A Professional, with a Child

yup, how can you possibly focus???  Not my photograph…

Work and family, crossed paths, and, it does NOT look pretty, at A-L-L, translated…

Last weekend, an American professor teaching at the Pusan University in South Korea was interviewed live by BBC, they were just talking about the crisis between North and South Korea, when the professor’s daughter of about three or four stumbled into the room, curiously watching what her dad was doing; then, another even younger infant, on the walker slid into the live footages, in the end, their mother rushed in quickly, to pick up the two kids, took them out, and you can still hear the kids screaming after they were taken away in the background. It was hard, for both the professor and the reporter, to keep a straight face the reporter was trying so hard, to hold back his laughter that his shoulders started trembling, and the professor said, “sorry”, with that awkward smile.

This to me, was cuter than cute, but, it’d also, gotten me thinking. As a college lecturer, who’d gone all over to give lectures, needing to attend an assortment of seminars, to guest-speak at events, being a single mom, I was, constantly struggling on dividing up the boundaries of what constitute as private life and what’s not, to uphold my professional side, and, to NOT lose my own emotional control in front of the public.

But, Mimi Chou clung too tightly to me, plus, I’m the only caretaker of her, no matter where I go, she’d go too. Before she’d turned six, I’d, given up on most of the seminars, lectures, without the babysitting services provided. There was once, when I’d wanted to attend a lecture so badly, that I’d taken her, sat at the corner of the room, she’d not made any noises, but, the rustling rom her, rolling around on the couch, was enough, to get everybody to turn her/his head to look at me.

you DO realize, just how difficult this is, right???  Not my photo…

But, there were, still, instances when I must show up, for instance, to the courses I’m taking, to give the lectures, or, when I’m, the primary speaker of a function. Several times, I can only, carry my daughter with me onto the podium, and tell my audience, “Carrying a child would NOT affect my professional knowledge, I hope, that you all can see it, and in the future, you can take a different perspective when you go to a place where there are children.”

But I needed to, admit, that I feel, very shameful. On the one side, I fear affecting others, stalling the progress of the meetings, and I couldn’t be matter-of-fact and think, that people ought to give me a friendly space. And, there’s that quick switch between the two roles of “a mom who reasons with her young” and “a focused professional speaker”, it’s truly, very, hard.

This problem, is more relating to the emotional front and not so much so on the intellectual front, especially with how Mimi Chou is getting older, sometimes, she’d “made herself visible”, it’s because she wanted my attention. Once she’d kept misbehaving herself, it’d angered me so, that I’d started, shouting at her in the forum, later on, she’d explained to me, “I don’t want mommy to keep talking on things I can’t understand to everybody else.”

You may have encountered similar situations too, and, in that particular moment, we’d needed to take the time, and explain it to our own young, but, that usually doesn’t happen, because, of the pressing of time, and, the child would get all worked up, because s/he feels ignored by us, and we’d needed to, take time, to soothe the child; at the same time, the adults are already, hurried and worked up, “the whole world is waiting for me! Can you (the kid), just go away for now?”, and sometimes, there’s that feeling of “Why are you (the child) doing this?”, which can make the adults angry.

I think, in order to be both able-bodied in being a parent, and being a professional, these TWO separate areas of logic AND language, whether it be for the person who has the child, or those who were there in the audience, we’d needed to show more empathy, and cope with these things that happens with our senses of humor, along with more practices too.

So, this, is exactly how HARD it is, to have a kid close by you, while you work, and, because there are, so many single mothers out there, they are, FORCED to take their young children with them to work, and, these young children just, seem to have agendas all their own, they won’t follow YOUR orders, because, what they need, IS more important, than what you’re currently doing, and, it’s still, up to you, parents, to calm your babies down, because if your children can’t rely on you to be there for them, then, they are, basically, ORPHANED!