Help! My Kid Is A Boss and I’m A Hapless Employee

Are you one of those people who always warns others (at least the ones you like) against reproducing speaking from your own experience? If yes, hang in there. If not, please go back to your glorious peachy, Instagram-my life full of unicorns. Seriously. Because today I decided that enough is enough. Let me just speak the truth that most parents think of but don’t dare say it out loud.

Kids are evil!

Not other kids, but your own kids are pure evil. Go ahead and judge me… I did warn you. These pint-sized humans are entitled beings who think they rule the world as well as the giant humans that live in their house. A squeak here and a whine there and the entire world lands on their feet trying to pander to their needs… needs that they’re not even clear about. This made me think about how they could be the worst bosses or clients you could ever have. Here’s why.

These pint-sized humans are entitled beings who think they rule the world as well as the giant humans that live in their house.

Kids are like bosses – they will make you slog all year long and just when it is time for your appraisal (i.e. achieving a major milestone like potty training or eating on their own), they think you need to spend more time working on your skills. So they push it to the following year. Kids are like clients – they have no idea what they want but they keep cribbing and finding flaws in all your ideas. “Maza nahi aa raha hai” but how to make it better is a million-dollar question to which there will never be an answer.

They are like those clients who make you proactively plan something special for all the tentpole days like Mother’s Day, Tooth Fairy Day, Happy 1 Year of Walking Day, and more such ridiculous days but never approve any of your ideas or designs. Instead, they destroy them. Kids are like those clients who want everything big. “Mera logo bada kar do” type. They want a big balloon, a big cake, a big ball… and what do you get in return? A big fat migraine.

They want a big balloon, a big cake, a big ball… and what do you get in return? A big fat migraine.

If your clean house was a beautiful pitch deck that you created spending many waking hours going through every minute detail, dusting every corner there was to be dusted like those carefully formatting their slides, kids are those bosses who will not only shit all over it but are also incapable of fixing it themselves.

I remember during the lockdown days sans my house help when I was trying to keep my children and my sanity alive, I cooked meals for every age group in the family and was feeling pretty chuffed with myself. Come lunchtime, it was like entering a board meeting. Your entire family is around the table and you are about to present something that could make or break your career.

While the elders behaved, the kids started throwing tantrums and dismissed my efforts in a few seconds. It was like a dressing down you get from a client if you don’t understand what his customer needs. Fortunately, I haven’t professionally been in such situations often but on the home front, I am the rookie trainee who is trying very hard but always ends up making mistakes. Cooking for my kids is like being Andy from Devil Wears Prada, no amount of precision or planning will work. The baby bosses will never be happy. You can’t even leave the office and go home at the end of the day. Home is your office and there is no end of a workday ever.

Cooking for my kids is like being Andy from Devil Wears Prada, no amount of precision or planning will work.

At work, you are eligible for a 20-day leave and hopefully, you will use them without having to check your emails or talk to your bosses or clients (in an ideal world, not if you work in media). But if you are a parent, a holiday is just a different location where you will end up doing the same things you do at home. Bathe, feed, entertain, clean up. Except you have room service and house cleaning to clean up the mess. Unless you are like me and feel guilty for all the mess your kids are creating and end up cleaning the room for the house cleaning staff so they don’t judge you.

Imagine you are on a holiday in Goa, laying on the virgin beach, enjoying the sea breeze, watching the sunset, sipping that pina colada and you get a call from the office about this super urgent presentation. You have to figure out a way to get a laptop, wifi, and a quiet corner for a Zoom call, while trying to cover up your not-so-flattering beach body. Not a pretty picture right?

Now imagine the same scenario again. Your little client (read: baby monster) wants to potty but wants to carry all his beach toys to the bathroom with him because he doesn’t want sand all over them. You somehow manage to find a clean bathroom with running water and he decides he doesn’t want to potty anymore and simply wants to clean the beach toys before he can go back and play with them again… in the sand. Which scenario would be more tormenting according to you? I’d go with Zoom calls with my boss on a beach any day other than trying to find Dal khichdi on Morjim beach and trying to make the half-drunk Goan shack chefs understand how to make one with just the right amount of water.

So if you thought you had the worst bosses or met the worst clients of your life, think again.

So if you thought you had the worst bosses or met the worst clients of your life, think again. Bosses change, jobs can be switched, clients come and go but the offspring that you so lovingly reproduced are here to boss over you day and night and no amount of smoke breaks or water cooler conversations can take the steam off.

Or be like me, on a first-name basis with the local wine shop supplier who is also your WhatsApp friend and looks out for you before dry days and lockdowns just like that loyal admin fellow from your office who will slip you important information about the boss’s whereabouts so you can plan your day. Also, foster a group of like-minded employees (parents) around you who you will relate to and partake in your bitching sessions and know that there is no growth in this role yet show up every day ready for the daily grind.

Okay enough use of this office property for personal bitching sesh, time to switch windows and play the YouTube kids channel that has dubbed videos of noisy Filipino kids doing home experiments cause what else should you use the latest Macbook Air for? Making fancy presentations that no one likes?