Conquering COVID-19

When we realized we were going to be home for the foreseeable future, my husband and I came up with a plan to conquer the COVID-19 quarantine. We sat down with our two children, ages 10 and 7, and together, developed a schedule for each day that would work for us all. 9-10 AM: breakfast and review work for the day; 10-11 AM: math, games and exercises: 11-12 PM: reading and writing, etc. Peppered throughout the day, my husband and I would tackle various work calls and meetings. We were going to maintain a kick-ass schedule and come out of the COVID-19 quarantine smarter, better, fitter, healthier and largely unaffected!

This enthusiasm lasted all but a few days, each day letting go of one more aspect of the rigid schedule. We are well into week 11 and how we started is not even close to where we are now. Long gone are the white boards setting the quote or intention of the day with another one carefully outlining the day’s color-coded schedule. I realize the foolishness and naïveté with which I had approached our initial days in quarantine let alone understanding the toll this would all take on our mental health.

Most days, my husband and I leave the kids on their own, giving them license to finish their schoolwork, to relax or as is the case most of the time, to do something in-between. While they have been relatively good about getting their daily work completed with minimal parental involvement (especially my son), most days they are done before lunch time. Much to our chagrin, our workdays do not follow my children’s school schedule requiring us to work well into the early evening.

So, while we continue to work, the kids are largely left unattended. We have stopped micromanaging their behaviors and are letting them be. And much to my surprise, they are flourishing. We are “quaranteaming” with a few neighbors who also have children and the kids have been playing in our private way for the past few months, of course following local protocols including wearing masks and social distancing. They have developed their own creative and imaginative games, they ride their scooters and bikes, and my son even managed to teach himself how to roller blade! My son has discovered his love for the piano, finding music to pop songs online and performing mini-concerts. My daughter has developed her own language with her friend next door, a combination of sounds, taps and signaling through the windows, talking to each other even on rainy days. It’s certainly not perfect but this unsupervised time buys us precious work hours in the afternoon and gives my children independence, fresh air and unstructured playtime.

As the kids discover new interests and hobbies, we have also been enjoying time as a family. In the evenings, we have taken to scooter walks around the neighborhood, relaxed homemade dinners, drawn-out nighttime routines including watching Great British Baking Show (my son’s British accent is so good!) and cuddle-time with a book. Certainly we have our difficult days and moments of complete and utter frustration with the current situation and home confinement. But, we are grateful for what we have and like so many other people, we are trying to do the best we can under these circumstances.

And when my daughter runs down the stairs after having just communicated with her friend next door in their secret language, with a wide toothy smile, and says ”I’m going outside Mommy!”, I grin as I return to my work, knowing that despite everything, my children are relatively happy and will be just fine. And so will I as I savor a few more borrowed hours of peace and quiet.

A Rat Race That Cannot Be Won

“I’m ready to lean OUT.”

Sarah Buckley Friedberg

A Facebook rant by a Needham, MA mother of three ends with this: “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to lean OUT.” Since writing her viral post, Sarah Buckley Friedberg garnered over 79,000 likes, 18,000 comments and 72,000 shares. She certainly has hit a cord, mostly among similarly situated, privileged (I’d argue, predominantly white) women and mothers.

What is it about her post that resonates with so many people? I’m exhausted reading the post, let alone being a working mother of two trying to achieve all that she talks about. Society’s expectation that we must be put together, skinny and fit, well-rested, well-adjusted, well-groomed, ambitious, financially contributing members of our families coupled with raising kids who are well-fed, well-balanced and well-rounded (be proficient in at least one sport, instrument and other activity), curious, high-achieving explorers is simply impossible and unfair. It is an unspoken truth that the same is not, and will never be, expected of the opposite sex.

I love this part of Ms. Buckley’s post:

"Recycle. Be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the birthday planner, the poop doula (seriously when will this end), the finder of lost things, the moderator of fights. Be fun. Be firm. Read books. Have dance parties."

I’ve written a lot about this but my solution to these ridiculous, untenable societal expectations is to ignore them as much as possible. Of course, I’m susceptible to them as much as the next woman is but the more we try to achieve these unrealistic, soul-crushing, goals, the more will be expected of us. It’s a rat race that cannot be won.

One of the reasons I started Messy Bliss a few years ago was to encourage us to question these notions, to embrace the messy imperfections and to find joy and happiness in all of it. Let’s cultivate a counterculture of being who we are, strong women who strengthen, support and promote one another and delight in and celebrate each other’s messiness unapologetically. The more that we can do that, the less these expectations will matter to us all and the less pressure we will all feel. So let’s do more of the leaning out and just being instead.

Take Your Baby to Work? Absolutely Not!

ast night I read an opinion piece in The New York Times called "Take your baby to work".  The opinion was written by Sarita James, CEO of Embark, a college admissions software company. After having her third child, Ms. James decided to return to the office when her newborn, Uma, was six weeks old. Here's the catch. She returned to her work at Embark with her child in tow. Ms. James then goes on to discuss the virtues of having an "office baby" around (analogizing the baby to an "office dog"), how the presence of a baby changed even the most reserved employee and how she was able to spend time with her daughter while still being able to work. She discusses that her daughter enjoyed being in a sling and how "baby carrying has been shown to reduce crying and fussing", how she overcame her self-consciousness "and fed her under a nursing cover", and how she would walk around the waiting area when her baby became fussy.

This article pissed me off.

While Ms. Jones acknowledges her privilege ("Of course, I’m a chief executive; I’m answerable to my board but didn’t have a manager to tell me no"), she is hopeful that other managers "will follow her example." In my humble opinion, this is a bunch of hogwash. Instead of using her powerful voice to advocate for women and men to have more, unfettered paid time-off with their newborns, or encouraging employers to provide flexible work arrangements that help parents achieve more of a work/life balance, this woman is telling others to bring their babies to work! NO! What message is she sending to her female employees? That instead of taking advantage of the company's paid leave policy for new mothers, she expects them to come back to the office with their children earlier than expected?

At least she acknowledges that this type of situation would only work for those who are not "a cook, a doctor, a bus driver or a welder". But the rest of her proposal is oozing with unapologetic privilege. She makes flip comments that this model could work for others if their employers agree. As if it were that easy. For those who are not in the C-suite of their companies, getting an employer to agree IS the battle. It's not easy walking into an HR office and asking for a benefit especially when you are towards the bottom of the totem pole. We have laws in place like the Family Medical Leave Act precisely to protect those vulnerable workers against their almighty employers.

I remember being a junior associate at a large law firm, eighteen weeks pregnant with my son. I was told by the more seasoned female attorneys to keep my pregnancy under cover for as long as possible because my work would start to dry up as people would not want me on their deals. This was 2009. Thankfully I worked in a practice area balanced with female partners, an anomaly at a large law firm, and my pregnancy was met with support and excitement. But in corporate environments where even the mention of pregnancy can send partners in search of your single, younger male counterparts or threaten the time and dedication you already invested in your career, the thought of asking to bring my weeks-old baby to the office while I work is beyond preposterous.

She then talks about an interaction she had with her client who remarked about how pleased she was with the session and about the good behavior of her daughter. What would have happened if her daughter were screaming and crying the whole time? What would have happened if she had colic? When does bringing a baby into the workplace create a true distraction? This particular situation worked for Ms. James because her child was quiet, accommodating and well-behaved, but she cannot peddle this as a solution for others because every child, situation and work environment is completely different.

I was lucky and fortunate to take advantage of the generous maternal leave policy offered by my firm. I was able to spend 6 months at home with my son (4 months of which were paid). I cannot even imagine what I would have done if I had to go back to work after the federally-protected 12-weeks of unpaid leave. But, parents, especially women, are having to do it ALL the time, in all sorts of jobs, all over the country. They are having to make the tough choice of going back to work to less than accommodating environments (sometimes paying exorbitant childcare costs) or staying at home.

There have been so many articles that have been written about America's dismal parental leave policies compared to other countries. According to a Pew research study published in September 2016, the U.S. is the only country among 41 nations that does not mandate any paid leave for new parents. What does that say about our culture?

In a time when new parents, especially mothers, are struggling to create a work/life balance that is fair, respectful, decent and empowering, I think that advocating for solutions such as those proposed by Ms. James completely miss the mark. It's nice to think that bringing your baby to work for the baby's first few months will be met with open arms, but what happens after the baby "graduates" from this program? How does the workplace accommodate the parents then? We need to focus our attention on making parental leave policies universal along with offering new parents flexible work arrangements that suit different lifestyles. It is after achieving these crucial milestones that we will be able to truly appreciate a baby in the workplace. Until then, keep your baby at home.

Achieving R&R After Returning Home

We came back from our beach vacation on Friday night. After a harrowing day of travel that started at 6AM, multiple delays, we finally made it home before the clock struck midnight. By the time I got the kids to bed, it felt like the only R&R that remained of our Cancun rendezvous was the golden tan that I had acquired.  Thankfully, we had the weekend to recuperate from our vacation and I couldn't be more grateful for this time.  While we were readying for our return trip back on Friday morning, Kishore and I kept remarking how we should have stayed another day. However, come Saturday morning, I was happy we had a few days to settle back into our lives and meet the grind of work and school head on come Monday morning.

On Saturday morning, we slept in and the hour time difference to Cancun worked in our favor; the kids woke up at 9:30AM!  I made my way downstairs, made myself a cup of coffee and started reading the New York Times. We started getting the weekend paper again a month ago mostly because we wanted the kids to understand what "reading the news" meant, the cyclical nature of the news and that the world was larger than just the small microcosm that they see on a daily basis. We also wanted them to understand the physical manifestation of what we meant when we are reading the news on our smartphones before such a notion becomes obsolete. Also, as Kabir becomes a stronger reader, we wanted him to start exploring and taking sections of the newspaper that he found interesting. Funnily enough, Navya immediately claimed the Travel section mostly because it has the best pictures. She usually just asks us to read the captions under the pictures, but it's a good sign that we are talking about different parts of the world.

We had no plans for the day. No activities for the kids. No birthday parties. No social commitments. It was a day that we could do whatever we wanted. It felt like a continuation of our vacation, just at home and not in Cancun. So I read. I read the whole newspaper cover to cover. And boy did I enjoy it. I read about the TV-adaption of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. I read about how an author found love in Spain and the impact that such love had on the rest of his life. I read about the French elections. I read.

We had three meals together as a family, two of them more nutritious than the highly-caloric resort food we had been consuming all week. We laughed, talked about our vacation as if it were a distant memory and started planning our next one.  By the end of the day, the R&R that I had nursed during the week came back. I was no longer dreading going back to work on Monday, but in fact, looking forward to it. Mostly, to earn my next vacation of R&R.