Prince is out of town — no one seems to know where, including my kids — so I happily took Luca yesterday and today, which are normally his dad’s days. Franny left for a weeklong school trip to D.C. on Sunday, so my regularly-scheduled timeshare programming is all mixed up. Meaning: I hadn’t planned Luca’s dinner. Franny only wants pasta/broccoli/sausage for dinner, and Luca wants variety. Actually, I don’t know what Luca really wants, because he’s barely lived with me for three years.
Luca’s name popped up on my iPhone screen at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, that time of day when I am drained and bleary-eyed at work. I was staring at my computer screen, which I do more and more these days, now that the residential treatment facility where I work has demanded that clinicians become paperwork drones in addition to treating kids.
I was sifting through reams of densely worded instructions on how to complete a mind-numbingly heinous report due today when Luca called. And what he said made my heart sink.
“Mom? There’s nothing here for dinner.”
“There’s sausage…and broccoli, and pasta,” I said lamely.
“We have that every night,” he said. “Can’t we have something good?”
It was a reasonable request, in its teenagery way. But I didn’t handle it well. My eyes welled up from failed-motherdom, and my head almost exploded from failed workerbee-hood, and I snapped. I said something that sounded a lot like “I’m at work! I can’t talk about this right now!”
And then he said something that made what was left of my heart shatter into little pieces at my feet.
“When are you going to be home?”
“Six-thirty,” I said. “I’ll fix you dinner then.”
“I don’t think I can wait till then,” he said. “It’s okay, I’ll just make mac n’cheese.”
And then I put down my phone, and my head on the desk, and tried not to cry. I thought of all my married friends who don’t have to work, the friends who have reams of recipes in lovely organized binders, and time to plan dinner menus, and fix healthy snacks after they pick up their kids from school, a job that falls to my babysitter.
I thought of the laundry piling up by the washer, the boxes yet to be unpacked from the move, and my substandard think-ahead, time management skills, those skills crucial to the family of every work-outside-the-home mother.
I thought of all the moms who sit their kids down to dinner at 6:00, the hour that Luca would be sitting in front of the TV, alone with a bowl of mac n cheese, and I thought:
Bite Me, Marissa Mayer.
I don’t work for Yahoo!, the organization run by new CEO Marissa Mayer, the Lady Macbeth of the 21st century workforce, she who returned to work two weeks after giving birth, and who issued a memo, via her HR person on Monday, informing all Yahoo! employees, even those who were hired with the promise of a flexible, work-from-home position, that they now must work in the office to be truly productive.
As HuffPost Parents editor Lisa Belkin pointed out in her excellent piece on this development, this asinine mentality that working in an office is the only way to be productive, is dubious. It is dubious, it is a morale-killer, it sucks for kids, and it is a lousy, Orwellian reality navigated by parents who require two incomes.
And it becomes a truly surreal Orwellian reality for those of us who are single parents and must cling to their jobs like rockclimbers scaling Mt. Everest.
And the more I thought of all this, the more panic descended on my shoulders, and the more hamster-on-the-wheelish I felt, with the mantra nothing-you-do-is-good-enough ping-ponging wildly in my head.
I slunk out of the office early, drove home and found Luca post-mac-n-cheese, sprawled on the couch with his iPad. I practically begged him to let me fix him dinner — “What about potstickers? Cornmeal-crust pizza?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m not hungry now.”
I poured myself a glass of wine, steamed some potstickers for myself, and stuffed the laundry in the washer.
Later, Luca asked me to get him some ice cream, which I scooped into a bowl and presented to him like a wise king offering frankincense to the Baby Jesus.
He wanted to watch Breaking Bad with me, so we sat on my bed, watching it on his laptop.
“Your bed is really comfortable, Mom,” he said.
I sighed and smiled at him and savored this thin slice of family time, and for a moment, all was right in my impossible, 21st century single-mom-working life.
Melissa Mayer is proof that women are just as capable of being asshole bosses. When I worked at an office full time, I spent the majority of it gossiping, staring at my screen, and doing about two hours of actual, good work. If I had worked from home, I still would have done about two hours of really good work, but without wasting my time; the company wouldn’t have known the difference. And if I had had a kid during that time, I have no idea how I would have managed to care for and feed them; I could barely manage that for myself some nights.There’s been so much outrage over what’s happening at Yahoo that my guess is that there’ll be a retraction. Because Mayer and her company are getting some colossally well deserved bad press.
You describe the moments so clearly, my eyes welled up at the “I’ll just make myself some mac & cheese.” And I don’t get misty-eyed easy. Keep writing so that things will change for working moms. I work from home. Tried to make it happen in the film business, which I was trained to do, but after losing 20 lbs and missing the dinners, the t-ball games, life, I had to make a change and chuck the editing room. Sometimes I miss the bragging rights but then I’m reminded I’d much rather brag about the kids.
Heh! We are breathlessly awaiting Season 5 of BB, yo!
I know–she’s ridiculous, especially since she runs a tech company. There are theories that they want to avoid expensive layoffs, but if that’s true, it’s still ridiculous, because all the best people could leave. She could be stuck with the dregs, who can’t find work because their record isn’t as impressive and who are demoralized now, to boot.
My old company let most people work from home. (Unfortunately, our division head did not let us.) Let me tell you, that company had its problems (as all do), but the workforce was not one of them. The employees were the best asset and most of the ones with home offices seemed extremely productive.
My husband also works from home 75% of the time and just won a major award from his company.
Maybe I come from a different time, or maybe its because I’m a guy, but mac & cheese for dinner is not the end of the world. I mean Luca didn’t seem traumatized.
That’s actually a good perspective, thanks.
Yes, and now office workers have Facebook to become even less productive.
I’m at work right now sitting next to 2 people who talk all day long. There are also several people who stop by to chat sometimes staying for 20-30 minutes at a time. I have to plan the work that I do that requires more concentration for when they are at lunch. I would love to work from home where there are no distractions and I know I would get more work done.
I’m at work right now sitting next to 2 people who talk all day long. There are also several people who stop by to chat sometimes staying for 20-30 minutes at a time. I have to plan the work that I do that requires more concentration for when they are at lunch. I would love to work from home where there are no distractions and I know I would get more work done.
Kathy, I feel the same way. I would be much more productive if I could stay home in the morning and write reports, because when I have to do them here, I am interrupted by phone calls and staff and kids. It is a myth that people are more productive in the office.
Well as someone who is working at home I know that the balance between kids and work sucks big time. I have no time to really get anything done no matter how I schedule, plan and contingency plan. Something always comes up that needs my attention. And its the High School kid thats way more of a disruption than my daughter.
I know that meal planning is a life savior, though there are days I just get a salad and the kids have mac n cheese. Its always my back up plan, or like tonight is taco night.. though my daughter will only eat tortilla, cheese and sour cream with a tad of taco meat. And usually there are snacks around, well unless the boy has demolished them. My daughter has a hidden stash of snacks due to that fact…. But I can’t get to mad because the boy is like a twig who needs to eat more and gain some weight… though I wish I was 6’1.5″ and only 115.
I worked in an office where “face time” was all that mattered. It had very few moms and those that had kids, left. This is a ridiculous statement from the head of a tech company. She should be ashamed of herself!
What a great kid who can make his own dinner. That’s much better than making it for him.
Yeah…it’s just that damn Mother Guilt.
And isn’t it amazing how the ‘mac and cheese’ dilemma solved itself in the same evening with some quality ‘Breaking Bad’ time? Also, pasta, sausage, and broccoli (and maybe chicken breast) was all I ate growing up. My momma was busy like you, and in spite of the food monotony, I relished the time *being* with her during meals – that’s what really mattered. <3 Lovely post.
Awesome! Because you turned out great, Matt!
I don’t generally get all emotional about what various company CEOs do… but as someone who’s worked from home successfully for a large corporation, I get really hot under the collar over the assumption that work from home workers are less efficient than workers that come into the office.
I may have just had a fantasy involving spitting in Marissa Mayer’s face and calling her the “See you next Tuesday” word.
She’s the corporate Marie Antoinette. Off with her head!
Single Mom here, I work in an office from 8:30-5, and I’m 20-40 minutes (dep on traffic) from home so add on a commute. My ten and fourteen yr old girls both know how to crack open a soup can, or throw a frozen meal in the microwave. Healthy? eh, but they won’t starve. I do get the “you never cook!” after I have had a night of leaving work, sitting in traffic, attending a parent chaperone meeting (for 10yo’s field trip) and a coach’s meeting (for 10yo’s new volleyball season starting soon), then not wanting to begin to cook at 7:45pm at night. The accusation came from the 14 yr old who is perfectly capable of frying an egg or nuking a meal. I offered them both popcorn chicken mixed with steamed veggies about a half hour later, and she quietly accepted. We must teach our children to fend for themselves because likely, in life, they won’t have a servant cooking for them like they do now. They will have late-night classes or jobs, and not feel like thawing a chicken breast. You are teaching LIFE, and your kids will someday thank you for it!
I get what you’re saying, it’s just that I have a very unusual situation in which my ex-husband is loaded and a helicopter parent and will always be seducing my kids with money. My ex has never had to work because his parents have supported his lavish lifestyle. So that will all be very tempting for my kids — it’s anyone’s guess what they will choose, a real life or a lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous life.
I have so many moments like yours at the office… now I know what to yell in my head. Thanks for that
Oh man, I so hear you! My ex, the dad of my oldest has money and his wife doesn’t work. I work, and am fortunate to have a flexible job where I have to be in the office but also can work from home when I need to (working for a University doesn’t pay so well, but all of the other perks are great). I don’t always have a meal planned and I am often tired when I get home. My youngest has a lot of activities, and we are busy! The ex and his wife are TOTAL helicopter parents. They give me laminated lists of what he brought with him and needs to bring back to their house, instructions on how to “handle him,” etc. It’s gross. But, I know that when he goes back there, he tells them of my failed dinner attempts and the lack of vegetables he got (I feed him vegetables, but the ex’s wife has all day to grocery shop, cook, etc.). It makes me feel so bad and like such a failure of a mom. We just do the best we can!
I also have to agree that he seemed to handle it very well. It’s just the facts: mom has to work, she’s busy, sometimes you have to take care of yourself. And he did. You should be so proud that he’s able to do that with no fuss! Even with a rich dad, he’ll need to know how to fend for himself, and he’s totally old enough to be able to do that. This seems like a success story to me, not a failure! Good job on helping him become so much more stable and calm.
And, just another perspective on Melissa Mayer, she is trying to save the company, and, thus, save all their jobs. I know some folks who have worked at Yahoo and frankly, they all admit that they are not all the productive at home, because they have not been held accountable for a long time. Yahoo has been troubled for a long time and she has a huge job trying to turn it around. I’m glad she’s trying to save it — there are a lot of jobs at stake.
I have to chime in here; most of us who read blogs are work-from-home types, and we’ve found a way to be efficient and productive. However, Yahoo’s case is different; I think Marissa is trying to save the company by putting in the hard work until a time when things turn around. Only then will she consider loosening that noose to let her workers work from home. All in all, if you’re the boss, you can pretty much do anything you want to do.
Alana