Elana Kirsh

Tag: mindful parenting

  • Working from Home is the Enemy of Mindfulness

    On the face of it, I have a fairly ideal work-from-home situation right now.

    For starters, I have a job – already going better than millions of people around the world. And I actually love my job. I feel like I’m doing good for the world, the people I work with and myself every day, which gives me a steady sense of purpose and meaning. Added to this, my husband isn’t working at the moment, so the bulk of childcare responsibilities – of which there are many – fall on him. This means that apart from feeling guilty about not spending more time with the kids, and not helping him out more, I’m able to work largely uninterrupted for hours on end. Not a luxury that most working parents with young families have right now.

    The cherry on top is my workspace – a granny-flat-turned-home-office on the roof of our apartment. It’s comfortable, quiet, and breezy, and our new dog (I’ll share musings on him in a separate post soon) keeps me company while demanding very little. He also never interrupts Zoom meetings and pulls faces behind me while I’m talking to potential clients, so that’s another win.

    My point is – I know I’ve got it pretty good. And I’m grateful for these circumstances every day…

    And yet.

    I’m finding it really fucking hard to ever finish work these days. To draw a line and switch over to family time, to time with my husband, or even *gasp* to me time. I’m constantly thinking about work, going over challenging conversations, mentally fiddling with budgets and ideas, planning future difficult conversations, building road maps. Writing back to texts and emails and Slack messages while the kids are in the bath.

    It’s better on the weekends. Even if I work for a few hours on Friday morning and a couple more on Saturday evening, in the time in between I’m largely able to enjoy time with the kids, meandering walks with the dog, a family dance party on the roof, maybe even a movie on Friday night. Well, the first 20 minutes of a movie before I pass out on the couch. Really I just stay awake for the ice cream.

    But on work days, mindfulness is eluding me.

    I realized yesterday that part of it is the absence of a commute. We bitch and moan about traffic jams and late trains and how much time we waste commuting, yet it serves a purpose other than just moving from us Point A to Point B. Being in physical transition facilitates a psychological transition, too. My drive to the office takes about half an hour, and gives me time to mentally go from home to work, from work to home. After getting everyone up and ready in the morning and dropping them off, the drive gives me time to switch from being “mama me” to “work me.” And even when I rush out of the office on my “short” days, to pick up GG and Little A from kindergarten and spend the evening with them, I’m usually able to process whatever I was working on, mentally leave work, and ultimately be present with the kids until they go to sleep.

    At home it takes me less than a minute to get to “the office,” and I’m usually carrying or dragging some combination of laundry, a whiny child, a dog, dishes and a computer with me, and often already on a work call, to boot. Half of my mind is still downstairs with the family when I’m up at work, and when I come down, say to have lunch with them, a good chunk of me is still in the last call and writing up an email summary and scanning and re-prioritizing my to-do list.

    It’s exhausting.

    And basically the opposite of mindfulness.

    I wish it was just affecting me, but it’s not. My husband told me yesterday that sometimes it feels like I’m not really here, and I couldn’t even argue with him. He’s right. I’m not here. Not all of me anyway. And if he feels like this the kids probably do, too.

    Trying to meditate
    Meditating together doesn’t work, just FYI

    As always my unexpected guru, he made a suggestion that I’m gonna try this week. Sounds silly but I believe in environmental reminders to trigger behavioral changes. He suggested that instead of coming “home” from work through the internal stairs, that I leave the building via the elevator, take a walk around the block – not on a work call – and then walk in the front door. Maybe this way, even in a few minutes, I’ll be able to trigger that transition that I usually get on the commute. To leave work behind, even for a couple of hours, and just be with the kids.

    I also know that – as is so often the case for me – meditation is part of the answer here. My practice has been rocky lately. I still meditate every morning, but so often I find that the bell dings after half an hour and I realize that I’ve basically just been sitting on my ass on a pretty cushion, legs crossed, back straight, face relaxed… thinking about work. When my mind is all over the place like this I find that a stricter, less spacious and all-encompassing technique is more effective at holding and cultivating my attention – so I think I’ll try some body scanning and super-zoomed in attention practices this week.

    None of this is going to change the fact that we’re all kind of going nuts with this social distancing, the kids need their routine, my husband needs to be able to focus on his work, and the extrovert in me is killing to see other people. But something tells me that a bit more mindfulness and presence might take the edge off the suffering. And shine a light on the beauty in every moment, too.

  • Guilt and Mindfulness

    I’ve been feeling guilty lately. Kind of an occupational hazard of being a Jewish mother I guess, especially a Jewish mother who works. Hard. So guilt in and of itself probably isn’t that interesting.

    But this recent guilt has felt kind of different, more nuanced than the never-ending “did-I-do-the-best-I-possibly-could-for-my-child-at-any-given-moment” shit that I think all mothers feel. All parents, probably. For that particular flavor of guilt I’ve had decent success with the “good enough mother” theory, which holds that children actually benefit from having a mother who fails them from time to time.

    My recent batch of guilt is more like this: I work a lot – both at the office and at home. I get home after my kids are already asleep three days a week. I left them with my husband for a few days recently for a conference, and I’ve got a few more coming up next year. But all of that I can deal with; I know we’re setting a good model for them of an egalitarian household. I feel guilty because since starting this new job I’m having a fucking blast doing it. The content is inspiring and interesting and important. I work with amazing people. The energy is flowing – I feel like I could work basically non-stop and not get tired of it.

    And it feels like it’s not meant to be like that. Like if I’m going to be away from my family for so many hours, to put the kids to sleep and then keep working, to find patches of time on the weekend to catch up from the week gone by and set up the week ahead – I’ve gotta at least resent it. And I don’t. Not at the moment.

    A couple of days ago I booked a flight to join some colleagues on a short trip to Amsterdam in a couple of months. Half work half play. I’d been umming and ahhing for a few days and I just decided fuck it, you only live once, right? But something was still niggling. I decided to check in with my husband, to try to work out what wasn’t sitting right. Keep in mind, my husband is somehow more of a feminist than me – he’s not fussed at all by our down-the-middle split parenting arrangement.

    Am I pushing it? I asked. Spending too much time at the office, traveling too much?

    He told me he doesn’t care about that, said I should do what I’ve gotta do. “But when you’re here with us, be here with us. We need you too.”

    Bam, straight to the heart. Straight to my supposedly-mindful-mother heart.

    I took a deep breath, quelled the defensive response welling up inside of me.

    Because he’s right. That’s what I’m feeling guilty about. I text and check my emails during the limited time I have with the kids far too often. I send work emails at 7am in between breakfast and brushing teeth and smoothies. What’s the point of getting up at 5am to meditate every day if I check my emails the second the bell goes off, and leave that mindfulness on the cushion?

    I felt totally ashamed, for my husband to have to tell me this. I mean, I’m meant to be the mindful one. And yet so grateful that he did. Because it’s spot on, and so easy to implement, once I’m paying attention.

    It’s been two days, a full weekend, and I feel so much better. That’s not to say that I didn’t work over the weekend – I did. But I was less attached to my phone, less lost in work in my head, and more importantly – more present. More patient and creative with the kids. More appreciative of how fucking awesome they are, and how lucky we all are to have each other, and what a crucial part of my life they are.

    Even if they’re not the only driving force in my life, or the only thing I think about.

    We’ll see if this flows through the week, and the month, and with me to Amsterdam.

    But for now – I already feel less guilty.

  • Talking About War With 5 Year Olds

    GG had a story to tell me when I got home from work today.

    “Mama, there’s this country near us, and in it there are mostly good people but also some bad people. And they fired a missile at us because they want to take our country away from us.

    They want to kill us.”

    I guess it’s not an entirely inaccurate summary of today’s news, actually. But how is this coming from my 5-year-old son?

    I take a deep breath as he speaks,

    I get down at eye level, listening. My response seems crucial here. What’s my message?

    GG’s friend has something to share, too. When the rocket alert siren went off, his parents and sisters came into the room while he was sleeping. His bedroom is the bomb shelter.

    This is how kids growing up in conflict get initiated into their respective national mindsets. Talk of violent, mortal danger at the dinner table, waiting for the cookies in the oven to finish baking. Fear as a way of life, the omnipresent, evil enemy is out to get us.

    By the time they finish talking I know what I want to get across. That they’re safe, that we’ve always got their backs. That we’re the lucky ones in this story. And that there are no baddies, just people doing bad things.

    I ask a few more questions. They don’t seem scared, they’re telling me these stories like they’re talking about Batman. But the fact that we’re having this conversation makes my eyes sting with tears.

    I tell GG that I loved what he said about there being mainly good people in that other country. And I tell them both that if there are any more sirens, they just need to follow instructions from the adults they’re with and they’ll be safe.

    They know, of course. They’ve done drills at kindergarten.

    The conversation drifts and that’s it. They’re back to the LEGO. I hope it doesn’t come up again for many years, but I know that’s unlikely. I guess all we can do right now is make sure our kids know they’re safe. And teach them about kindness, acceptance and keeping an open mind… in the hope that they won’t be having these conversations with their own kids in 30 years’ time.

  • My Husband is More of a Feminist Than Me

    My Husband is More of a Feminist Than Me

    I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without my husband.

    There, I said it.

    This exhausting juggle, the delicate balance of being the mother I want to be, having the career I want to have and smooshing in some intentional living and the occasional yoga class in there – I simply wouldn’t be able to do it without him.

    This is not just about chores – though this man of mine does more than his share. It’s about the way he sees our partnership, our family. He’s not helping me out, he’s not babysitting the kids; he’s parenting just like me. We’re running this show together. And somehow it’s simply obvious to him that it should be that way.

    I say somehow, but I have a pretty good idea of why. Unlike most men of his generation, my husband grew up in a household where both parents worked, where both parents had interesting, often demanding careers. The running of the household fell evenly on both parents, depending on who was doing what at the time. And it seems to me that this reality was the starting point for his views on fatherhood, and the way he naturally slipped into the role.

    Ironically, sharing the gig is harder for me. While for my husband the idea that we share pick up and drop off 50/50 since we’re both working full-time is a no-brainer, to me it still feels like a favor, like something I have to say “thank you” for. Something to feel guilty about. And without pointing fingers, I’m sure this is connected to the far more traditional way the running of our household was split between my mother and my father.

    So I’m pushing through those uncomfortable feelings in the hope that it will become second nature for me one day, too. And perhaps even more importantly, so that our children will grow up in a household where this is the norm. Where both mum and dad can be present in the family, solid role models, and follow their own paths at the same time.

    Maybe this isn’t everyone’s feminism. Maybe it’s just where I am on the journey. But this is how I feel. Like I believe in equal rights in my head already, but not yet in my gut. And perhaps ironically, my guide to that next stage has a penis.

    Zooming out of my little house, though, I know it’s not just me. And it’s about something far bigger than equal parenting.

    I’ve been listening to this fantastic podcast recently, The Guilty Feminist, and one of the comedians on the show said something that really stuck with me. She pointed out that the improvement in the status of black people in the US didn’t happen because black people changed – but because white people did. Black people could have done all the lobbying and marching and protesting they wanted, but ultimately white people needed to change for society to change.

    The same must be true for men and feminism. We need men to help change attitudes towards women in the workplace if we’re ever going to be truly equal. We need men to hire women, mentor women and promote women. We need men across the board, in all industries and levels and positions of power, to take sick leave when their children are home from school, to take any paternity leave offered – even if they get funny looks for doing it. We need men to speak out against rape culture, to say “don’t be a dick” when their friends say something gross, to really listen to the dialogue around women’s rights that’s going on right now. To look inside themselves and bring change from within.It seems to me that this is the only way things will change.

    My husband is this sort of feminist, though he probably wouldn’t call himself one. He’s the man who brings his baby with him to meetings – because neither of us could miss work that day and she wasn’t feeling well. He’s an expert in breastmilk handling and storage. He leaves work at 3pm twice a week to be with the kids, and when I get home from work at 9pm the kids are clean and fed and sleeping, the house is in order and sometimes there’s even food on the stove. And to be clear – his job is not cushy at all, and on the days that I’m with the kids he’s also at the office late catching up. He encourages me and makes space for me to follow my path – whether that means saying yes to an exciting-but-demanding work opportunity, staying out late to see a friend, or taking a nap on the weekend.

    Perhaps he’s not more of a feminist than me, maybe it’s equal just like everything else.

    Either way, I couldn’t do any of this without him.

  • Fuckup Nights for Parents

    There’s this global movement in the business world called Fuckup Nights that I think is brilliant. It’s a simple concept; a series of events where people get up and tell their stories of failure. Like TED, but with a twist. Businesses that crashed and burned. Deals gone wrong. Product recalls. That sort of thing.

    Along with being generally hilarious, the stories tend to be quite inspiring. Largely because the people who have the humility to be able to get up in front of a crowd of people and say, “yep, I fucked up,” those people are the good ones. It shows real strength of character. These are professionals who are able to look failure in the face, move on, and ultimately to learn from it.

    So, I’m thinking, we need Fuckup Nights for Parents. A time to get together and share the times we totally screwed it up. To support each other through it, and to bring failure out into the open. To take the shame out – because we all fuck up, sometime or another. It’s just a matter of how we frame it.

    Of course, getting out of the house, on time, without the kids is probably easier said than done for parents of young kids, so I guess a virtual Fuckup Nights will have to suffice for now. Here’s one of my tales of failure to get the ball rolling:

    —

    It was about 7 months ago. Little A was a few weeks old, and GG was in the thick of coming to terms with the new addition to our family. About to turn 3 and just having a really hard time of it. He was acting out left and right, but usually the trigger was when he needed me and I was busy with the baby – generally nursing or holding her when he wanted to be held.

    His kindergarten threw a holiday party one afternoon, and for some reason I thought nothing of turning up by myself with Little A in tow. She was fussy so I just brought her in my arms, no carrier, no stroller. I’m cringing now just thinking about it.

    The party was a low-key affair, just a few little songs and dances and then food, but somehow for us it turned into a borderline catastrophe. GG wanted me to dance with him and Little A was screaming. I had nowhere to put her down even if I wanted to. He wanted me to pick him up and had a total meltdown. The baby needed to eat. I didn’t know anyone well enough to ask for help – or I hadn’t learned yet that sometimes the only way to survive with more than one kid is to get help.

    Before long the poor little guy was a total mess. Screaming for me to pick him up, surrounded by kids who had all of their parents attention, and there I was, baby in my arms, failing him. I hadn’t even thought about it, about how much GG would need my attention in there. I’m so embarrassed to say that but it’s the truth.

    I could have asked someone to come with me just to hold her, I could have thought to bring the stroller in, I could have asked for help. Now that I’m writing this, I could have even run outside right then to get the stroller from the car! But I didn’t. I was so busy fucking up that I couldn’t think straight.

    Eventually we made it out. I let GG eat some gross unhealthy food because I felt so guilty and inadequate, and somehow I got both of them and an armload of bags and jackets into the car.

    And that’s it, that’s my fuckup story. Sounds insignificant I guess, and maybe it was, but to me it was huge. Because I realized it, plain and simple. Failure.

    So, why am I thinking about this right now?

    Because yesterday I had my chance for a corrective experience – the end of year kindergarten party. And this time I got it. I understood what was expected of me, prepared accordingly and we all had a great time.

    IMG_2431
    I don’t have a photo of that day, but this was around then, and it seems symbolic. The two of them and me, all on top of each other, trying to work out what fits where. 

    —

    Accepting my own imperfections is a real challenge for me. My therapist is always reminding me that the aim is not perfection – but rather acceptance. Sometimes I feel like, umm hello, what am I paying you for if we’re not working on making me perfect here? But of course, she’s right. And I think owning our failures can help us move towards acceptance. Not to try to get to a point where we don’t fuck up – coz that’s not gonna happen – but rather to except that we’ll make mistakes, and to learn to see failure, nod and carry on.

    So, who’s up next?

  • An Epic Toddler Meltdown That Made Total Sense

    An Epic Toddler Meltdown That Made Total Sense

    The trip from Tel Aviv to Sydney was long – 31 hours door-to-door. It’s full-on for an adult, let alone for a three-year-old and a five-month-old.

    GG loved every minute of it. He’s obsessed with planes for starters, plus we had endless time to spend together, and I let him play games on the iPad for the first time – so he was totally in his element. We slept a decent amount on the first flight but only a little on the second, and were all totally exhausted by the time we got to my mother’s place.

    Before take-off, flight #1.
    Before take-off, flight #1.

    So it wasn’t surprising that within an hour of us walking in the door, GG totally melted down. At first it was kind of comical – him and Little A both starting bawling at the same time, and my sister’s newborn (who we’d come all this way to meet) joined in, too. We each took a kid – my sister cuddled hers, mum put my baby down for a nap and I took GG into the lounge room to calm down.

    It was clear that this was no ordinary tantrum. He was beyond exhausted, disoriented and completely overwhelmed. Within a few minutes of screaming and crying he started saying over and over that he wanted to go home, and Daddy, and I realized. Fuck. I’d spent so much time preparing him for the journey itself – maybe because that’s what I was nervous about – and totally neglected to explain the part where we were going to stay at his grandmother’s place in Sydney for two-and-a-half weeks. Without his dad. Fuck. What a colossal oversight.

    While I was trying to hold him screaming and thrashing around I fumbled for a way to rectify my mistake. But how to explain it in three-year-old? He doesn’t understand the concept of weeks. He doesn’t know that trips end eventually. He can’t text his dad whenever he misses him a bit.

    I took a punt.

    “Remember when your friend Ella went to America?”

    He paused, interested. He loves Ella, and the story was recent. He nodded.

    “Remember how each day you went to kindergarten, and she wasn’t there? And your teacher told you she was in Los Angeles? And you really missed her?”

    He nodded again. His breathing was starting to calm and the crazed, out-of-control look in his eyes was starting to soften. He was engaged.

    “And then one day, after a couple of weeks, she was back! Do you remember?”

    He smiled, “Yes! And I went to America once.” It’s true, we’d visited New York the previous year, too.

    “So that’s what this trip is going to be like. We’re going to stay here at Nanna’s place for two-and-a-half weeks, for this many days [I showed him with my fingers]. Each night we’ll go to sleep here, and wake up here the next morning. And then when those days have passed, we’re going to head back home, to Daddy. We’ll take two planes to get home, with a night in a hotel in the middle.”

    He got it.

    “Mama I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s pretend that this is our home. Just for now.”

    He totally nailed it. It was just so fucking sweet and perfect. I hugged him again. “That’s exactly it baby. That’s what a holiday is. This is our home for now, while we’re in Australia. And then we’ll go back to our real home.”

    And that was it. He literally skipped into the kitchen for a snack.

    It took another week until he completely settled. A week for the jetlag to pass, to feel at home in his new “pretend” home. But every time I said we were going home after an outing or a visit, GG had to check – “home to Nanna’s place?” – just to make sure he still understood the plan.

    The conversation was a real eye-opener for me. I’d been so hung up on my anxieties about the trip – particularly 24 hours of flights, alone with two small children – that I’d forgotten to fill the kids in on the whole picture. It’s not that I hadn’t considered them of course – I’d gone over and over what sort of visit would be best for both of them, the balance between activities and chill out time, who we’d see when, where they would each sleep etc. To the point of distraction, really. But I hadn’t done the full circle that is so often the key. I hadn’t kept GG in the loop, of his own life.

    In a more general sense, the conversation was a reminder for me that kids don’t just lose their shit for no reason. On top of the basic stuff that makes us all more sensitive – like hunger and tiredness – there’s also usually a misunderstanding that needs to be cleared up. Often with toddlers it seems completely illogical – like we didn’t ask them what color spoon they wanted or some crap – but this one made perfect sense. Just like adults, kids need – and deserve – to be informed about what’s going to happen to them. I certainly wouldn’t want to be dragged halfway around the world without at least being told the basic itinerary details. Why should it be any different for my kids?

    So, to GG and Little A – this is my promise to you. I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop, with big things and little things alike. To help give you a sense of control and order over your world wherever I can. I’ll prepare you in language that you can understand, with points of reference that make sense to you. I’ll talk to you in advance, and remind you of the plan as necessary.

    And if I’m ever not clear enough, if you still don’t get it, please feel free to cry. Even to flail around a bit. To let me know that I haven’t quite got it yet. I’ll try again and again, until you get it.

    Promise.

  • Seriously, All I Had to Do Was Ask?

    Seriously, All I Had to Do Was Ask?

    This afternoon started out pretty much the same as yesterday afternoon – with whining and tears and ridiculously illogical arguments about whether or not we had bananas in the car. My heart sank. I’d hoped that bringing GG a special treat from the bakery when I picked him up from kindergarten might set the tone for a nice afternoon. No such luck. He didn’t like the way the bread stick crumbled onto his jeans, he screamed when it broke into two pieces, and when I refused to eat part of it according to his demands, five minutes of yelling and tears ensued.

    And I’m okay with tears, really. He can cry on my shoulder, or on my chest wedged between my boobs as is his usual preference, as much as he wants. I’m good with emotional expression. But yesterday afternoon was just so tough, four hours of tantrum after tantrum with basically no breaks in between. I was terrified of a repeat performance. On top of the patience required to help a toddler through these onslaughts of feelings, when I need to feed 2-month-old Little A, GG’s full-blown tantrums escalate from peak level to … somehow even more extreme.

    So we’d made it into the apartment. About a meter into the apartment. All three of us on the floor. Little A was in her baby car seat, crying to be taken out. GG was crying about a mark on his banana. I had tears in my eyes myself at the realization that today was going to be just like yesterday.

    And then I remembered something GG’s kindergarten teacher had mentioned when I told her how hard the previous afternoon had been. She said that he was probably continuing the special circumstances from his week home sick with the flu. And this morning she warned my husband not to let it drag on. At the time we kind of didn’t know what to do with those statements. Like, how was I meant to “not let” him cry? It didn’t seem to fit with our parenting style at all.

    But in this moment on the floor, I looked at my little boy on my lap, tears streaming down his cheeks, ranting about wanting something or not wanting something else, I don’t even remember anymore, and I thought, he looks so out of control, like it’s all too much. Like he has no idea what he’s meant to be doing. Like a week of rules being thrown out the window because he was just so miserable had totally confused him.

    Like he really needed some boundaries.

    And so I turned him around to face me, and I told him, “Sweetheart, you and me, we can figure anything out. If you need something just ask me and I’ll always do my best to help you.”

    He was listening. I went on, “Let me tell you what I want. I want us to have a nice calm afternoon together. I don’t like it when we fight so much. Do you think you can find a way to ask me for things other than yelling?”

    He agreed, and straight away something in his mood lifted. And yet 2 minutes later he started whining and yelling “no! no! no!” when I denied his request for a second banana. I calmly told him that this was the sort of yelling I’d mentioned before, and he took a deep breath, and asked me again calmly. And then even managed to accept my repeated “no” to his banana and move on.

    The next time he started to yell he caught himself before I even said anything, and a look of realization seemed to pass over his face. He understood that this was the voice I’d been talking about, and he smiled. And that was it.

    We had such a fun afternoon. We ate, we played, he helped his baby sister get to sleep for her nap. We read books. Three solid hours of good wholesome fun.

    When my husband came home he couldn’t believe it, how I’d “fixed” him. The energy in the house felt completely different from the past couple of weeks. Bath and bed time were a breeze, and GG went to bed with smile on his face.

    But I didn’t fix him, of course. There will be tantrums and crappy afternoons again. All I did was remind him what was expected of him, and ask for his cooperation. Clearly, calmly, and in a way he could understand.

    And what a freaking champion is he, right?

    img_2377
    (Okay this was actually a couple of weeks ago but it fits nicely here)

  • How to Be a Mindful Working Mama

    How to Be a Mindful Working Mama

    Being a working mama is hard. I went back to work full-time after seven months on maternity leave, and the month that followed was one of the hardest of my life. I was nervous about leaving GG, getting my brain back into work mode was hell, I was racked with guilt, and exhausted to boot.

    Now, one-and-a-half years later, I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on it. I’m sure in a few years time I’ll have loads more insight to share – it’s a skill after all, and this is all just practice – but this is what I’ve learned so far:

    1. Choose Your Job Wisely

    Being an awesome mama and having a thriving career aren’t mutually exclusive – but not every working situation is a good match for the gig. Especially not in the first few years. I had a high-pressure job that required insane hours and dedication a few years back and I loved it – but I recognize that right now is not the time for such a position.

    Similarly, two of my close friends are currently in the process of getting themselves out of work situations that are negatively effecting their personal lives. Two part-time jobs instead of one full-time job sounded like a great idea in theory – lots of flexibility and variety – but it turns out there’s no such thing as a part-time job. Instead, these two awesome mamas are neither seeing their kids as much as they want nor paying the bills, so they’re realizing that it’s time to reel it in.

    A full-time job can sound daunting right after maternity leave – especially if you’re off work for more than a few months, but if you choose a family friendly workplace and set some boundaries it’s actually a lot less work.

    2. Choose Your Childcare Wisely, Too

    This is crucial. If you have an uneasy feeling in your gut about how your baby is being treated, you’re gonna feel guilty about leaving them and going to work. If you feel 100% comfortable about the daycare situation, you’re more likely to feel like you’ve made the right choice. For me, it was even bigger than that. I went back to work when GG was seven months old, and he’s been in a small family daycare ever since. From the first month I realized that not only was this okay – it was great for him. While we all had to adjust to eight hours apart five days a week, the clear reality was that GG was blossoming. He gained so much from making friends, learning how to go to sleep by himself, eating in group and making close relationships with other adults that now I wouldn’t have it other way.

    3. Be Where You Are

    Once you know that you’ve got a job that fits the life you want to lead and childcare that works for your family, it’s all about being where you are. If you’re thinking about work when you’re at home and home when you’re at work, you’re not being the best of yourself. Your work will suffer and so will your parenting. This is where you need to switch on your mindful attention.

    Here’s what works for me: as much as possible, I use the Pomodoro Technique to maximize my efficiency at work. I write detailed, prioritized to-do lists for the next day before I leave the office each day, and then I work in 25-minute time slots to get through the tasks. This is the kicker: I turn my phone onto airplane mode for 25 minutes at a pop, during which time I’m totally focused on the task at hand. I check texts, emails, Facebook etc. in short breaks in between.

    When I leave the office – I leave the office. When necessary I get in a few more hours at night once GG’s asleep, but from when I pick him up in the afternoon until he’s asleep, I’m in mama mode. I don’t answer phone calls, I don’t play with my phone except to take photos of him doing ridiculously cute things and I don’t check my emails. I enjoy every moment we have together – and I’m sure I’m a better mother for it.

    When you’re at work, be at work. When you’re at home, be at home. Leave the exceptions for real emergencies.

    GG visiting me at work last summer. A bad example of boundaries but a very cute photo. 

    4. Take a Mini Meditation Break

    I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a lifesaver for me. I have an alarm set on my phone for 11:45am every day. If I’m not in a meeting or involved in an urgent task when it goes off, I shut my office door and meditate for 10 minutes. Ultimately I’d like to be meditating every morning/night too, but it’s not happening right now and these mini meditation breaks help me keep a base level of mindful attention throughout the day. Give it a go and see if it works for you.

    5. Reconnect at the End of the Day

    I find mindfulness really important to ease into the transition from work to mothering. I make a point of pausing before I knock on the door at daycare or walk in the door at home if GG is already home with his father or grandmother: I take a deep breath, and ground myself. I make sure I’m fully present for that moment when we reunite at the end of our days.

    Up until recently nursing was our reconnection ritual – now it’s finding a new place. Sometimes I join him in whatever he’s doing, sometimes it’s a long hug, sometimes a conversation. Making that conscious effort to really be with him for those first moments flicks the switch, and I’m home.

  • When Natural Parenting Feels Anything But Natural

    Ostensibly, I’m all into doing things naturally. I read the books, follow the blogs, join the Facebook groups. I breastfeed and babywear. I’ve got the hippy pants. I tsk judgingly from time to time at people who do otherwise (oh come on, admit it – you do too). But sometimes I’ve gotta admit – it feels anything but natural. I feel like I’m stopping myself all the time, trying to find the “right” response, the healthy way to react, the RIE way. That I’m trying so hard to be chilled that my movements end up jerky, that I’m over-thinking and second-guessing every word I say to Gadi, every move. Every time I offer the breast as comfort, take the stroller instead of the carrier, let him taste a cookie out of my hand. Every time I let him fall asleep on me.

    When he was younger it was easier. He stayed in one place, his needs were simpler. All my varied and conflicting sources agreed that there’s no such thing as spoiling a newborn. He just needed me to be there, to tend to his basic needs, to respect him, to love him. And all of that came naturally.

    Now, he’s testing. Not in a behavioral, toddler sense – not yet, anyway – but rather he’s trying to understand sequences, cause and effect. If I do this, then this will happen. And that’s fine, it’s great – I just so badly want to do my bit right that it’s doing my head in. And all of my attempts to be natural and mindful and connected and tuned in are somehow colliding with each other. My mind and my heart and my maternal instincts, all pulling me in different ways.

    There’s a problem with the word “natural,” or at least the concept. We mean so many different things when we say it – the way humans are “meant” to be, pre-industrial revolution, before medicine, without plastic and screens… But the truth is that natural doesn’t feel natural anymore, not in this day and age. What’s natural is what we’re used to, how we were brought up, what we see around us. Perhaps that’s why everything I do ends up feeling like it’s going against the grain.

    I’ve felt it since the beginning of the pregnancy, in some way, shape or form – that I was doing something weird. I’d tell people I was planning a natural birth and they’d look at me like I said I’d decided to birth my (huge) baby out of my left nostril. Exclusively (“only?!”) breastfeeding is somehow seen as subversive behavior, especially past the age of six months, when babies should apparently be eating bucketloads of processed shit sold in tins. And don’t even get me started on Baby Led Weaning. And though these things do feel natural to me – certainly when I think about them and sometimes in practice, too – implementing them can be a bit of an uphill battle.

    I was telling my boss a couple of months back about our efforts to get Gadi’s sleep on track, and our deliberations about whether or not to enlist the help of a sleep therapist. About painstaking lists of bed times and wake ups, books and articles, taking turns and careful routines. Her suggestion? “Maybe you just need to go with it.” I was so taken aback – that’s what I thought we were doing. How did I manage to turn laid back and relaxed parenting into something so anal?

    I like to think – I hope – that these are just growing pains. That just like anything else, it feels a bit awkward at first and then eventually becomes second nature. And of course, it’s not always like this. When I’m really there, right in the moment connected with Gadi, there’s a perfect flow. When I’m responding rather than reacting – yes – but easily, quickly, naturally. Like Victor Frankl put it:

    Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

    Deep down, I know the fact that I’m thinking about all of this means I’m being exactly the type of parent I want to be – a mindful, intentional parent. That I’m trying things out, seeing what fits. I also know that it’s when I’m living in the past or the future – going over and over things that happened or trying to plan out the future move by move – that this conflict exists. In the moment, when I’m really present, everything is great.

    But in the meantime, it’s hurting my poor tired brain.