Kids Heading to School?

Fill the Time by Fulfilling Your Dreams

By Jenn Director Knudsen

Lisa Hammond of Henderson, Nev., married young and had a baby at 19. Five years later, her second child followed. Still a college student when she began a family, Hammond quickly realized that once her kids were school-age, she would want more.

Hammond, now 39, dabbled a bit in part-time office management work from home, helping her husband with the construction company the couple own. But that work left her unfulfilled. "A point came where I was just losing it, despite having a [house with] picket fence, two kids and a great husband," Hammond says.

Many parents (usually moms), who are their young kids' primary caregivers, want what Hammond did: something more for themselves, especially as their children trade in preschool cubbies for the lunch boxes and backpacks of the kindergarten and elementary-school set.

How do you get from wiping noses and bottoms all day to fulfilling – and time-filling – activities, whether it be volunteer work, paid work or simply crafty projects you've put aside while your children are young? Here, parents who've made the transition as their children did share how they did it and offer tips on how you can follow suit.

First, offers Hammond, be realistic. "First of all, they're not going to have as much time as they think," she says of parents. Naptime schedules and preparing meals all day for the family will give way to different commitments as your kids age.

"For me, once they got into school, I was every bit as busy as when they were little," Hammond says, whose children, a daughter and a son, today are 20 and 15, respectively. Once they entered school, they had homework, sports practices and other activities, like rock climbing and snowboarding, she says.

The difference, though – and the good news for exhausted parents of young, needy kids – is you'll soon have larger blocks of uninterrupted time. The kids start to get their own lives once they enter school, Hammond says. "It's not that you'll have a 2-year-old hanging off you all day long," she says.

So start reflecting on and planning now

Want to see more?

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• Even Super Mom Needs a Break
• Moms at Work: Is Returning to Work Right for You?
• Talk about it!