Learner Dad: You need a break between rushing the kids out and logging in

Picture: iStock 

I’m going to miss my commute.

Our house move to east Cork was delayed so we ended up driving the kids up and down from Cork city to their new school in Ballycotton for a few weeks. I was dreading this two hours and more in the car every day but it turns out there are worse things you could be doing on an autumn morning than taking a quick spin down by the sea.

Our new parent-buddies at the school gate were very supportive, telling us that it won’t be long before we’re moved and the kids can get the school bus every morning. Then, the most straight-talking one came out with a different view. She said she found it hard working from home, that she really missed her 40-minute commute to the office, mainly because no one could ask her to do anything.

She’s right! It’s great to be alone and unreachable for a while. OK, technically I’m driving with the kids on board, but we’re all nice and quiet at that time as long as I put on their favourite Kidz Bop playlist on Spotify. On the trip back to our soon-to-be old house in Cork, I have the Bluetooth speaker to myself. So I can put on a Blindboy podcast or some Columbian salsa music, all the stuff I’m not able to do at home. 

Normally I’d be allergic to getting trapped behind a tractor on a narrow country road. Now I look forward to it. Farmers are bringing in the hay around the clock these days in East Cork. A couple of times they’d pull in to let me pass, and I’d be, 'Nah, you’re grand'.

I’ve learned a lesson these last few weeks - you need a break between rushing the kids out to school and logging into work.

With their old school, I used to walk up with them in the morning and then clear my head on the meander back down. It made me much more productive and happier in myself.

I’m not going to get that in our new life in Ballycotton. 

By the time you read this, the kids will be getting the school bus every day. This is a good thing, not least because we get an extra 45 minutes in bed, which is nice now and even better when the daylight gets stingy around November. But I’ll be sad to say goodbye to drive-time with the two kids. 

They used to get very relaxed in the car, provided they didn’t play the 212 game. (This is where the first child to spot a 212 reg car gets to give the other one a puck on the arm. It can get a bit feisty, mainly because Ireland is clearly loaded and half of Cork is driving around in a two-month-old car.) But mainly they just looked out the window and sang along to Kidz Bop songs, the latest chart hits covered by teenage Americans. It’s Now That What’s I Call Music, but more innocent. 

Every now and again they’d ask why is the sea grey, or tell me about some animal they learned about in school. There’s a calmness around driving the kids to school along a country road. 

I can’t really drive around for an hour to make up for it.  I need something else to keep me away from the screen for the first hour of the morning. My next-door neighbour just walked up the road with his Yorkshire terrier. Maybe that’s what I’ll do – I’ll get a dog.