bee hive illustration
Olivia the Octopus loved to swim in the ocean and play with her friends. Until one day she decided to become a mom. Excitedly she took care of her eggs for an entire month, waiting patiently for them to hatch. She was so busy tending to their needs that she forgot to eat. She grew weaker and weaker until the day her eggs hatched. And then she died.
Queen Bee Beatrice also loved to lay eggs. She laid 1,500 eggs a day! Wow, what a woman. In charge of her hive, she secreted pheromones to control those worker bees and keep them in line. She even had bees bring her food and help feed her so she could focus on her task of laying eggs. She lived a very long and happy life.
Nature can be the ultimate teacher, if we just look. While these stories may seem a bit stilly, they are completely true. A mother octopus, the best example of a martyr I have found, does die due to neglecting to eat while caring for her eggs. A queen bee, royally named and essential to the proliferation and well-being of the colony, is the head of her hive and enjoys a long, productive and privileged life. In fact while most worker bees live an average of 20-30 days, she lives up to seven years.
Both the octopus and the bee are busy laying eggs but the end results are completely different to the tune of life or death. Given a choice between the two, we all want to be the queen bee. But it’s easy to fall into the octopus patterns: neglecting ourselves to be fully focused on the kids to the point of near exhaustion, which leads only to unhappiness.
Let’s not do that anymore! Take a tip or two from Beatrice and watch your smile and your life return.
To be the queen bee of your hive here are three things you must do.
1. Have clearly defined roles. Queen Bee Beatrice knows her role. She is the egg layer. She is not building the hive, feeding the eggs or flying out of the hive to get more pollen. So why are you doing the laundry, working a job, driving the kids to activities, cleaning the house and making all of the meals? If you are doing more than your share in your family you are being more like Olivia and you’re probably dying inside, too. So figure out your top three priorities, and work to make that your reality.
2. Be willing to delegate. Once you determine your areas of responsibility, be willing to delegate some of your previous tasks to others. Help them redefine their roles and then expect them to help make your hive thrive. For example, if you are responsible for meal planning and cooking, then one child can be responsible for clearing the table, someone else rinses and another loads and starts the dishwasher. Obviously this all has to be customized to your family and be age-appropriate, but you get the idea.
3. Allow others to help you on your mission. Take off the Super Mom cape and let’s get real. Walt Disney once said, “Anyone who is successful knows he did not do it alone.” Beatrice knows she cannot run the hive on her own, she is busy, laying eggs and taking care of her job. She knows it is a fine balance of teamwork that makes her hive thrive. While she has to secret a hormone to control the workers, all we have to do is ask. Ask for what you want and then allow others to step in and help.
Albert Einstein said, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the globe, man would have no more than four years to live.” Bees are responsible for pollinating more than a third of the food in our diet, from almonds to apples to asparagus and avocados. If the queen bee is not healthy and doing her job, everyone else suffers. So it’s no wonder the queen bee is so well taken care of and respected.
Your job as a mom is just as important. So make sure to take care of you. Talk to your family if you are feeling overworked and redefine your roles. Then delegate tasks to other worker bees in your family and rely on them to complete their jobs. Finally, and maybe the hardest of all, allow others to help you be the queen bee so you can be productive and live a long life. The world needs to you to make the hive thrive!
April O’Leary is a Life Coach and author of “Ride the Wave: Journey to Peaceful Living.” She invites you to spend the weekend with her Sept. 14-15 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point for the Happy Mom Conference. Register at HappyMomConference.com. April lives in Estero with her husband and three daughters.