Essential Baby blogger Joseph Kelly
Maisie's has a friend, Molly, whose parents work in the film industry. Molly's parents are making a movie at the moment, so Molly has been able to travel to some great remote locations in Australia.
Unfortunately this led Maisie to ask me to bring her to my work for a day. Maisie was about to get a crash course in mind-numbing boredom.
When Molly and her sister were younger, they used to join their parents on set. Because Molly is now in school Molly's parents have decided not to take the kids on location full-time. Instead the parents take turns to travel while the other stays at home.
A few weeks ago Molly's dad, Bob, took Molly with him to the Top End while he was scouting for locations to shoot some upcoming scenes. Molly returned to school and detailed during show-and-tell the things she had picked up in the remote communities she visited. This was the catalyst for Maisie to ask me if she could spend the holidays following me around work while I scouted for locations to sit down and read my emails.
It has been clear to me for a while now that Maisie has no idea what I do for a living. She knows I wear a suit, she knows I travel to an office and she knows I do work. Putting all these together, Maisie has come to the logical conclusion that work is just another type of school where big people mill around in their suits.
So when Maisie finally followed me into work this week she was shocked to discover that I didn't just 'hang-out' with my colleagues. Conditioned only to the 'all-in' approach to socialisation adopted by kinders and schools, Maisie was not prepared for an office environment where everyone had a room of their own. "Daddy, don't you like Chris, Jenny and Michael?" she asked. "Well, they're my colleagues, but, yes, I do like them" I replied diplomatically. "Then why don't you sit with them?" she wanted to know. I knew that being honest and saying "because I don't have to" would just lead to more questions. Instead I provided an answer that any child could understand: "The boss won't let me".
After that I put Maisie to work with a selection of highlighters and a Hi-Five picture I printed off the internet. This kept her busy for all of two seconds. "Dad. How come you get to play on the computer and I don't?" was the next difficult question. "Well, I'm not actually playing, sweetheart. I'm doing my work" I replied. "But why don't we just look at Hi-Five on the computer?" was Maisie's fair and logical response. I had no valid answer. So, while I rang Nanna requesting an emergency Maisie extraction, Maisie visited every corner of the Hi-Five site.
Later that night as we were having dinner, Susie asked Maise what her day at the office was like. "It was great!" she replied, "Daddy's computer has Hi-Five and he can just sit in his room all day and play on the computer". At least Maisie gained a greater insight into my working life which, in her eyes at least, is just as exciting as visiting remote movie sets.
Have your children followed you to work? What did they make of the experience? Comment on Josephs blog.
