Delighted to Drive, Walk, or Catch a Few ZZZs

Posted by: Amy Dunkin on June 20

I agree with Toddi. Give me the wheel of the car and a chauffeur’s hat any day when there are young ‘uns in the back seat. You’re sure to learn something interesting about the secret lives of your children.

The same can be said about walking with them. I’m lucky enough to live in a suburb with sidewalks, giving us what I consider to be one of the great advantages of city life—the ability to walk everywhere. On most nice days during the school year, I walk my kids to school, and in those six blocks down the hill, I get more of the scoop on their teachers and classmates, friends and foes, than I’d ever glean through a direct query. (In all fairness to our kids, think about how you respond when someone—your spouse, perhaps—asks “What did you do today?” I could have had the most exciting or stressful day of my life, but my mind immediately shuts down and I turn into a blathering idiot.)

Another place I get to steal some valuable talk time is in their bedrooms, right after the lights go out. My boys are 9 and 6, but I admit I still lie down next to each of them for a few minutes each night before they go to sleep. It’s an innocent ritual we all enjoy, and during that short time in the dark, the kids can get quite chatty. The only danger is that I can easily fall asleep mid-sentence—either theirs or mine.

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WEB SITE ALERT:

I’d like to call your attention to a neat Web site for working moms: Mommy Track’d: The Working Mother’s Guide to Managed Chaos. It was started by Amy Keroes, a Mill Valley (Calif.) mother of two who left her job as senior corporate counsel for Gap Inc. last year to spend more time at home. She hasn’t given up lawyering completely: She still does freelance legal work for Gap.

“Our mission is to provide a helpful and entertaining resource for all the time-crunched moms managing the daily tug of war between work and family,” the home page states.

The site has links to Hot Topics, Survival Guide, Message Boards, and Tales from the Mommy Track, among others. If a recent Hot Topic, “Kids & TV: The Boob Tube is OK,” sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a reprint of a Working Parents blog entry by BusinessWeek’s own Lauren Young.

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