature of
motherhood and being a wife incorporates the tasks of a COO. She coordinates
projects, the needs of each indivdual in the home, the finances assigned to each
area of the household, the calendars and appointments, and any odds and ends
that also need attending.
This job can be very overwhelming, especially for a woman who was not trained in
the skills of a COO. Certain temperments also make it more difficult to be the
coordinator and decision maker on this level. For those women (and any woman in
this position), learning to prioritize the needs and resources is the key to
maintaining sanity. There will be many requests for your time and resources just
because you are a woman and mom, but some are going to need to be refused.
In order to decide which should be accepted onto your task list, the COO needs
to have a clear understanding of her (and her household’s) priorites. What are
your time limitations? Can you really take on the classroom’s party? If you did,
what money or family time would be affected? Most requests that come our way are
very good needs, but that does not mean we should be the one to takes them on.
By keeping our family goals and priorities in the forefront of our minds, we can
learn to say yes or no to the requests that will come our way. This prioritizing
also applies to the many requests our own family will bring to us.Can you (or
the family) really take on one more after-school activity or church program?
Even if you have the money for it, does the family have the time to give away
for that?
One way to tell if you have taken on more than you (or the family) should is to
look at how much time the family has together?
Down time is also very important for mental and relational health. Does
the family have evenings where there is no structured activity and they can just
hang out together? Another test is to ask yourself how stressed you are? Are you
working on projects on more than one or two evenings? Do you ever say that you
don’t have time to be frugal and shop for sales, or cook a homemade meal? Maybe
you have taken on too many extra things.
Saying no is very hard, and harder for some more than others. Please remember
that you are not saying no to the need (which is probably great), nor are you
rejecting that person who asked you. You are protecting your family’s time and
money. You can do it!