I brought my kid to work today. She’s got an iPad to read pony comics on, my second laptop to watch some Netflix while the iPad is charging, headphones to keep the noise down, some stuffies, some crayons and paper, and a work-appropriate hairdo (“I don’t want to look like a hobo at the office, Mom”). She picked a special outfit, and some accessories to look more professional. She’s happy as a clam.
See?
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| Snacks plus Netflix = Bender salute |
It’s March Break, and normally we would have enrolled her in camps all week, because of course her father and I both work full time and I can’t take vacation time in the middle of term and neither can he. But we didn’t do all camps this year, because she’s burnt out. When the topic of March Break was gleefully announced by her about a month ago, she had visions of lounging in her pyjamas all day, on the couch, snuggling the dog and watching Monster High movies with me and her dad. Reminded about our jobs and her camps, she visibly deflated. Camps are fun, but they’re not relaxing, and she needed to relax, she said. I see her point. Camps mean getting up early, and packing a lunch, and lugging around a day’s worth of supplies, and interacting with grownups and kids you don’t know, and being in structured time all day.
And, frankly, I want to lounge around in my pyjamas all day, on the couch, snuggling the dog and my kid, and reading an entire book from front to back. I’m burnt out, too. I get it.
I admire my daughter’s capacity to sense her own limits. To know when enough has been enough. To recognize that being a full time student is actually a lot of hard work, not least keeping to a strict schedule and letting others be in charge of your time and your activities. I admire her stubbornness and her self-knowledge: she said that coming to the office with me would be better than camp, and she said she would behave and she’s been as good as her word. She knows herself enough to know that just being alone with me and a bunch of toys in a really quiet room is what she needs to recharge, not a room full of kids and loud noises and routines and chaos.
She doing three days of camp this week, and spending two on downtime. That’s our compromise because, really, I can’t teach an 8:30-11:30 graduate class with her in the room, and there are things that I need some peace and space to get done too, considering it’s not a break week for me.
But there’s a lesson here for me, and for all of us, maybe. The eight year olds are stressed and pressured and overworked, which is terrible. It’s awesome, though, that the eight year olds can express that and just say no, to the limits of their agency. It’s worth remembering to listen to ourselves in this way, too.
All this is to say, I guess, that I’m overworked and stressed out. And you probably are, too. And if you have kids you’re probably trying to manage their March Break and your work at the same time, and feeling various further kinds of overwhelm and guilt. Tonight, when we all get home from work, it’s going to be straight into pyjamas and straight onto the couch. No chores, no cooking, no piano practice, no racing out to one thing or another. Just a little bit of peace and togetherness. A March Break.
Hook & Eye 