Years ago, a friend of mine, at the time a clothing designer for the snowboarding line of an athletic apparel company, was working from home. Her then 7-year-old-son saw her at her laptop, and asked what she was doing. She said she was working. “No, you’re not.” He was defiant. “You’re a professional snowboarder.” That is what he had understood her to be and, in an instant, a pretty cool profession became a disappointment.
Fast-forward to now, when the pandemic has forced many people to work from home. The concept of being in the same physical space among actual colleagues borders on anachronistic in 2021. For those with children, there’s been an additional adjustment. Before schools reopened in the Netherlands, where we live, my dining room table was littered with the school books and laptops of my three children, with my husband or me at the helm, trying to do our own work.The pandemic changed everything about family life. These are the parts parents want to keep.
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