28 newyork| march30–april12, 2020
i’ve worked from home since 2009
when the economy collapsed and my kids
were only3 and5. Staring down the barrel
of weeksif notmonths with my kids out of
schoolwhileI both work and write a
book—let’s just say this is the kind of déjà
vu I do not enjoy. But now is the perfect
moment to pause and send up a prayer of
gratitude to your god, your Antichrist, or at
the very least your boss, that you have the
option to earn money while inside your
house. For those of us who find ourselves in
this fortunate (yet still potentially hellish)
position, this is what I can tell you: I know
panic, I know what it’s like to try to figure
out your universe from scratch, and here’s
another thing I know—you can do this. You
just aren’t going to do it well. But that’s
okay, none of us is.
I’m tempted to tell my kids to do what I
did when I was a teenager: Take up smoking
and head into the woods to hit things with
sticks but be back in time for a dinner of
Minute Rice and butter in front of the TV
around six. Although those are not the times
we’re currently living in (but are a fantastic
way to get me arrested), there’s one thing we
can all take away from the benevolently neg-
ligent heroes who raised Gen X:
Set the bar low.
Lower.
Keep going.
Right there.
Hello, we’re in the middle of a global pan-
demic with a global workforce with kids
who’ve been raised to communicate with
their friends via 15-second videos posted
on global platforms. This isn’t a situation
that lends itself to instantaneous platinum-
level Little House on the Prairie–ing.
Now is the time to embrace what work-
from-home parents learned longago: It’s
not about winning; it’s about striving for the
bronze. This is a perfect time to finally rec-
ognize how much you’ve been trained to
perform parenting. To design a cozy little
reading nook so your Instagram followers
can see it and grudgingly approve.To bake
your vegan muffins (and take a photo) or
pack your kids’ bento boxes (and take a
photo) or set out art supplies in a scattered
but not too scattered way, if you catch my
drift (and then definitely take a photo). To
head into the woods and make flower
crowns or whatever the fuck it is you’ve been
doing out there. Give. It. All. Up. It’s time to
take this parade float and strip it down to
four wheels, a floor, and a functioning steer-
ing wheel. It’s time to be basic.
I homeschooled one of my kids for a year,
and let me tell you something: I feelyour Big
Color-Coded Schedule Energy. Mine lasted
for all of 20 minutes and a single Facebook
post. I think I had seen too many teachers-
as-heroes movies, because I fully expected
my first-grader to prop his adorable chin on
his adorable hands and soften his eyes at me
as if to say, “Mama, tell me more about the
food pyramid. You are wise, and what am I
even here for if not to learn?” Thatis ... not
what happened. Instead, on dayone, he
threw his head back and sighed tothe ceil-
ing like he couldn’t believe this was happen-
ing. He was being taken out of public school
for this shit?
As well as their age, the support their
10
BY KIMBERLY HARRINGTON
Lo er the
Parenting Bar
school is able to provide, and what they can
reasonably tolerate or do on their own, plan
your kids’ day around when they typically
have good focus or energy. Gang up hard-to-
focus-on subjects during times when they’re
at their best. Don’t disrupt those golden
stretches with physical activity or screen
time. You need those in your back pocket for
when things get difficult. It took me an
embarrassingly long time—years—to realize
that while I would make sure my kids were
fed or they went outside to play, I would be
having coffee for meals while hunched over
my screen for hours on end like a pale mar-
keting witch. Then, not at all surprisingly, I’d
completely blow my stack at my kids by 11
a.m. To update that sage advice about new-
borns’ sleeping—eat when they eat, drink
when they drink, open the windows and
inhale fresh air when they do. Eating can be
a snack, a drink can be water, outside time
can be walking the dog (as long asyou stay
far away from others when you venture out).
You may think you can’t afford the time to
do those three things, but I’m here to tell you
you can’t afford not to.
If you take away nothing else about work-
ing from home (with or without kids), let it
be this: Your brain really needs breaks to
work well. I’d had only intense full-time jobs
since graduating from college—for17 years
straight—before I was laid off. Onmy first
unemployed morning, I went for a walk
after dropping one kid off at kindergarten
and the other at the preschoolwe had
already paid for that month. I didn’t know it
then, but that would be the last glimpse I’d
ever have of a life structured around a full-
time job. I felt completely unmoored from
routine and blinked into the sun as if I had
forgotten what it was for. We learn over time
to feel like we must be in front ofa screen
grinding and grinding and grinding in order
to do our jobs well. But that is bullshit.
We don’t realize that office jobsactually
have some breaks built in, even if they don’t
feel like breaks. A co-worker swings by to
chat; you run out to pick up lunch. Even
meetings take you away from having a sus-
tained focus. When we’re home, we try to
replicate what we believe is the nonstop
focus we have at work (again: We don’t) and
wonder why it doesn’t, well, work. It’s
because it’s impossible and bad. So instead
of thinking of helping your kids ormaking
them a snack as taking time away from your
own work-related tasks, recognize these
moments as brief breaks that will allow your
brain to reset and ultimately make your
work time a bit more productive once you
get back to it. (Sometimes. No guarantees.)
If you have a screen-sensitive kid—one
who makes you wonder if three hours of
quiet now will be worth two hours of nuclear
behavioral fallout later—you’re likely feeling
