There are two things I love to read about: tips on maximising my work from home experience and gardening advice. I devour information on both topics relentlessly with the hope that my new-found knowledge will help. Though deep down inside I know it won’t. My balcony still has a funereal look about it, and that black hole of Instagram continues to suck me deep within. (On the bright side, I do know what to wear the next time I want to #cleansemychi on a mountain top.)
One of my favourite articles is a WikiHow entry “How to Work at Home when You Have Kids”. It’s usefully illustrated in case you can’t visualise what ‘Wake up an hour earlier’ looks like. It also has some great advice no one has ever thought of before like ‘Teach them to play on their own’. No! Really?
Working from home when the kids are at school is a breeze. You can squeeze in a late morning yoga class, collect the dry cleaning and watch Master of None while eating lunch while sporadically checking your email marking calendar invites to attend meetings as spam.) Working from home when the kids aren’t at school is an entirely different matter. It’s like playing a version of 21 questions, where your opponent can ask as many questions as they like.
“What’s for lunch?” “What are you typing?” “Are you on Facebook? How is that part of your work?” “What does bitching mean?” “Why is it rude to watch over someone’s shoulder while they type?”
In my short and award winning career as a mother(I have a handmade certificate that says ‘You’re the Best Mug in the World’) I have found ways of coping in such situations. I wish to share my advice here, for the benefit of others.
Don’t have children. (You can skip the rest of the article now.)
If it’s too late for tip 1, try this instead: pretend like the children you have aren’t really yours. Ask them to visit all the apartments in your twenty storey building, knock on each door and ask “Are you my mommy?” If nothing else, it will give you a couple of hours to write that strategy note. And watch an episode of Master of None.
Dress for success. Ditch the jogger bottoms and consider an Anthony Hopkins style mask from Silence of the Lambs. No one will want to know what’s for lunch.
Find a corner of your home and make it yours. Surround yourself with tactile objects that cocoon you from your children and the dobhi — barbed wire works like a charm and is on-trend for as long as you need it to be.
Call your partner at work and say the kitchen pipes have burst and that they need to come home immediately. When they arrive, hand them the Anthony Hopkins mask and run as far and as quickly as your precious legs will carry you.
If none of these work, train your children to be useful while they are at home. I have ordered a copy of L’Art du Cocktail from Phaidon. Hopefully the next time they ask me a question, it will be “Neat or on the rocks?”
(The writer’s parenting philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me)