Let’s be honest, outside of the sleeping slots (nap and night), who has ever managed to write an email without fail, have a meeting with their boss or read a working document with children in their hands? Anybody. Oh if I forgot, there is the lady who tied her children on the carpet and whose photo rotated during the entire confinement! And the dad in the neighborhood who broke down and stuck his children in front of the TV for an indefinite period with packets of crisps and coke in the bottles. And who ended up in jail denounced by his neighbors. And the perfect girlfriend too, who has young parents who are not afraid of catching COVID and arrive in leisure center mode with a simple text message calling for help.
The others, like me, like you, are galley slaves, utopians, super heroes who telework every morning that COVID does, renew this madness and stop every 3 minutes for:
- Relight the box
- Set up a paint shop
- Wiping the buttocks (wonderful the “mom, I pooped!” During a videoconference)
- Fill a gourd
- Repair a bike
- Give a snack
- Wipe the milk on the floor
- Say “no, we’re not going to bake a cake”
- Admire a drawing
- Take a photo of ugly plasticine construction
- Open the door to the postman, to the delivery man, to the passer-by who is worried about screams
- Turn off a running tap for no reason
- Relight the p.#@t »& box
- Close the security gate (you can hear it squeaking from a distance)
- Find the scissors
- Find the glue
- Find the doll
- Find the slippers
- Say “no, we’re not going to play on the console”
- Put batteries back in the robot, the musical book, the board game
- Arbitrate a dispute
- Blow a nose
- Shout “shut up!” “(” Close it “if it’s the end of the day)
You can continue the list, it’s fun!
All of this, of course, is without counting the sacrosanct “home school” mission for which there are two places left in the agenda of a teleworking parent with children: sticking to it during meals or bathing. . Teaching a 6-year-old to read by mixing vegetables or rubbing his feet: an experience to live!
Personally, if the situation persists, I will retrain in a job that cannot be done remotely, such as… fishmonger. And I sell my children at the market (handy!) To make sure that I won’t be forced to scale red mullet by playing riddles or revising the multiplication tables.
Katrin Acou-Bouaziz
* from the only place where you can send an email: your toilet!