Working from home - Respect the babysitter
I’m quite the computer dungeon junkie now that I have been working from home for a few weeks. When I do crawl out of the dungeon in the middle of the day, the kids normally want to hang on to me for a little while.
Our daughter seems to start being more stuborn with my mom when I am around. I am just now learning how to handle this problem.
On one of the first days I was home, our daughter was refusing to do anything that our babysitter, my mom, asked her to do. I tried to tell my mom that our daughter has been pushing everybody’s buttons recently but it came out horribly wrong and sounded like I was accusing my mom of not disciplining our daughter enough.
I had to apologize later in the day.
Yesterday, out daughter was being really stubborn about something when I walked up stairs and started clinging to me like she wanted me to overturn my mom’s decision. Our daughter had picked out her own shirt, but when our son picked out his shirt, she decided she wanted to wear his shirt instead.
Grandma wasn’t going to let that happen and she wasn’t going to let her change into a different shirt just because of how sassy our daughter was being.
I got down low to make eye contact with my daughter and said, “Who’s in charge?”
She whimpered, “You are.”
I said, “No. I’m working. Mamaw is in charge. You do what she told you.”
And then I got my glass of water and returned to the dungeon.
The lesson I have learned over the last few weeks is that during the day when I am working, I can’t try to play Daddy In Charge every time I walk upstairs. Whoever is watching my kids that day (my wife works part time and watches the kids on her days off of work), is in charge. Not me.
If everybody is calm and happy, I can play for a couple minutes. But, when the kids are having a breakdown moment, it is best for me to get back to work as quickly as possible.
I’m still an office worker who happens to have a zero minute commute.
Tags: babysitter, Career, kids, parenting, Working from HomeRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Career and Kids, Working from Home
1 opinion for Working from home - Respect the babysitter
Heather
Dec 1, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Very interesting! I work from home, and my husband was fortunate enough to be able to work from home for a year (he has now returned to consulting, but I’m at home still). We shared the responsibilities of childcare, along with a part-time nanny. We found the same to be true. Our children are 4 and 2, so every time we go in, we have to spend some time. I’ve started sneaking all the way around the house to use the bathroom (there’s not one in the office, but the guest room bath has an outside door). It’s nice to see that other people are able to make working at home work for them!
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