Varun Duggirala shares tips on adjusting to parenthood while working from home
Being a parent is never easy. Ask anyone who’s a parent, and no matter how old or young their kid might be, they’ll agree that it’s a tough gig. But in many ways it could be compartmentalised. There was time between your kid being at home and time away from them at work/ school. And this helped drive the dynamic between parents and their children as an assortment of separate divisions with varying percentages of time spent: parent-child time and non-parent or child time.
And dads, for the large part, have had an even broader separation because we’ve not been equal partners in parenting. Historically, the heavy lifting and balancing has been left to mothers (I’m generalising, but the percentages are glaring), and it’s only for the last few generations that a father has looked at his role expanding to being an equal partner in parenting. We have a long way to go.
But the pandemic and working from home and school from home has made parenting a whole new ball game. Because there is no separation, there is a constant struggle for balance. Yet an increased and more profound level of bonding between parents and children has developed. We’ve had to map all our lives, schedules, needs, wants, plans and personal spaces to find some form of balance.
So, is it chaotic? It is. But does it have many a silver lining? I’d go with gold lining because I no longer have to worry about spending enough time with my daughter. I’m with her at every suitable break during the day (my office coffee breaks are replaced with bite-sized father-daughter time throughout the day every day). We do so much more together as a family because it’s a part of how we live now (movie nights are a whole-blown affair), and have I formed and almost ritualised activities that she and I do together as ‘our things’? Of Course, I have.
To catch moments of growth, the evolution of thought and mindset are a consistent daily process. Where she’s been able to show her interest in art or building structures with blocks, her need to make up stories using her imagination and my task of reading her the same book has come into existence. Still, with a different take on its story every second night, the smaller things have grown in prominence. It’s these tiny moments that we would have missed, had we not been confined to the same space for such a long time together.
To have her understand what her parents do and work towards not disturbing either of us should we be on a work call or to give us our space when we need it (this last one is a work in progress) has also been a way to show her what we do and how we do it. And while there were, are and will be moments of madness, it’s genuinely made me become the kind of father I always wanted to be, the one that’s present and deeply involved. Because that’s been my big realisation about being a parent through the last two years, more than anything else, it’s about being present, the rest is a bonus.
They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but proximity makes its bonds far stronger.
(The author is a content creator, podcaster, entrepreneur and personal development pundit.)