Our Kids Drive Us Crazy Because We Treat Parenting Like a Job
Your kid problems can‘t be solved the same way as your work problems
It is an easy conversational turn to remark lightly that working life prepares you well for small children. Long hours, conflict management, multitasking, impossible demands, difficult bosses, etc. We get the point. It’s a nice line. It’s also bull. Our workplaces are far more civilized than we let on — even when your chief exec is prone to an emotional outburst. And our children, by definition, are much less so.
I was eavesdropping one morning in a coffee shop while a team of Kiwis and South Africans talked about their work. A woman said: “I just want people who are efficient. Who do what they say when they say they’ll do it. I just love that. That guy, Bill in Nairobi, you know him, he’s so efficient he doesn’t even sign off his emails. Fuck, I love that guy.”
Children are never like Bill in Nairobi.
Years of running on schedule, thinking through ideas, delivering practicalities, planning budgets, being listened to, and massaging the ego of a big-cheese boss doesn’t prepare you for the pure nihilism of life with small children.
Part of the problem is that many of us are not hugely experienced with kids.
