When you become a parent, no matter how hard you try, eventually your life starts to revolve around them. All of sudden, you have more dentist apts, more visits to the doctor, school events, teacher meetings and eventually their sports, clubs, play dates and whatever else they have going on. Something’s gotta give and usually it’s your sacrifice – your hobbies. You want your kids to be well-rounded because one – you don’t want to be labeled a bad parent, and two – you want to ensure they have exposure to enough things to be successful later on in life. I mean why did you even have kids if not to be their personal chauffeur? (Life really needs a sarcasm font.) So how do you balance all the hobbies of your kids and still take time for yourself? Hint: You can’t do it all!

For us, we make our kids choose activities – because if we didn’t, they would sit in their rooms all day on their phones (and no comments on how they are too young for phones – that’s another post later). So we have them choose at least 2 activities, maybe more depending on cost and times. For example, my daughter was already in gymnastics, cheer and horseback riding. She also wanted to do dance – due to the cost of all four activities, and when they were, we told her if she wanted to do dance, something else would have to go. She chose to stick with what she had, and just do her own dances on her own time at home.

So we had free time, which allowed me to pick up kickball and Pilates as my new hobbies. We don’t have much downtime together as a family, but we all have individual downtime now, and we get to cheer each other on at our different activities. This also ensures the kids aren’t burned out, that we have a balanced budget (not going into debt trying to accommodate every little thing they might be interested in) and we can support each other. My other hobby is reading – and that I can do while in the car waiting to pick them up, or after they go to bed, or on my lunch break. Finding time to get everyone’s interests and hobbies in is hard, and sometimes we have to make a hard choice. But in the end it’s worth it. What are your tricks to get some time for yourself and your hobbies?