May 2006

Editor's Note: Comfortable Chaos

At a recent family wedding, I was sitting with my sister-in-law, precariously balancing cake and coffee on our laps. Preschoolers in various stages of dishevelment were running around and around the room and laughing. It drove my sister-in-law crazy – she was constantly worried that they would make her spill, and she couldn’t carry on a conversation over the noise. I completely tuned out the noise and enjoyed watching their joy.

On the other hand, she lives in a house with teetering piles of books, clothes, 6-month-old mail and sports equipment on every flat surface (not her fault), and with $20,000 vehicles sitting outside because the four-car garage is filled with junk. I would have backed a dump truck up to it years ago and loaded it up as many times as necessary.

So, how much is too much chaos?

Beth Herrild and Carolyn Harvey, mothers and owners of Quest for Balance in Bellevue, say there’s no right answer. Each of us has a different tolerance for chaos, and that’s OK. “Comparing your choices to others’ is never a winnable proposition,” the two write in their book, Comfortable Chaos: Forget ‘Balance’ and Make Career and Family Choices that Work for You, (Self-Counsel Press, 2005). “Our research shows that women have clearly emerged as the worst gender in making disparaging comments about other women’s choices and lifestyles as a way to attempt to become more comfortable with their own.”

Ouch.

I admit that when I was a stay-at-home mom, I thought our work was harder than going out into the corporate world and the best choice for our children – although at least I had the grace to admit that we stay-at-home moms could be the most self-righteous people around. When I worked part-time, I thought that that was the best solution for that time in my life. I never could understand how moms could work full-time outside the home without short-changing their kids, but the fact is that many manage it beautifully. And the mom who recently wrote to me about running six businesses, starting a seventh, writing books about how kids can be entrepreneurs and still spending lots of quality time with her children? Forgetaboutit.

As we find our own level of “comfortable chaos,” we must first realize that the concept is individual, and that we have to decide what is fun, bearable or overwhelming to us personally. Secondly, Herrild and Harvey write, we must recognize and embrace the fact that it’s imperfect, and that it’s impossible to have the perfect house, perfect children and perfect work all of the time. Their third concept is that all of our life is inter-related and holistic, and we can learn to look at the big picture.

Herrild and Harvey liken the trip through life to a white-water raft trip. Sometimes we can enjoy the thrill of running through the rapids; sometimes we have to keep from capsizing when the pace gets too fast; and sometimes we need to paddle to pools of calm water. Some of us enjoy the fast times more, and some of us need more time in the quiet pools.

In their upcoming Tools for Parents lecture, the two will help parents assess how they are currently spending their time, learn their own tolerance for chaos and learn techniques for managing the chaos, including setting boundaries and improving transitions. The emphasis is on realistic, incremental changes, not total life makeovers.

Wherever we are on the tolerance-for-chaos continuum, we can all learn something.

Wenda Reed
Editor

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Seattle's Child, a publication of the Washington Post Company
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