Corporate and Entrepreneurial Parenting

This morning sees the end to my 3 days in charge of the household after Sandie came back home late last night after going off to Paris on Monday for work. Final result: Children still alive: 3, children deceased: 0, exhausted au pairs: 1, loads of washing: 16, visits to the doctor: 1 (Capcuine), average hours sleep per night: 6.5, number of work emails in my EMC inbox at the end of each day: 8, visits to the physio: 2 (Gaston), chocolate yoghurts eaten: 8 (Maxime), number of horses ridden: 1 (Papa), and number of black eyes: 1 (Gaston after falling out the car).

My key takeaways from the whole experience were that over the long run, one person can’t realistically manage 3 kids by themselves – given the jobs Sandie and I do, an au pair is an absolute necessity for us. Secondly, that whilst one is constantly busy with three kids, if you are just a tiny bit organized, then you can save yourself huge amounts of stress e.g. get up before the kids and be showered and dressed before the first cries of papa, maman – being ready for them means you can really focus on getting them out the door for 8.30AM. The other key bit of organization is always having their clothes ready for the next big event e.g. after they’ve gone to school, I put the 3 sets of pyjamas out in bathroom a whole 10 hours before they are actually required, and just as they are hitting the hay, I make sure they have full outfits laid out in the bathroom for the next day. I also removed the spontaneity of the weekly shop…when I went shopping I bought 7x2 evening meals, 7x3 pots of yoghurt or puree, 7x4 pain au laits (3 packets of 10), and at least 4 litres of fresh milk just because that never goes to waste. That, if you like, is what I refer to as “Corporate Parenting” – 12 years of working in big organizations has taught me the need to be organized and structured. However what I have also seen over the course of the last 3 days is that if you want to stay vaguely sane and not become just another expert of dirty nappies and hot milk, that whenever a chance to do something that you want to do presents itself e.g. read the Economist for 10 minutes, go for a run, ride a horse, then you must grab it with both hands, otherwise the window of opportunity closes just as quickly as it opened. This is what I will now call “Entrepreneurial Parenting”, and I am sure that the whole experience of the last 3 days will help me in my work life to be readier to respond to those little opportunities that present themselves….just so long as I’ve managed to get just a little bit more sleep.