Alex Gladwin Blog

Balancing everything when you're a parent is hard. Though of course, some days are easier than others and some harder and then some are just 'okay'. There's no easy way to balance it all and it doesn't matter how well you may think someone else has it all nicely balanced and their lives totally organised, the real truth will always be that balancing everything you need to balance as an adult when you're a parent is no walk in the park.

What works best for me, I find, is at least attempting some sort of structure and routine - especially for the boys. It never really works out well for us when we're all stuck at home with no plans - the boys get bored (easily) and it feels tougher when there's no set time put aside for day to day or work responsibilities.

I mean, of course it's not all routines and structures, it couldn't be even that's something we wanted. I've said before about how you can't always plan for things with young children, or you can, but you have to accept that plans change and that kids won't always want to do as you may have intended.

But even so we like to have at least some sort of idea of what we're going to achieve that day, from the little things like putting a wash on or cleaning the floor, to what activities we want to do, what we'd like to tick off of our work to-do list and what we'd like to do for ourselves.