“Here, let me take him,” my wife said. I’d been holding the baby while she made herself breakfast and got her work situated.
“Thanks,” I said as I handed him over.
We work from home and trade the baby holding responsibilities. When she takes a turn I probably have thirty minutes to get some work done, maybe ninety if he falls asleep. I can do a lot of things while holding a baby, but writing is not one of them — editing, yes, but to write I need two hands. I handed over the boy and got to work.
Some writers liken this to an airplane journey. Sitting down to write is like taxiing to the runway. The first ten minutes is similar to acceleration, take-off, and finally you get to cruising altitude, where the work flows freely. I had just achieved cruising altitude when my toddler crawled up holding a book. “Can you read Circus McGurkus to me?” he asked.
A friend recently told me, “I don’t know how you can get work done at home,” referring to the distractions from a house full of kids. It’s not easy, but it’s also not that hard if you’re used to managing multiple caseloads with frequent interruptions. Most jobs are like that. My interruptions just happen to chiefly involve little humans who share my last name. To be sure, they are distractions, albeit cute ones. We have seven kids at home, two with special needs. We also homeschool and have a baby. But by far the greatest distraction is the toddler.
Toddlers are fascinating creatures. Physiologically this is one of the the most important stages of brain development. Toddlers need constant correction, but if you’re too harsh you’ll crush them. They’re just old enough to make purposeful decisions to disobey, yet still young enough to get away with it. When you haven’t heard from a toddler in a while, you are equally likely to find them asleep under the kitchen sink or mixing components for a dirty bomb; he could be brushing the cat’s fur, or coating him with peanut butter. Toddlers need attention.
I’m going to make a controversial statement: Toddlers need their parents. This may seem obvious until you consider how many hours toddlers spend away from their parents in our culture. Where do they go? Daycare, early learning centers, nannies, etc. But it didn’t use to be this way. I’m willing to bet a sizable portion of the toddlers in daycare/early learning centers are from two-parent families who’ve decided the stay-at-home lifestyle is not for them, or that time away from home will do the child some good. I disagree. I have yet to hear a compelling argument for how sending a child to a provider will in any way benefit them more than spending that time with a parent.
Babies and toddlers have a way of hijacking the agenda. Either we incorporate them, change our lifestyle, or we send them somewhere. Toddlers care nothing about our plans. They are completely myopic and seek only personal entertainment. They will sing when you want to read quietly, help themselves to the refrigerator or the watercolor paints when you’re trying to make a phone call, or ask you to read them a book when you’re trying to bust out a three-thousand-word chapter before the baby wakes up. Nor do they care about the baby sleeping. Toddlers are all about their own agenda, they want things their way. If we’re not careful they’ll get it, and this is why they need a parent instead of a care provider who is usually getting paid to entertain them.
When my son asked me to read him the book, a part of me was annoyed but I dared not show it. I wanted to tell him, “Maybe later, Buddy, Daddy has work to do.” But I had not spent any time with him so far that morning and he needed me. He needed to see that he was more important than whatever work I was trying to do. His brain needed to make a connection; it needed to learn that parents prioritize time with their children — they put down their work to read children’s books to their kids. It’s a lesson we need to reinforce culturally, and it may mean a parent needs to stay home for a season to teach it.
Obviously I can’t spend all day reading him Dr. Seuss books or playing bean bag toss, and neither can you. Sometimes Mommy and Daddy need to get their work done, but there are exceptions. Often the work can wait the seven minutes required to read If I Ran The Circus or set up the paint — properly — and let his artist mind fly free. But other times it can’t. Parents can teach toddlers the balance between getting the attention they need and having patience to wait for what they want.
If we learn that the world doesn’t revolve around us as toddlers, we can apply it when we’re adults. Our children will know our work is important but that we’re willing to set it aside when necessary. There is a time to work, and a time to play, but there is also a Circus McGurkus exception.