Smack in the middle of editing a piece that's due to a client by noon tomorrow, I get the school district robocall to my cell phone telling me my boys are being released early from school due to the snow storm that is becoming heavier than expected.
Drat. Just as I was getting into my writing groove.
I begin the mental shifting of gears that every part-time work-from-home mom knows so well. Did I seriously expect to finish what I'd started? Time to put my “Mom” hat back on.
I'm embarrassed to admit that it sometimes makes me angry and irritable to have to shift gears from work to family. It's frustrating to have my progress interrupted and to reset my expectations about how the rest of my day will be spent.
This is how I shift those gears:
I sit for a few minutes before they walk in the door from their buses, I close my eyes, and I focus. I focus on the way their little faces looked when they were just two and five years old. I focus on how my younger son's lisp used to sound and how he replaced the phrase “what happens if” with his own unique “whunsif”. I remember how my older son used to sing the chorus to “Leaving on a Jetplane” whenever we were headed on a trip to visit his grandfather in Florida.
I think about my younger boy's classmate, now in 5th grade, still courageously fighting an inoperable brain cancer she's had since she was just five years old. I think about a former coworker who lost her son when he was just 21, two weeks before his college graduation, when he was in the back seat of a car that was struck by a drunk driver.
In just four short years, my older son will leave for college. Four years?! That's the blink of an eye. My younger son still snuggles with his two favorite blankets (his “cozies”) when we watch TV. I tell myself, “Momma, stop being such an idiot. These days are numbered, and your babies are leaving you.”
Gear shifting now fully completed, I hear my boys clambering in through the front door, dropping their backpacks on the floor, shaking the snow off their jackets, kicking their wet boots off and laughing about something someone said to one of them on the busride home.
I walk to them, grinning from ear to ear at their bemused faces, and I tell them we need to grab a quick bite and then head out to the nearby golf course to go sledding. They agree it's an excellent idea.
The goal of parenthood is to raise independent humans. Simple, really. Teach them how to negotiate their paths through life, how to make good decisions and be kind to others. And to pick up after themselves and make their own food.
You're teaching them how to leave you. That's why I find parenting so difficult. You're teaching these little creatures that you love more than life itself how to be so independent; they will not only be able leave you, they will want to leave you. Pure and utter heartbreak, isn't it?
As the years pass, if things go as planned (I know, they sometimes don't), you watch your kids make these astounding leaps forward. They're growing. They're maturing. They're getting it right. They're cutting the strings loose, one by one. And it's happening much, much too fast.
I'm now fully able to recognize that this unexpected shortened school day and interruption of my work progress is nothing less than a sparkling, glorious gift from the universe.
I'm determined to gratefully soak up every single second of it.
There's been a lot of change for dads in a short period of time. Today they work as many hours as previous generations, but do three times the childcare and twice the housework as dads a generation ago. In this interview, Scott Behson, PhD, author of "The Working Dad's Survival Guide" talks about how working dads can create a more balanced life of family, work, and self, and how employers can help make it happen.
With a few practical tips and strategies in place, you can stay on top of your other responsibilities so you don’t feel overwhelmed by too many changes at once.
Being a new parent can feel lonely. Here are some ways to get out there and make new friends - and nurture your existing relationships (even while exhausted).
ParentCo.
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