work life balance – Trish Thinks…

It’s Freaky Friday All Week (Final)

For five days in July 2022 I swapped lives with my children. This is the record of our experience.

LIFE SWAP DIARY
Part six

Last Day: Friday

The food has been delicious, but the housekeeping has been somewhere between minimal and non-existent. We are under pressure because we have a friend, Brian, coming over for dinner this evening. I stomp around pointedly muttering about monetary rewards and their direct relationship to performance levels. This doesn’t work and myself and John both begin shouting. Soon all five of us are shouting, vacuuming, dusting and sweeping piles of toys under rugs. Our dinner guest arrives just as we have finally pulled it all together. Mary has been simmering beef chilli in the hotpot all day and whipped up some rice and homemade guacamole to accompany it. Michael and Seamus have set the table on the terrace nicely and sit chatting to our guest and fetching us drinks while we wait for dinner. Five minutes after Mary serves up it starts to rain. No one can be bothered moving the whole shebang inside, so we take turns to huddle under our canopy and I notice with alarm bright orange and green rivulets pouring off the edges. So the paint wasn’t waterproof. Oops.

The final task of the week is to do the dishes, after which they are free to watch inane cartoons until they lose consciousness and reawaken into normal life in the morning. But instead they stick around. The rain eases off and we light a fire. Brian shows Michael how to use wax to keep a little stick-torch alight. We’ve been playing with fire all week, what’s a few more hours?

The food and fun were spectacular but neatness is not their strong suit

Aftermath: Back to Porridge

It took a day or two of slipping back into the comfortable bed of old habits to appreciate what had really changed during our adventure. I can’t say that I was surprised by how well my children could cook and clean. I knew they were capable of that. The biggest surprise was myself. I hadn’t realised until I stopped how relentlessly frustrating, stressful, exhausting and downright depressing it is to try so hard to manage another person’s life. To schedule a week. To organise a day. During our experiment there was a subtle shift in responsibility that had nothing to do with whose job it was to do the dishes. I didn’t see it until my books were stolen in the train station. I was so upset with myself for forgetting them, I sort of froze for a moment before I even started looking for them. It was Mary who organised the search party, assigning us each a section of the station. She took charge. Her brothers followed her lead in a symphony of perfect cooperation. In case you think my kids are just saints, or freaks of nature let me say with haste that this is usually not the case. We have suffered protracted bouts of sibling rivalry. Hours of teasing, arguing and fighting. I’ve also wasted hours on lectures advocating personal responsibility that were intended to engender the kind of initiative I saw that day, to no avail. I had expected this initiative and responsibility to show itself in clean bedrooms and walked dogs, all on cue and in fulfilment of clearly communicated expectations. And I had often been disappointed. So what was different now?

The most common and fundamental mistake we make in bringing about change is to focus first on changing other people’s behaviour instead of looking first to ourselves. The missing ingredient my kids needed to really practice responsibility was for me to let some of it go. Giving your children a job is easy. Backing off and letting them carry out in their own way is harder. Doing it badly. Doing it wrong. Doing it as quickly as possible and then watching cartoons for four hours. It’s all infinitely better than not doing it at all. This can be hard to swallow in a culture where both children and parents are constantly under surveillance and constantly being judged. But kids, please! Give the grown ups another chance. We can eventually learn to back off. We just need some practice.

Séamus finds space to relax without well meaning parents trying too hard to entertain him

It’s Freaky Friday All Week (5)

For five days in July 2022 I swapped lives with my children. This is the record of our experience.

LIFE SWAP DIARY
Part Five

Day Four: Thursday

I am practically begging to leave the house. My usual strategy in summer is to spend as much time as possible outdoors, for several reasons. It’s healthy and wholesome. It means less tidying and cleaning up. It keeps everyone entertained. It keeps me entertained. The kids have been so happy to be left to their own devices and so busy working at cooking and laundry that they have barely left the house at all. Over a lovely brunch of potato waffles and Mary’s homemade Moroccan spiced beans I float the idea of a trip to town to tempt them outside. They agree to head off with me on the train to pick up a book I have ordered after they finish cleaning up. Yes! Freedom!

While they are doing the dishes I impulsively start to do something I’ve been thinking about for a while. We have a white tent-canopy over part of our balcony so we can air-dry our washing even when it is raining. I have long fantasised about decorating it with paint. Giving it a bit of colour and adding a Jackson Pollock vibe. I lay the canopy on the ground outside, get some of the kids’ acrylic paints and start to spatter. Before long the dishes are abandoned and everyone is getting involved. Once we’ve squirted some of every colour in the house Michael suggests adding footprints into the mix. I can’t resist, but accidentally go into automatic responsible-for-the-mess mode and bring a bucket of water outside to ensure everyone washes off their feet (and paws) before they hit the carpet. When we have finished there are multiple paint stains on the paving stones that look very much like they are never coming off. After a half-hearted rinsing attempt I abandon it and we head off to collect my book.

Once in town Séamus decides to have a tantrum in the first shop we enter because he doesn’t have enough pocket money to buy the toy he wants. He does something he hasn’t done for around two years- lies down on the floor in full brat mode. I am consumed with silent rage, but icily determined to get the book I have waited weeks for. I make an impulsive and unusual move. No bribes, not threats, no dire warnings about “consequences”. I wait for him to get bored on the floor and stand up and then I take them to the nicest coffee shop in town and get them hot chocolate. They are visibly confused. I explain that this week is a holiday for me too. Not just from the dishes and the laundry, but from being in charge and directing everyone’s behaviour. I tell them I really, really want to get my book (Fearless by Catrina Davies) before we go home. We get to the bookshop and somehow have a lovely time browsing for ages. As well as my long awaited book I pick up another on David Hockney (John’s favourite artist) as a surprise. We make it to the station on time for our train without the usual huffing, puffing and rushing. We even have ten minutes to pop to the loo before the train comes!

Our modern art installation ‘Hung Out to Dry’

Of course I leave my book bag hanging on a hook in the toilet stall. I realise I’ve done so five minutes before our train is due. We go back and search the toilet to no avail.

We ask a member of staff who tells us that a book bag was handed in. It’s my bag alright, but the expensive David Hockney book and Fearless are missing although some school books remain. The book thief has admirable literary and artistic taste. Of course we miss the train. The kids are surprisingly sympathetic as we wait for the next one. And patient. Strangely so in fact. Waiting an extra 30 minutes for a train after a long hot day with a four year old should be a nightmare, but he sits peacefully and quietly. It dawns on me that the usually constant background drone of sibling bickering has been absent all week.

I get home exhausted, but very thankful that I don’t have to make dinner because I want to hoist our paint splatter canopy back up before John gets home. He might find our little foray into modern art a bit more acceptable if it doesn’t involve any DIY work on his part.

For dinner we have vegetable curry with homemade naan bread. This proves to be the first culinary mishap of the week for Mary as the naan dough is too sticky to roll out. I show Mary how to add extra flour gradually to make it less sticky. It feels more like an exchange of know-how between equals than my usual lecture “On How to do Everything Correctly”. The line between helping kids and doing it for them has become increasingly blurred of late. The experiment has really helped me find that line again.

It was hard to adjust to all the free time at first but I managed

A Dependable But Fun Wife

I had a bit of a scare last summer. An uncomfortably close call. It started with an occasional pain in my right shoulder when I was running. Soon it was painful every time I ran. And then one morning in the shower I found a lump. I wasn’t too concerned at this point, but since a friend of a similar age had just narrowly survived cancer that year, I thought I should probably get it checked out. Just to be safe. I remember that my primary concern, as I cycled off to visit the doctor, was that she would feel nothing and send me home feeling like a stereotypically hysterical middle-aged woman. When she found not just one lump, but a second even larger one in my right breast then all the air seemed to rush out of my lungs at once. I’m mortified to admit I cried a little even though nothing had even actually gone wrong at this point. In retrospect what upset me was the thought of telling my husband. He had just buried both his mother and his best friend the year before. The idea of subjecting him to this kind of fear and worry, yet again, pushed me over the edge and way outside my comfort zone into a very public display of emotion.

Next stop mammogram.

If you’ve never had one, a mammogram is really not what you might expect. I had supposed it would be something along the lines of standing in front of a big light box, and then very briefly slipping down my hospital modesty gown to allow a discreet and rapid photo of my boobs. This is not the case. If you have one scheduled then you can expect to stand alone right in the middle of a white room that resembles the deck of a spaceship feeling acutely aware that your entire top half is very, very naked, while a heavy and noisy horizontal metal plate thrums into place just below your chest. You will then be asked by a radiographer to lift your boobs and place them on this plate, laying them out like St John’s head for Herod. Things get weirder still while your boobs are clamped by a second descending plate and squeezed in a vice. Still more clamping, buzzing and squeezing to follow as they take some side profiles as well. I won’t say I have never had less fun with my top off, but it’s close.

Next up was the ultrasound room, where I blinked half-blinded as I struggled to comprehend the news that there were now not just two but three “solid masses” that would require biopsies.

I swallowed hard, nodding mutely as a member of the hospital administration leaned over my still naked bosom to confirm, up-close-and-personal, that I could pay before any further testing took place. When it comes to life, death or birth, we must turn our trust towards complete strangers. Dignity is a small price to pay for a chance at salvation, so most of us hand it over without hesitation when we cross the threshold of a hospital. I waited a long and uncomfortable week for my results.

**Stresstris** by Patricia Frazer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.trishthinks.home.blog.

The most chilling aspect of the whole ordeal was to realise that somewhere in the cocktail of feelings (terror, shame, fatigue, self pity) was an unexpected guest. Something I never thought to find there. I am not proud to say it, but during that week of waiting there was a small part of me that felt… relieved. I was scared too. Especially for my husband and three children. I was angry that this could happen to me after I had eaten all those salads, done all that yoga, jogged all those miles! But still, there it was. Undeniable. An easing up, a letting go, a release. It took weeks of existential detective work to try to figure out where this feeling could be coming from. And this is what I came up with: it was existential relief.

Relief that I could take a break from trying so hard to make something of my life. Jean-Paul Sartre, capturing perfectly the post-religious, post-idealist disillusionment of the latter half of the 20th century, said “Man is condemned to be free”. Woman has increasingly joined him. The dizzying array of opportunity, choice and freedom available to many of my generation is a privilege. There are people all over the world who would love to have the time and resources to experience existential angst, but they are too busy surviving. But for those millions of us in the privileged position of choice, our angst is still real and our depression and anxiety is growing.

I lost my belief in any kind of afterlife or God after a very religious upbringing and a long, dark night of the soul trying to hang on to my faith. But a few bits and pieces stay with me, and these are often the ideas that have seeped out of Christiantity into broader culture for many people. A prime example is “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” (King James Version, Luke 12:48). I hadn’t realised until my fortieth year on the planet how deeply the responsibility to provide an existential return on my existence had been eating away at me. With a great education, material comforts unimaginable to most people in the world, and a supportive family behind me, the least I could do is be an attentive and loving mother, a dependable but fun wife, an inspiring teacher and a good daughter. I also felt obliged to repay society’s investment in my education by publishing meaningful research, not to mention being a good role model for my kids by staying fit and pursuing wholesome hobbies like art and music as opposed to bingeing exhaustedly on Netflix and Belgian beer. I’ve never been good at or even particularly interested in being houseproud, but I have become dimly aware of the increasing expectation that we all keep a home so clean and devoid of clutter it looks like no one lives there. Then there’s also the imperative to expand one’s horizons and take advantage of the opportunities our parents never had by learning to code, striving to thwart climate change and the increasing drive to justify the existence of hobbies by transforming them into economically productive “side-hustles”. You can’t just pour your heart out in a journal anymore, you need to drive followers to your blog. It’s a heck of a lot to get done in four thousand weeks. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I probably won’t manage it. I suppose on some level sickness could provide me with a reason or an excuse for not having achieved any of it.

When my results came back with nothing to worry about I was genuinely relieved and ecstatic but remained changed by the experience and keenly aware that it could have gone the other way. I’m not here to tell you that a brush with mortality has enlightened me about what is really important, or to advise you to live each day as if it were your last. If you are wrong you might end up with a colossal hangover. The problem with this approach is that the brevity of life on its own doesn’t do anything to clarify what is important in it. As Anne Lamott memorably puts it, we are still left wondering “Is life too short to be taking shit, or is life too short to be minding it?”

And now I’m left trying to answer the question: What do I want for my remaining two thousand weeks? More of the same, or something a little bit different?

Regrets for my old Nokia 3310: work-life balance in the era of smartphones

Original artwork by Patricia Frazer- do not reproduce without permission. NFT available on https://exchange.art/collections/Technostalgia

What led Denis Diderot, 18th century philosopher, critic of the arts and defender of the enlightenment to become a “slave” to his dressing gown? Diderot edited the influential Encyclopédie as well as many controversial philosophical works challenging religious orthodoxy and championing rationalism. He also left his stamp on the field of marketing with a charming essay called Regrets for My Old Dressing Gown. In it he describes how replacing his old threadbare robe with a new scarlet one leads him to spiraling consumption in the pursuit of a lifestyle as elegant as his new look. Afraid any longer to wipe up ink spills with his sleeve he surveys the change in his once scruffy writer’s residence with sadness, concluding that while he had been “master” of his old robe, he has become “a slave to the new”.

When one purchase leads on to many others (like buying a new phone case to complement the latest phone) this is called the Diderot Effect. Few of us feel the need to don elaborate robes anymore, but we don’t have to look too far for good examples of where we still fall foul of the Diderot Effect and become slaves to the new. Last summer I innocently purchased a second hand typewriter with the vague intention that it would help me avoid online distraction and thus write more. When I got it home I realised that it needed a cosy desk upon which to sit, the right chair for the desk, space in a small apartment for a chair and desk… to cut a long story short not a word was written until the typewriter was unceremoniously dumped at the recycling centre.

Impulse buying a typewriter may be a fairly unusual example. A more common experience of this effect may be nestled in your hand right now as you read. When many of us bought our first mobile phones we got more than we bargained for. We had little idea that we would soon experience similar spiralling change in how we communicate, live and work, and how many more devices we might purchase as a result.

Mobile phone use has had mixed effects on wellbeing for most people. There are positive effects such as new tools to improve our mental and physical health, better access to knowledge and the ability to keep in contact with our far away friends and family. And of course, we are often bombarded with examples of the negative effects- the depressive and unsettling effect of constant social comparisons on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the increasing complexity and dissatisfaction in our decision-making caused by information overload, the extension of work far into our evenings and weekends via email use.

How do we address this upset to our work life balance? Should we throw away our smartphones en masse and dig out the old Nokia 3310, or, better yet, the quill? Ignore the siren song of the new scarlet robe in favour of the old threadbare one? Perhaps. But if answering a few sporadic emails from my phone allows me to pick the kids up from school on Friday instead of staying in the office then throwing away my phone won’t buy me the freedom and balance I desire. I have turned to the existentialists for help on this one. Sartre emphasizes the role of choice in defining us. We are what we do, and though our choices are influenced by pressures we are in some sense free to walk away from our jobs, our responsibilities, our families and our dependence on technology if we really think life would be better without them. This excerpt from his essay concerning freedom and responsibility might have been written expressly to describe our troubled relation to after hours work communications had it not predated the invention of email by several decades. “For lack of getting out of it, I have chosen it. This can be due to inertia, to cowardice in the face of public opinion, or because I prefer certain other values to the value of the refusal to join in…” .

I choose to continue to use my smartphone for work, but I don’t have to feel trapped by it. Viewing it as a choice rather than a necessity makes me feel more in control of this aspect of my life. And when Facebook makes me feel more insecure than connected I can choose to delete the app. Is moderation possible in our smartphone use, or, like addicts, will we always succumb to a Diderot Effect, downloading one app after another? Is the existence of apps to help us cut down on phone usage evidence we can regain control, or that we are enslaved already?