As the days get shorter but the winter holiday still feels a long way off, it’s a testing time for working parents. One Beckenham dad considers how to up his game on balancing parenthood with the non-stop demands of professional life.
I’m up and showered before the family have even stirred. This has advantages – a bathroom to myself without a 90-centimetre high oompa-loompa stuck fast to my leg, singing loudly, for one thing. But as I scrape the razor down my face and try to get the blood
pumping for another lengthy working day – plus commute – it’s often hard to shake the feeling that I’m missing out on hefty chunks of my son’s upbringing.
In the (roughly) eleven hours I’ll now be out of the house, he’ll pick up new words, make new friends, play, eat, and generally be a just-four year old. I won’t see any of it. And it’ll be dark when I get home.
The truth of course is that my wife works just as hard as I do. Being in sole charge of a duracell-
powered mini-me with the vocal sensitivity of the Land’s End foghorn is an exhausting daily ordeal – and by the glorious moment that the goodnight kisses have been delivered and those duracells finally run out to be recharged overnight, the best we can do is jointly collapse on the sofa with a knowing ‘well, we got through another one’ look.
I’m determined to believe it doesn’t have to be this way. That we can all achieve balance in our lives which enables us to get the most out of jobs, family life and personal time. So recently, I’ve given my commuting time over to coming up with a few neat ideas which can help me start to move the needle in the right direction......
Breadwinning Blues and Balance
Con Franklin, dad to Jack (4)