Parenting books - we started with this one in week 9 of the pandemic which aligns with what we do on our best days and all the leadership training I've gotten.

In week 10 I reflected on how pandemic parenting is a lot more work for our house than it would be to do the same thing (both people working from home with Theo also at home) in non-pandemic time, because we’re so restricted in our options and we have extra emotions from everyone.

In week 45, I observed that when sick, one is way less patient/calm than one thinks one is. Or at least I am. We’ve had a lot of tantrums from Theo this week that in retrospect were likely a result of parents not being able to stay calm (and/or forgetting to feed him often enough…we ended up putting timers on our phone for daytime meals). On the upside, this gave us lots of opportunities to model how to “repair” after handling situations in less than ideal ways.

In week 47, the NYT Parenting page added a new section called the Primal Scream, with this article summarizing the impact of the pandemic on mothers. I’m also curious the impact on men who took on childcare duties - they are likely suffering too (with, I suspect, fewer social supports).

In week 59, my mother observed that we have very small margins before our family ecosystem gets derailed. For example, on Wednesday I wanted to listen to the end of grand rounds and didn’t leave to get Theo from daycare until 20 minutes later than usual. As a result, we were finishing dinner when Theo usually gets in the bath. We decided to try to be flexible since we were already off schedule, Theo got a (rare) nap at school, and he was determined to show Sam the gardening barrel in the new community garden. We had a delightful 20 minutes of gardening with neighbors and my mom. As a result, Theo ended up being overtired, extra difficult to negotiate with, went to bed 30 minutes late, and went to sleep an hour late (he said sleeping was boring and colored his palms -and sheets- with markers). Adult tempers frayed in the process. My suspicion is that this thin margin for error in schedules is a normal 2021 young-kid parenting experience (especially in a 2-working-parent household in a city). The broader question is: does it have to be this way, or are there ways we can make things easier on ourselves?

The answer is partly advocating for systems changes and leaders who support those changes. On a micro-level, ironically, the pandemic forced us to reconfigure, and these are the widest margins we’ve had yet.

In implementation science, you think about creating a core intervention with adaptable fringes. What’s been working best for us in the pandemic is when we only have to work 10-4 (e.g. attend meetings) and the mornings and evenings can be more flexible. We’ve settled into a rhythm where either we exercise before Theo gets up (which means at least one person gets up at 5), or after he goes to school (at 8:30, which only works for one of us as the other has to drive him in).

Exercise is both an instrumental and intrinsic good for us: it enables good short- and long-term outcomes, daily mental function, and for me, thinking time. Granted, for me it’s also the first thing to go when work gets more intense. When Theo was smaller, he seemed perfectly happy to be at daycare 8-6, but now he really wants time at home: he’d kinda prefer to be at daycare 9-4. We’ve compromised at 9-5.

I can see why part time work makes a lot of sense with young kids (if you don’t think about the impact on lifetime earnings): it’s really hard to fit everything in. I tend to miss exercise a few mornings a week because of meetings, and work for an hour or two most evenings while waiting for Theo to sleep.