How I Write When the Kids Are Home

Madness and mayhem and no productivity at all!

Trying to write, unsuccessfully, while surrounded by children

Here are the six steps I use to get writing done with children around—it’s so simple and easy!

Step 1: Wake up around 5am or 6am, depending on when the children wake up. Try to wake up before them. Creep down the hallway. Why are the wooden floors so loud? They are rustling. You freeze. Do not wake the children.

Step 2: Acquire coffee.

Step 3: Try to write through depression and discouragement. Your eyes are tired. You drink water. Wonder what you should write about.

Step 4: Read the news.

Damnit. DO NOT READ THE NEWS.

Step 5: Six words. Now ten. Maybe an idea. Is this working? You decide to write a post about how working parents are doing right now. But will posting regularly make it seem like everything is fine—everything is just as usual?

NOW YOU WORRY, WILL EVERYONE THINK THAT WORKING PARENTS ARE DOING FINE RIGHT NOW?

Worry about the existential angst.

Begin writing a post that says “Working parents are not okay.”‘

Delete sentences because no one is okay. There isn’t really a comparison game to be played here. Try again. New post: "Someone please take my children. Anyone, take them?" 

Delete that, too, because someone might take that literally and or report you to the authorities and you love your children, you just need a 24-hour break, and one day to sleep in. Although, to be honest, sleeping in sounds like a fantasy—could you even do it anymore if you had the chance?

The bedroom door bursts open and the stampede of children’s feet come racing down the hall. Your heart leaps in panic as you realize your time is now done. They run to the living room. They’re doing okay. You exhale. Maybe you can keep going.

Step 6: Go back and count previous steps, because you forgot where you are.

Step 7: Call your friend who is ALSO awake this early with children—you realize that you’re having trouble stringing words together. Hang up the telephone because both of your children and pushing buttons on the phone and you can’t actually have a real conversation while children and buttons are in close proximity. What was it that your friend said right before you hung up? Oh yeah: WHY DOES OPENING MY COMPUTER EQUAL A PAVLOVIAN RESPONSE FROM MY CHILD?

Step 8: Try to disentangle children wrapped around your legs. Realize they need to be fed.

Step 9: Have one child scoop the coffee for you (yes, the second coffee). They should be fine playing with the grounds, right? Right? What are they LICKING? For effs... FML.

Step 10: Create breakfasts for children. String cheese and apples it is. Put them at the table. They are sitting at the table. They are sitting on the table. They are on the table. They are standing on the table. Ask yourself if you really care—can you write an email from the kitchen while watching them?

But you also wonder if a one year-old falling off a table would be bad enough to go to the ER. You do not want to go to the ER. So you walk to the table. Say “Sit down please,” at least twelve times. Sit at the table with them. They scream at you that you're touching them. You're too close. "GO AWAY MOM STOP TOUCHING ME"

What were you doing?

Step 11: What were you doing?

You decide to take selfies to accompany the post. People like posts better with images of faces, or something like that. Now you'’re on your phone. Realize half the selfies you took your eyes were closed. Do you post the eyes closed version?

Step 11,458: It is now 1:08pm.

You have spent the last six hours writing a handful of paragraphs in between the constant stream of tiny—but very loud—demands. The three-year-old had a meltdown because the apple was too red. The one-year-old gleefully crushed the banana between his fingers and ran shrieking down the hall with banana mush covering everything. You changed them. You are now exhausted. The children are now in their beds. They are supposed to be napping. You open your laptop. You are writing.

What are you writing? You don’t know. 

It is now 1:38pm.

You also need a nap.

— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent