Kris Teece works fulltime in child protection, is a single mum to four children and is studying part-time for her Master of Criminology. The 36-year-old is also a fitness fanatic, the manager of her son’s football team and helps teach dance to her daughter’s school class.
When Teece took on uni by distance education four years ago her mum and many girlfriends warned her she was taking on too much and could burn out. But not only has she thrived, she has progressed in her career, has been earning distinctions and will soon graduate.
“There were lots of negative messages initially around me combining career, children and study – there’s not always a lot of positive feedback about being a busy mum,” says Teece, whose children are aged 6, 7, 12 and 13. “But I really want to fit as much as I can into life. The most important thing is to live the life that is important to you.”
Teece offers the following advice for managing, and enjoying, a very full life:
- Fine-tune your load: I know when I’m doing too much when the quality of what I am doing is not as good as I’d like it to be. For example, when I started my Masters I was doing a higher load and wanted to get through it in two years. I had to drop down and do it over four years. There is a balance and everyone needs to find what that is.
- Network: Sometimes the greatest support is just having someone to talk to. You should network with like-minded women. It helps keep me on track and to get my focus back. It’s not easy doing any one of these things – fulltime work, mothering, studying – but you can do them all if you are organised and have the right support around you.
- Look after your health: I perform better if I’m fit and healthy and eat well. Ballet is my background but since having children I’ve done a lot of kickboxing and over the past four years, weight training. Even if I have a couple of weeks off I feel more lethargic and my self-esteem drops. It’s not just vanity, it’s about being productive in all areas of your life.
- See the funny side: You have got to have time to be silly. You need to have a sense of humour because things aren’t always going to go 100% right. Especially when you are busy and you get home and the kids have trashed the house or they’ve drawn something stupid on the wall. It’s a sense of humour that helps me to not take things so seriously.
- Spend one-on-one time: I have two boys and two girls and they’re all different. I like to do something that means I’m involved with them all individually. They certainly notice it but it’s important for me to do that – I can’t get lost in any one of my worlds. I feel better myself as a mum and they also feel special.
- When studying, pick your moments: I can learn quite quickly and I’ve worked out that my best study time is when the kids are asleep. I can be up to 3am and run like that for a certain period – two or three weeks out of a semester to get all my assignments done. The fact I can function on ridiculously low amounts of sleep, for certain periods, probably allows me to do so much.
- An extra pair of hands helps: I’m a single parent and I don’t have a lot of money compared to a lot of parents, but paying for a part-time nanny or au pair is a good investment and gives us a much better quality of life. Even if it’s helping me drive the kids somewhere – it can take the tediousness out of the day-to-day routine. I’d rather pay the money now than be really highly strung out.