Comments on: Synchronisity – how do you do it?

By: Annie @ PhD in Parenting

Annie @ PhD in Parenting — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:48:19 +0000

I’m sure I have hundreds of billable hours clocked over the past five years where I had a baby lying across my lap on a boppy pillow sleeping or nursing.

I have also at times when trying to get a few e-mails answered while I have kids crawling all over me opened one browser for e-mails and next to it another one with Sesame Street videos playing.

By: Pen

Pen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:45:22 +0000

I used to have to drop in to finish research tasks or admin tasks from time to time after I picked my son up from day care. So I’d have a snack for him, sit him down with a game or book or put him in front of the ABC kids website and do what I had to. There were also times when I was working (endnoting, emailing, responding to students, etc) and waiting on hold on the phone for doctors, centrelink, etc that were all parenting-related. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do this kind of thing. I also used to do marking while rocking the baby in the pusher or do research reading while breastfeeding. How else can a person get stuff done?

By: mimbles

mimbles — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:19:00 +0000

I’ve taken my kids into the office with me a couple of times during school holidays, just for an hour or thereabouts to do stuff that couldn’t be done from home. The time I took all 3 with me was not terribly relaxing – my eldest (12) seems to be incapable of amusing himself without irritating the other two but when it was just Tom (8) and Cait (10) they quietly played DS games while I worked.

I wasn’t in paid work when the kids were younger but I did volunteer work – preschool enrollments officer and school uniform shop treasurer – with toddlers underfoot. Of course when you’re ringing someone to offer them a place at preschool they’re unlikely to be put out by hearing your kids in the background

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:02:16 +0000

I do this all the time, since I’m on call from M-F including nights. I answer phone calls when I’m with my daughter and sometimes I take her to work with me if I have to go in.

This is not new; I grew up listening to my father’s phone calls and trailing after him in the hospital. I suspect that latter was more to humor my insistence that I was going to be a nurse (my original plan) than because it was his turn to watch me; he never took that kind of turn. But I do know that I saw a lot more of my dad than I would have if he hadn’t mixed work and family life, and I’m glad he did.

By: Ariane

Ariane — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:29:15 +0000

I took newborns to jobs at 2 weeks and 1 week – the latter being a workshop for the RTA, although most of that was work, stop to feed baby, then work again rather than a fully integrated approach.

Day to day, I send emails and answer phone calls while wrangling the three of them – refereeing the disputes, giving cuddles and so on. I find the 2yr old pretty hard to work with, but the other two are not too bad. I get very annoyed when people consider it unprofessional to be able to hear children in the background. Such a narrow view of how people work.