Finding Balance in the Chaos: How Parents Can Reclaim Time Without Guilt

For many parents, the idea of having time to themselves feels like a distant luxury.

Between work, family responsibilities, and endless to-do lists, carving out even a few minutes of personal time can seem impossible.

News Corp’s Great Australian Parent Survey 2025 has found that nearly one in five mums and dads (17.9 per cent) cannot find even one minute in their day for themselves, while almost a third (30.5 per cent) say they have less than half an hour a day to spend as they please.

Time pressures are also affecting the amount of quality time parents are spending with their children. One in 10 parents say they have less than half an hour of quality time with their kids each day, while about a quarter manage between 30 and 60 minutes.

Dr Renee Ireland, clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland says this time poverty hasn’t always been the case.

“It really is a product of our modern world,” Dr Ireland says.

“We’ve typically in the past had extended families living close by and we’ve had those support networks but families are more isolated, and with the cost of living these days, parents are working full-time jobs.

“If there are multiple parents in a home, usually both of them are out working.”

So how do parents navigate the balance between the legitimate sacrificial requirements of parenting, and avoiding burnout?

“First of all, we need to probably get better at recognising those signs of burnout,” she says.

“Those signs might be fatigue, constantly [being] tired, feeling irritable – and more irritable than usual, perhaps – and definitely those feelings of being overwhelmed.

“When we know [the signs of burnout] we can start to do something about that.”

Dr Ireland says that while some pressures of work and family life are real and unavoidable, setting realistic expectations important in order to manage burnout, overwhelm, and “parent guilt”.

“There’s so much pressure to have kids involved in lots of extra-curricular activities – too many, perhaps, in some cases.

“Do they need to be involved in so many things? If it’s eating up time [and] money and it’s depleting you and your family, then perhaps that’s somewhere that you can start to make some changes.”

Dr Ireland suggests that managing time and expectation comes down to “noticing which balls you can drop”.

“We all have a hundred balls in the air. Some of them are glass; some of them are plastic. The ones that you can’t let drop, you need to keep balancing those – but sometimes it’s [a matter of] having that conversation with the family to say, ‘Pick the one that you love thing doing, and let’s just stick to that one thing. Pick your favourite friend’s birthday party and we’ll say yes to that but we’ll say no to the other ones.’”

Despite the challenges, there is hope.

Dr Renee says connecting with other families – whether physically or online – is key in finding support, along with setting realistic expectations, learning to say no, and investing effort in things that will free up time in the long run.

“Trying to balance work and parenting isn’t all doom and gloom. There are so many beautiful, positive moments there, but we can do that if we have good boundaries.

“[It might be necessary to ask] ‘What can I learn about time management that might be helpful?’ Similarly, if it’s financial planning and getting some support, there are lots of apps and free tools that are available… sometimes we feel too busy to engage with them, but in fact if we just stop and do a little bit of planning, it then saves us a lot of time. That precious, precious time that we’re looking for – we’ll find that down the track.

“There is hope – we can do this, but learning to say no, putting some boundaries in place, asking for help where possible, and connecting with other people who are feeling the same is really going to be helpful.”

Listen to the full interview in the player above.

Article written by Jess Drummond.

Feature Image: Canva Pro