Working at Home With Kids
by Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
It was a Saturday afternoon, and I had work on my mind.
It didn't matter that it was a beautiful day or that I was currently
"in charge" of my two kids-I had work to do. And as a
male, I was asserting my right to employ tunnel vision and to forget
everything around me so that I might finish this project.
"Dad, will you come and play with us?" my daughter asked.
"Not now, honey," I told her. A short while later, my
son tried. "Dad, are you done yet?" "No, please let
me finish this," I said in a tone much sharper than I'd intended.
After a few more minutes of focused work, I heard my kids fighting
in the other room. While I usually let them work out their own fights,
this one sounded like it needed intervention. I broke things up
and before long, I found myself in a wrestling match with both of
them.
Their plan had worked! While they may not have consciously planned
it, I was now firmly planted in their world. My tunnel vision had
been shifted to a different focus: who would win the wrestling match.
And I must admit that this was a whole lot more fun than the project
I was working on.
Although I had been frustrated with my kids, it wasn't their fault.
I had failed to make proper boundaries with them. I hadn't made
it clear to them that I'd need a certain amount of time and space
while I worked. And I hadn't told them what I expected of them.
As fathers and mothers increase their workload in this country,
work and home obligations often come into conflict. We must often
make the agonizing choice between spending "quality time"
with our kids versus getting caught up with work. An excerpt from
Robert Bly's book, "The Sibling Society" (1996) tells
of the problems that fathers have in finding the time to have more
"complete"lives:
"The patriarchal system's destruction of fatherhood continues
in the United States today: In 1935, the average workingman had
forty hours a week free, including Saturday and Sunday. By 1990,
it was down to seventeen hours. The twenty-three lost hours of free
time a week since 1935 are the
very hours in which the father could be a nurturing father, and
find some center in himself, and the very hours in which the mother
could feel she actually has a husband."
I wish that I could have more free time with my kids. I also wish
that I could spend more time with my wife.
And I know in the future I'll be faced with the choice between
work time or family time on many occasions. There's a lot of guilt
on either side of this decision. But ten years from now nobody will
care much about the project that I'm working on.
My kids, on the other hand, will grow up and think back on their
childhood for the rest of their lives. The memories that we create
together are eternal. Someday, these memories will pave the way
for them to have memorable experiences with their own children.
The truth is that I still haven't finished that project that I
was so focused on, and I can't say that it's too upsetting to me.
And I know my kids are just fine with it.
Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC, coaches men to be better
fathers and husbands. He is the author of "25 Secrets of
Emotionally Intelligent Fathers"
http://www.markbrandenburg.com/father.htm.
Sign up for his FREE bi-weekly newsletter, "Dads, Don't
Fix Your Kids," at http://www.markbrandenburg.com.
