If you’re among those snowed in today, you’re probably seeing lots of articles on what to do during the storm.
Here’s a sampling:
- Do yoga
- Watch true crime stories
- Learn Millennial slang(?)
- Practice a foreign language
- Read up on the classics
- Nap
Here’s what they’re not telling you:
- How to work with children in your house after the nano-second between “Yay, there’s no school!” and “What are we going to do today?” turns into eight hours of, “I’m bored…there’s nothing to do/eat/watch."
We’d like to tell you we have the solution (have we mentioned we’re big fans of back-up care?).
But we promise; if you’ve got the kind of awesome culture that had people already set up to work at home today, your working parents (all of your employees) are working -- even with a toddler sitting on their heads…or a preschooler staring at them over a bowl of Cheerios…or two 6-year-olds noisily arguing in the next room (or worse…uncharacteristically quiet in the next room).
If we know nothing else about working parents…they know how to juggle. As professional staffing expert Sheila Murphy of staffing firm FlexProfessionals once told our Family Matters podcast, “When we send them [working moms] to businesses, I often get the comment, ‘Oh a working mom, I’ll take her!’ because they know they can squeeze so much in in so little time.”
So here’s to all the moms and dads who are working and parenting (simultaneously) today. And here’s to all the people who had to get to work…and all the back-up caregivers who got them there.
Stay safe everyone!