Bad Parent: Me and My Shadow
For us, every day is Take Your Child to Work Day.
by Jeanne Sager
April 23, 2009
Those who are parents unfailingly tell me how lucky I am, the older generations of parents remind me to cherish these days with my child in tow. The rest simply accept her as part of the package deal, and the hint of informality that she brings to a meeting generally puts people at ease. Subjects who would otherwise be stiff in front of a reporter and her notebook turn to watch my child scribbling in a coloring book or telling her dolly a story, and they let loose. As a mother, I can be trusted.
I have had my scares. A politician's secretary — who had offered to watch my daughter so we could talk about his impending campaign — got a phone call. Rather than ask me to grab my daughter, she thought she could handle both. My two-year-old took herself
on a tour of the town hall . . . and nearly gave me a heart attack in the approximately three minutes until I heard her little voice chatting up the secretaries one flight up.
In exchange, she's had her thrills. The horse rides offered by the trail ride leader I've interviewed, the chance to drive a firetruck. When singer Gavin DeGraw came home to give the neediest kids from his elementary school new book bags just in time for
the academic year to start, my three-year-old knew only that the other little girls in the room were nearly fainting when this man touched their hands and signed the backs of the their T-shirts. So she walked up to him and turned around, waiting earnestly
for a grinning DeGraw to sign hers too. The photos of the two mugging for the camera (see photo below) will be good blackmail when she rebels in her teen years and starts blasting heavy metal from her bedroom — see, you were once just a sweet little girl who liked "that boy's
music."
I don't remember signing up for easy.
But it isn't "that boy," or even the horses, I think she needs to experience. It's the day in and day out with me.
Critics of the mothers featured in the Times cite the lack of quality time spent between working parents and their kids in the workplace. What, I wonder, counts as quality time?
The drives from place to place are peppered with questions and answers about every aspect of life. Road signs become the impetus for lessons in shapes and colors. Every meal is eaten together, sometimes pulled from a pre-packed bag in the back of the car
and sometimes in a diner after we've finished up a lunch interview. There is plenty of time for hugs, even more for holding hands on walks up to knock on doors or around the halls of a municipal building.
With the exception of those two days at daycare (and, as of a few months ago, two morning spent at nursery school), I miss little of what happens in my daughter's week. I know when she skins her knee and where she saw her first newborn lamb. I fell with her
when we slipped on the ice just off the curb. I felt the lamb's buttery soft fleece.
Would it be easier to clock a nine to five every day, to drop her off at the sitter on the way work and pick her up on the way home? Probably. My car would be cleaner. My interviews would go quicker without the pre-schooler trying to steal my pen when she's
had enough and she wants to go home. (The police chief, fortunately, was amused. Mom wasn't.). My day would almost schedule itself.
But I don't remember signing up for easy. I signed up to be a parent, which — whether or not you have your baby with you twenty-four hours a day — is a full-time job.
About the Author
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Jeanne Sager is a freelance writer and photographer living in upstate New York with her husband and daughter, Jillian. She maintains a blog of her award-winning columns at jeannesager.blogspot.com. |
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