Most Americans maintain a "priority list" of things to purchase when enough money has been saved. It is my conviction that domestic help for the mother of small children should appear on that priority list. Without it, she is sentenced to the same responsibility day in and day out, seven days a week—unable to escape the unending burden of dirty diapers, runny noses, and unwashed dishes. She will do a more efficient job in those tasks and be a better mother if she can share the load with someone else occasionally.
Here are some further suggestions to help you tolerate the pressures of your life:
1. Reserve some time for yourself. A husband and wife should have a date every week or two, leaving the children at home, forgetting them for an evening.
2. Concentrate on the good things in your life. Discontent can become a bad habit—a costly attitude that can rob the pleasure of living.
3. Don't deal with any big problems late at night. All problems seem more unsolvable in the evenings, and the decisions that are reached then may be more emotional than rational.
4. Try making a list. The advantages are threefold:
You aren't going to forget anything.
The most important jobs will get done first; if you don't get finished by the end of the day, you will at least have done the items that were most critical.
The tasks are crossed off the list as they are completed, leaving a record of what has been accomplished.
5. Seek divine assistance. Marriage and parenthood were not human inventions. God, in His infinite wisdom, created and ordained the family as the basic unit of procreation and companionship. The solutions to the problems of modern parenthood can be found through the power of prayer and personal appeal to the Great Creator.