I had experienced enough with our first child to know that after we put our daughter in daycare, there were going to be days I picked her up and learned that she had hit some milestone that her mother and I had missed. I knew this but hadn’t handled it. Then that day came. I walked into the daycare and her provider told me that Rona, then just nine months old, had stood up. She leaned against a bookcase and became bipedal. Her teacher was delighted and so was Rona (it seemed). I was delighted too, but also upset. But I didn’t have time to process. I had to rush the kids home. My wife and I fed Rona and Fox dinner, gave them a bath, and said goodnight before we, ourselves, called it a day. Although I knew I was missing out on my kid’s lives, I was reluctant to give up my own. I knew what career I wanted when I was 14 and I’d worked every day since to realize that teenage dream. I worked in entertainment and brushed shoulders with some of the most brag-worthy names out there. I didn’t want to give that up, but I also couldn’t slip the feeling I was missing crucial moments of my kid’s life. Eventually, my anxiety about missing out mixed with my work-related anxiety. Depression followed. I had made a compromise that wasn’t working. I came clean to my boss and company. I asked for a change. The timing was just right. We moved our first kid to a Montessori school that ends at 3 p.m. every day. The school was also willing to accommodate our youngest on a part-time basis (three days a week) if we chose. I used this change as a catalyst to my own. I went from a traditional work schedule to working from home two days a week with Rona by my side, and leaving the office (or home office) early each day so I could pick the kids up from school and get a few bonus hours. I knew that this was the outcome I wanted and I sensed I could get it, but I wrestled with the decision for weeks. I was nervous about asking for the schedule change, not just because I was worried that my boss would say no, but also because my personal identity was and is so deeply tied to what I do for a living. I kept asking myself: “Who am I if I am not this guy?” It felt like an impasse when it was, in fact, a situation that required me to have an honest discussion and make a personal choice. That choice doesn’t define me, but it is reflective of who I am and what I value. I was fortunate that when I made it, I was met with understanding by both my coworkers and my wife. Now, I have what I want. The commute to and from school is longer than when they were in daycare, but it doesn’t matter. It’s during those car rides that I get to enjoy the rewards of my chosen path. My 4-year-old jabbers on about what he did that day or what he sees outside his window, or literally anything that comes into his mind. I get to know him a little better. He enjoys the routine of Dad picking him up and we have a few extra hours to spend than we did before. Sure, I know way too much about Paw Patrol plot lines these days, but we get these moments together, a connection that is fulfilling and unquantifiable. The schedule is hard. The workload didn’t change as much as you might think, but I’m consolidating my time: an hour with the kids, an hour for work. I can’t make all the work trips I used to, which was sometimes the reward to the job. That’s fine. So be it. But when I think back to that 14-year old kid, who sat in his bedroom, dreaming of making a living in entertainment, I know I did okay. I know that I’ve done enough that I can re-direct my goals. I’m planning on getting another 40-plus years in this career. I’m lucky if I get another four years with kids who want to share this amount of themselves with me. I can revisit the career stuff like a favorite record, but this time with my kids, at the age they are, just becoming humans – this is the stuff that’s finite. Only a week into our new schedule with a new school, I took the kids straight to the park after school. Fox rushed off to feed the ducks. I took Rona out of her stroller and went to plop her on the grass. I failed because she got her feet down first, sticking the landing. She stood on her own. No leaning for support. No holding my hand. She was happy. I was happy. She was standing on her own and I was there to see it happen.
