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Redefining Happy Hour To Find Balance

 

Philip Lerman

Philip Lerman is the author of “Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad,” published this year by Da Capo Books. He is the former national editor of “USA Today” and the former co-executive producer of “America’s Most Wanted.”

He lives in Washington DC with his wife, teenaged stepdaughter, five-year-old Max, and an obsessive-compulsive dog.

I’m very grateful to be asked to guest blog here at Dad Balance – hey, when you work at home, you’re happy for any interaction with adults, in any form. These days, I find myself at business meetings saying, “Wow, what a PRETTY tie! Did your mommy get that for you?”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is the most important site in the universe. For dads, anyway. My book, Dadditude, is all about searching for balance – between work and home, between your controlling male side and your mate’s ability to say things like “you have to pick your battles” with a straight face while your kid is throwing macaroni and cheese out the window – all of that.

People think that when you work at home, it’s easier to achieve a balance between work and family. And when I quit my job as producer of America’s Most Wanted, I thought so too. It’s true that when my five-year-old Max comes home from kindergarten, I get to greet him at the door most days, and we sit on the floor and have a cookie, and I ask him, “How was school today?,” and he utters that phrase so endearing and familiar to parents of five-year-olds: “I don’t remember. Can I watch TV now?” I live for that.

But I thought office dads should know that the grass isn’t as green on this side as you might think (nor is it mowed nearly as often, now that I can’t afford the lawn service anymore).

When I worked at America’s Most Wanted, I taught myself to leave the office at the office. In the evening, I stopped at my front door, and took a deep breath, and put a smile on my harried face, and opened the door, and tried to live the lessons that this page is dedicated to.

But now that I work at home, I never leave the office. Some nights at 6 pm I feel like I’m on a roll, and without the stimulus of a parade of folks in coats saying “Night, Phil, see you in the morning,” and the noise of the night cleaning crew trying to vaccum under my feet, I’m just not conditioned to stop.

Those West Coast producers who never seem to understand they can’t return my East Coast calls at 5 pm their time used to get my voicemail at the office – but now the phone rings at home, just as I’m putting Max to bed, and I can’t help but answer. I’d scurry to get things done at the office before, because I knew that once I left, they wouldn’t get done until morning. But now that my office is right next to Max’s bedroom, it’s too easy to stop back in and get another hour’s work done, or two, before The Daily Show comes on.

My wife tells me, “At least when you worked at the office, you came home from the office. Maybe you need to go out and come back in again.”

And so, once again, I have had to learn the lesson of separation.

The key, for me, is creating a new Happy Hour.

I’m not advocating giving gin and tonics to toddlers, mind you (although I certainly think anything that would calm them down a bit is worth considering, at least. But before Max was born, I always stopped down for a drink or two with my staff before heading home. Now, I needed to remember why I did that: to create a little buffer between my day persona and my night persona.

It still works. Only now, instead of going to the bar for Happy Hour, I go to the playroom.

Every day, at precisely 5 p.m., I go downstairs, and have a quick Cosmopolitan with my wife, and then head to the playroom floor. I pick up a Lego person and announce, “I am Robata from planet Shmata. Who dares to play with me?” Max’s eyes light up, and he takes it from there.

I get bored of this game in about five minutes. Max does not. I hang in there, and let the Zen of repetitive silly play wash over me. That, now, functions as my Happy Hour.

And I gotta tell you, it works pretty well. I don’t know, maybe it’s the Cosmo – but whatever it is, for that hour, I’m pretty happy.

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    Comments

    1.
    On January 8th, 2008 at 3:35 pm, Wendy Piersall said:

    I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this post, Philip! :D

    And I can totally relate to the difficulties of separating work and home life. When I finally closed up shop on my second business back in 2004, I felt like I had my first day off in 4 years.

    Sad but true. ;)

    2.
    On January 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm, Cory Huff said:

    Great post. Now, what suggestions do you have for those of us who have very freelance style careers, where I might work 12 hour days for 6 - 8 weeks, then just be home all day for a month or two? I’m a professional actor/director.

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