I have been panicking over work issues (or lack of work) in the past three weeks. Last Sunday however was 'amazing', I spent time with my daughters and some of it was very 'normal'.
A parent that does not live full time with his/her children may be deprived of little things that are a chore for the parent that spends the bulk of the time with said children. Last Sunday I stayed on watching my eldest daughter swimming with her 'squad', than I waited for her and took her home.
For five minutes we discussed her training, how much her style has improved and how her Monday was going to look like. Five minutes of relaxed time, no handover pressure at all. Sheer bliss.
Friday, 16 March 2007
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
I had breakfast with my children, at their mother's home of course. This is the amicable side of divorce.
I did not know that my eldest daughter starts her day by reading the paper, it is interesting what catches her attention. She moves from fashion to current affairs, from serious topics (if furs are cruel, will I be able to wear a fur that I will inherit from my grandmother given that the animals were killed so long ago ?) to funny things.
Arrived back at work and I had a minor/major change in my schedule today. I took it less badly than I would have.
Sunday is going to be interesting. I have dared to make a social arrangement during my daughter's social life, so I will not spend the rest of next Sunday on my own wallowing in my misery. Let's see how it will pan out.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, the pressure is 'natural' (going to work, school, etc.) there is no looming handover, etc. Very relaxed. A shame I had to find a 'valid' reason to have breakfast with them. If I had just shown up I am not sure I would have been allowed in.
I did not know that my eldest daughter starts her day by reading the paper, it is interesting what catches her attention. She moves from fashion to current affairs, from serious topics (if furs are cruel, will I be able to wear a fur that I will inherit from my grandmother given that the animals were killed so long ago ?) to funny things.
Arrived back at work and I had a minor/major change in my schedule today. I took it less badly than I would have.
Sunday is going to be interesting. I have dared to make a social arrangement during my daughter's social life, so I will not spend the rest of next Sunday on my own wallowing in my misery. Let's see how it will pan out.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, the pressure is 'natural' (going to work, school, etc.) there is no looming handover, etc. Very relaxed. A shame I had to find a 'valid' reason to have breakfast with them. If I had just shown up I am not sure I would have been allowed in.
Sunday, 25 February 2007
What would superdad do ?
A lot of divorced fathers feel like visitors in their children lives. When you see your children for a few hours - and on Sunday I saw them for all of four and a half hours - you cannot help but wonder what 'their real life' is.
I am fiercely protecting some of the things they like to do when they are with me. I took them ice skating for the first time last year and they loved it, so most of our Sundays together now involve two hours of ice skating. They skate and I watch. (I am sort of planning lessons but I have not quite got round to it, a problem with my feet means that I may have to use two different skates).
Watching them skate tells me a lot about how they tackle things. My eldest is more confident but less thorough, my youngest is less confident but more determined and very accurate. Unfortunately her lack of self confidence shows every time she has to face a challenge, she is only seven, but getting out of her comfort zone is an adventure she'd rather avoid. If we are lucky she winges... if we are not we have tears.
I am fiercely protecting some of the things they like to do when they are with me. I took them ice skating for the first time last year and they loved it, so most of our Sundays together now involve two hours of ice skating. They skate and I watch. (I am sort of planning lessons but I have not quite got round to it, a problem with my feet means that I may have to use two different skates).
Watching them skate tells me a lot about how they tackle things. My eldest is more confident but less thorough, my youngest is less confident but more determined and very accurate. Unfortunately her lack of self confidence shows every time she has to face a challenge, she is only seven, but getting out of her comfort zone is an adventure she'd rather avoid. If we are lucky she winges... if we are not we have tears.
If I had to choose what to give to my daughters, confidence in themselves would top the list. Raised by a mother who thought that self confident people were arrogant and therefore not acceptable, I always lacked the confidence to do it and yet I had the ambition and the drive to do it. My first reaction was - and is - to run away. To this day I still think I cannot make my voice heard. Going through divorce with my support network in another country did not help change that attitude, and I am fairly stuck in my personal limiting belief.
So what can I do to make sure I have daughters who know themselves and are confident in what they can achieve ? How can I turn them into people who have dreams and also know that if they make plans and work hard enough they can fulfill their dreams ? (I am not sure I did)
Given that you cannot drip feed self confidence, how can I contribute to building theirs when all I have is a few hours a week (twelve when I get my full allocation) ? And whilst we are on the subject how can I teach the more confident one to be more determined ?
And all of this with only a few hours a week
I am sure superdad would find a way. Cool superdad would know just what to say and do. I don't!
If anybody reads this, I would like to hear their point of view.
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Somewhere over the rainbow....
Tuesday is a big improvement on Monday... gained a client (small deposit received with thanks!). One late afternoon meeting was cancelled so with TMOD (The Mother of Our Daughters) consent went swimming with the girls. First work, than... homework and than pool.
There is a lot to be said for the art of balancing work and children. Although I tried to cut the number of trips required to reconcile work, home and children (I live and work in the same postcode), I could not get changed since I had to squeeze swimming with my daughters between a meeting and a business dinner. So, there I was, the only person changing in the pool still wearing suit and tie. TMOD came along (my daughters do not want to use the 'family lockers') and we had an interesting plunge in the pool all of us. I managed to make a huge blunder by trying to teach my youngest daughter to do a correct breaststroke; she did not take it nicely. All the enthusiasm she had to go 'swimming with daddy' faded when she realised that daddy fancied himself as an instructor instead of a playmate (daddy swam competitively in his youth, I even competed internationally... over thirty years ago)
I felt terribly guilty and ended up apologising for trying to teach rather than playing along.
Success comes in "can"s rather than "can't"s, so I try my best to use the time I am allocated with my daughters to create a family environment and a parent and child relationship. The reality is that when I only spend a few hours with them it is not always easy to become relaxed around each other and expectations and reality fail to go anywhere near each other (let alone match). Has anybody come up with an answer to that ? How do you cope with normal misunderstandings when next time you see your children is five days away ?
Quite frankly I hope I'll manage to forget about this because on Sunday I only have few hours with them (my daughters may be 7 and 9 1/2 but their social life is very very hectic, like the true society girls they are :-) ) and the last thing I want to do is spend time mulling over what happened rather than just being together.
I know my daughters love me, but do they like me ? And does it really matter ? Did I like my father when I was 10 ? It is too easy now to say "of course I did". My father passed away 19 years ago so I cannot check whether he felt I liked him and whether he liked me (I know he loved me).
Now, returning to the art of balancing work and life (before I go for today)... I managed to show up at the business dinner in time (public transport appeared at the right moment) and when I went to get out my business card I found two cards from my daughters telling me how much they loved me. For a moment I stop listening to a woman I am hoping will agree to a meeting before the end of the third millenium (a meeting, not a date. After all, we are dealing with the work side of the work/life balance) and smile at the two cards.
On my way home the grin in my face fades when I think that tomorrow morning the taped voices of my daughters will wake me up, not their own voices.
Monday, Monday tonight has been replaced by 'O mio babbino caro' (my dear daddy) from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi after all today is not Monday and my daughters wrote me short notes to say how much they love me.
There is a lot to be said for the art of balancing work and children. Although I tried to cut the number of trips required to reconcile work, home and children (I live and work in the same postcode), I could not get changed since I had to squeeze swimming with my daughters between a meeting and a business dinner. So, there I was, the only person changing in the pool still wearing suit and tie. TMOD came along (my daughters do not want to use the 'family lockers') and we had an interesting plunge in the pool all of us. I managed to make a huge blunder by trying to teach my youngest daughter to do a correct breaststroke; she did not take it nicely. All the enthusiasm she had to go 'swimming with daddy' faded when she realised that daddy fancied himself as an instructor instead of a playmate (daddy swam competitively in his youth, I even competed internationally... over thirty years ago)
I felt terribly guilty and ended up apologising for trying to teach rather than playing along.
Success comes in "can"s rather than "can't"s, so I try my best to use the time I am allocated with my daughters to create a family environment and a parent and child relationship. The reality is that when I only spend a few hours with them it is not always easy to become relaxed around each other and expectations and reality fail to go anywhere near each other (let alone match). Has anybody come up with an answer to that ? How do you cope with normal misunderstandings when next time you see your children is five days away ?
Quite frankly I hope I'll manage to forget about this because on Sunday I only have few hours with them (my daughters may be 7 and 9 1/2 but their social life is very very hectic, like the true society girls they are :-) ) and the last thing I want to do is spend time mulling over what happened rather than just being together.
I know my daughters love me, but do they like me ? And does it really matter ? Did I like my father when I was 10 ? It is too easy now to say "of course I did". My father passed away 19 years ago so I cannot check whether he felt I liked him and whether he liked me (I know he loved me).
Now, returning to the art of balancing work and life (before I go for today)... I managed to show up at the business dinner in time (public transport appeared at the right moment) and when I went to get out my business card I found two cards from my daughters telling me how much they loved me. For a moment I stop listening to a woman I am hoping will agree to a meeting before the end of the third millenium (a meeting, not a date. After all, we are dealing with the work side of the work/life balance) and smile at the two cards.
On my way home the grin in my face fades when I think that tomorrow morning the taped voices of my daughters will wake me up, not their own voices.
Monday, Monday tonight has been replaced by 'O mio babbino caro' (my dear daddy) from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi after all today is not Monday and my daughters wrote me short notes to say how much they love me.
Monday, 19 February 2007
Monday Monday
I have been divorced for six years and I still find it difficult to reconcile the life of the single man with the life of a single parent. (I think I am making a real mess of both but that is probably a completely different blog.).
I have this 'superdad' role model in my mind, somebody who has a fulfilled life as a single professional man and somebody who is a wonderful parent and sometimes the two would merge in one person...me. Well, things could not be further from the truth.
The reality is a struggling professional and a struggling father. I can barely make ends meet and sometimes when faced with the dilemma wheher to buy ink cartridges for my printer or take my daughters ice skating I always end up feeling an irresponsible moron because one of the two side of me will be loosing, either the professional may end up without the ink cartridge and therefore unable to print or the father may not take his daughters ice skating and ... Jewish innate sense of guilt will make the rest. A lot has to be said for paperless work (save a bit of the rain forest, etc. etc.) and I can e-mail my invoices (anything else can wait) and I decide to go for taking the daughters ice skating. Except... life is what happens whilst you are having other plans... my daughters decide they'd rather watch the Chinese New Year parade and therefore no ice skating and I keep my chance to kill more of the rain forest.
Tense time at work tense time on the domestic front. A Jewish holiday is upon us in a couple of weeks, my children will go to synagogue with their maternal grandparents. On the evening of Purim they usually attend a synagogue near me. It so happens that this year it will be a Saturday night. The following Sunday morning I have to get up very early to go and collect them from their mother, it would make a lot of sense for all of us to be allowed a lie-in and for my daughters to spend the night at my place. My "ever so sensible" request is completely blanked by their mother, that leaves me very sad and I can't sleep. I wake up on a Monday morning of a very intense week, I need to generate cash to pay bills otherwise I am in trouble. A client declines my idea for extra work (leading to no extra bill), another client re-arranges the first meeting for a new assignment (thereby delaying the relevant bill) and the mother of my children rings to cancel my middle of the week 'visit'.
Monday Monday so good to me.... (yes, I am old enough to remember the song. Although I was very very young when it was a hit)
I have this 'superdad' role model in my mind, somebody who has a fulfilled life as a single professional man and somebody who is a wonderful parent and sometimes the two would merge in one person...me. Well, things could not be further from the truth.
The reality is a struggling professional and a struggling father. I can barely make ends meet and sometimes when faced with the dilemma wheher to buy ink cartridges for my printer or take my daughters ice skating I always end up feeling an irresponsible moron because one of the two side of me will be loosing, either the professional may end up without the ink cartridge and therefore unable to print or the father may not take his daughters ice skating and ... Jewish innate sense of guilt will make the rest. A lot has to be said for paperless work (save a bit of the rain forest, etc. etc.) and I can e-mail my invoices (anything else can wait) and I decide to go for taking the daughters ice skating. Except... life is what happens whilst you are having other plans... my daughters decide they'd rather watch the Chinese New Year parade and therefore no ice skating and I keep my chance to kill more of the rain forest.
Tense time at work tense time on the domestic front. A Jewish holiday is upon us in a couple of weeks, my children will go to synagogue with their maternal grandparents. On the evening of Purim they usually attend a synagogue near me. It so happens that this year it will be a Saturday night. The following Sunday morning I have to get up very early to go and collect them from their mother, it would make a lot of sense for all of us to be allowed a lie-in and for my daughters to spend the night at my place. My "ever so sensible" request is completely blanked by their mother, that leaves me very sad and I can't sleep. I wake up on a Monday morning of a very intense week, I need to generate cash to pay bills otherwise I am in trouble. A client declines my idea for extra work (leading to no extra bill), another client re-arranges the first meeting for a new assignment (thereby delaying the relevant bill) and the mother of my children rings to cancel my middle of the week 'visit'.
Monday Monday so good to me.... (yes, I am old enough to remember the song. Although I was very very young when it was a hit)
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