In which we repost:
Jan. 13th, 2005 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesshartleySomething from a couple of years ago, posted for pertinence to Rickj (and maybe others)... I always intended to send this off to Working Mother Magazine or the like... My swamped schedule and procrastination instincts suggest that it may get done now, although it's 2 years old.
**EDIT: Article sent. I'm such a doof.**
~j~
For parents, the important messages always seem to come just before bedtime. You know the ones, we’ve all received them:
“I need to bring two dozen cookies to school tomorrow morning, and I told the teacher you’d bake them.”
“Oh. I forgot. I need to have a working volcano for the science fair. It’s tomorrow.”
Or “Tomorrow’s the school play, and I need a frog costume and a gold ball. And can you be there at 11:30 to help?”
Being a freelance writer and working from home gives me a bit more flexibility to deal with the inevitable last minute obligations, but they’re taxing none the less.
Last night’s message, delivered between toothbrushing and tucking in, was “Tomorrow is Take Your Child to Work Day at school. Can I go to work with Daddy?”
Seemed a reasonable request, and I was a bit sheepish about having missed the inevitable notification that probably came sandwiched somewhere between requests for shoeboxes and notifications about school teeth cleanings. I assured Autumn, our second grader that her daddy and I would check into it, and see what we could do.
Unfortunately, after she finally nodded off, we discovered that Daddy’s work schedule the next day consisted of 8 back-to-back meetings. Meetings with superintendants to discuss budget issues, meetings with outside vendors to discuss why the equipment they’d sold him wasn’t working, and to cap it all off, a meeting with the labor union about an employee who’s performance had been less than stellar of late. Not exactly kid territory.
In a moment of self-validation, I announced: “Being a writer is a real job!” and said that I’d keep our 8 year old home with me. We’d work on “writer things”, maybe take a field trip. It would be fun.
Unfortunately, Autumn was asleep when the decision was made and didn’t get informed of our plans that night. Our next morning started off rather badly. My husband snuck out of the house early to face his wall of meetings, leaving the rest of us to sleep in. Autumn, the sleep-through-anything angel, heard him go and thought she was getting left behind. In a rush of half-asleep tears and the drama that only an 8 year old girl can create, she ran after him, gesturing wildly from the front window and screaming down the stairs to wake me.
“Daddy forgot me!”
He rushed back up the sidewalk and I hustled up from our basement bedroom. We met half way, reassuring our daughter that everything was just fine. She was going to work with Mommy today.
“But, Mommy doesn’t have a job!” our little girl reported in tears.
So much for last night’s self-validation! We tried to reassure her that Mommy does indeed have a job, she just doesn’t go away from the house to do her work. My husband checked his watch, and with a series of hugs, slipped away to his work apologetically, leaving me to deal with explanations. Autumn and I settled onto the couch to discuss our day.
I laid out the plan for her, including a field trip to the local newspaper, and one to the library for “research”. We talked about taking some time to write together, me on the book I’m trying to get finished, and her on a book of her own.
“I think I’ll do a book of book reports,” she announced. Book reports were something new for her this year, and she’s quite intrigued with them.
“Oh… like a set of book reviews… You could tell people about the book, and why you liked them or didn’t? I’ve done that for some magazines.”
“You have?”
We curled up on the couch with a couple of magazines that had published articles and book reviews I’d written. She adores reading out loud, so she read them to me, and when she got down to my name in the byline at the end, she grinned from ear to ear!
“Hey, you wrote this!”
I chuckled. “I told you I was a writer!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know they put the stuff you wrote _in_ things!”
Thanks to an understanding editor (who saw a good “family interest” angle), we made an appointment at the newspaper, and were invited to their mid-morning meeting. They were happy to answer Autumn’s questions about how someone gets to be a writer for the paper, and how they got the pictures onto the page. Then we headed down to the local library, where we researched “what writers do”. After a “lunch break” at the local fast food place, the afternoon was spent comparing notes as we each worked on our stories.
“I think I changed my mind,” she said, looking up at me from the far side of the kitchen table.
“Oh? I do that sometimes when I’m writing too. What did you change your mind about?”
“I think I want to write a book about today, and what we did.”
“Oh! That would be nice. Did you learn anything special today?”
“Yeah. I learned I want to be a writer when I grow up. Either a writer or a zookeeper. Can I be both?”
Somewhere, in the course of the day, writing had become a real job in my daughter’s mind. It had gone from being something people do, like eating dinner or doing the dishes, to a career, and one that had received her own Autumn Seal of Approval.
Sometimes job validation isn’t found in regular paychecks. It’s not necessarily about fancy titles, corner offices or embossed letter head.
Sometimes, it’s reflected in the eyes of an 8 year old, when she realizes that what you do is “real”.
**EDIT: Article sent. I'm such a doof.**
~j~
For parents, the important messages always seem to come just before bedtime. You know the ones, we’ve all received them:
“I need to bring two dozen cookies to school tomorrow morning, and I told the teacher you’d bake them.”
“Oh. I forgot. I need to have a working volcano for the science fair. It’s tomorrow.”
Or “Tomorrow’s the school play, and I need a frog costume and a gold ball. And can you be there at 11:30 to help?”
Being a freelance writer and working from home gives me a bit more flexibility to deal with the inevitable last minute obligations, but they’re taxing none the less.
Last night’s message, delivered between toothbrushing and tucking in, was “Tomorrow is Take Your Child to Work Day at school. Can I go to work with Daddy?”
Seemed a reasonable request, and I was a bit sheepish about having missed the inevitable notification that probably came sandwiched somewhere between requests for shoeboxes and notifications about school teeth cleanings. I assured Autumn, our second grader that her daddy and I would check into it, and see what we could do.
Unfortunately, after she finally nodded off, we discovered that Daddy’s work schedule the next day consisted of 8 back-to-back meetings. Meetings with superintendants to discuss budget issues, meetings with outside vendors to discuss why the equipment they’d sold him wasn’t working, and to cap it all off, a meeting with the labor union about an employee who’s performance had been less than stellar of late. Not exactly kid territory.
In a moment of self-validation, I announced: “Being a writer is a real job!” and said that I’d keep our 8 year old home with me. We’d work on “writer things”, maybe take a field trip. It would be fun.
Unfortunately, Autumn was asleep when the decision was made and didn’t get informed of our plans that night. Our next morning started off rather badly. My husband snuck out of the house early to face his wall of meetings, leaving the rest of us to sleep in. Autumn, the sleep-through-anything angel, heard him go and thought she was getting left behind. In a rush of half-asleep tears and the drama that only an 8 year old girl can create, she ran after him, gesturing wildly from the front window and screaming down the stairs to wake me.
“Daddy forgot me!”
He rushed back up the sidewalk and I hustled up from our basement bedroom. We met half way, reassuring our daughter that everything was just fine. She was going to work with Mommy today.
“But, Mommy doesn’t have a job!” our little girl reported in tears.
So much for last night’s self-validation! We tried to reassure her that Mommy does indeed have a job, she just doesn’t go away from the house to do her work. My husband checked his watch, and with a series of hugs, slipped away to his work apologetically, leaving me to deal with explanations. Autumn and I settled onto the couch to discuss our day.
I laid out the plan for her, including a field trip to the local newspaper, and one to the library for “research”. We talked about taking some time to write together, me on the book I’m trying to get finished, and her on a book of her own.
“I think I’ll do a book of book reports,” she announced. Book reports were something new for her this year, and she’s quite intrigued with them.
“Oh… like a set of book reviews… You could tell people about the book, and why you liked them or didn’t? I’ve done that for some magazines.”
“You have?”
We curled up on the couch with a couple of magazines that had published articles and book reviews I’d written. She adores reading out loud, so she read them to me, and when she got down to my name in the byline at the end, she grinned from ear to ear!
“Hey, you wrote this!”
I chuckled. “I told you I was a writer!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know they put the stuff you wrote _in_ things!”
Thanks to an understanding editor (who saw a good “family interest” angle), we made an appointment at the newspaper, and were invited to their mid-morning meeting. They were happy to answer Autumn’s questions about how someone gets to be a writer for the paper, and how they got the pictures onto the page. Then we headed down to the local library, where we researched “what writers do”. After a “lunch break” at the local fast food place, the afternoon was spent comparing notes as we each worked on our stories.
“I think I changed my mind,” she said, looking up at me from the far side of the kitchen table.
“Oh? I do that sometimes when I’m writing too. What did you change your mind about?”
“I think I want to write a book about today, and what we did.”
“Oh! That would be nice. Did you learn anything special today?”
“Yeah. I learned I want to be a writer when I grow up. Either a writer or a zookeeper. Can I be both?”
Somewhere, in the course of the day, writing had become a real job in my daughter’s mind. It had gone from being something people do, like eating dinner or doing the dishes, to a career, and one that had received her own Autumn Seal of Approval.
Sometimes job validation isn’t found in regular paychecks. It’s not necessarily about fancy titles, corner offices or embossed letter head.
Sometimes, it’s reflected in the eyes of an 8 year old, when she realizes that what you do is “real”.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-14 01:52 am (UTC)Crow
(who's also known as Melusine in another world.....)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-14 02:50 am (UTC)