Author Emma Murray is trying to keep all the balls in the air

London-based writer draws on 14 years of working-from-home experience in homeschooling daughters Ava and Anya.

Emma Murray

London-based Irish author and mum-of-two Emma Murray admits it’s a major juggling act right now, keeping all the balls in the air.

Married to Sam – a financial services worker in Canary Wharf but now remote-working from the garden office, hastily built when Covid struck – Emma, 44, says: “There are far too many balls and we’re dropping some – between home-schooling, meals, the domestic stuff and trying to squeeze work in.”

She’s home-schooling Ava, 10, and Anya, eight. “We don’t have any live lessons. It’s all assigned tasks through Seesaw. They have to hand in stuff by end of the day. Parents are very much being the teacher.”

Luckily, Ava’s very independent and just gets on with schoolwork. “I don’t have a huge amount of input, which is great because I’m atrocious at maths. She chats with me if she has a question. But I’m sitting with Anya all the time. We start at 9am and finish between 2-3pm. And then I leg it – I go straight to the desk. They go straight to their iPads and Zoom with their friends.”

Emma has “pretty much ditched” screen guilt. “I used not like them having screen time on the iPad during the week – they had lots of activities [pre-Covid]. Now their iPads are their lifeline – the only way they can talk to friends.”

Her own work – she has just published her second novel, The Juggle – she “squeezes in” over a couple of hours in the morning before the girls get up, plus a few more in the afternoon. “I’m knackered by the evening.”

Author Emma Murray with her husband Sam and children Ava, left, and Anya in London.

Emma’s had a writing career for at least a dozen years. She worked in banking until getting an MS diagnosis in 2007. She has relapsing-remitting MS, characterised by flare-ups of the condition followed by remission.

“I’ve kept myself well. I’ve worked from home for 14 years, which allows me cater to the symptoms and get up from my desk when I feel tired. I can take breaks when I need them. My back isn’t great – sitting for long hours without a break just wouldn’t work.”

The Juggle, described as warm, laugh-out-loud funny and achingly relatable, is about a mum-of-one who was promised she could have it all – happy children, happy marriage, great career – and about what happens when one of the balls drops.

Meanwhile, as Emma does her own personal juggle, she sums up what many parents feel during lockdown: “If we can get to the end of it with a pulse, we’ll have won.”

• The Juggle, Emma Murray, €14.99; available in Waterstones, Amazon and order through independent bookshops

Emma's home-schooling tips

• Keep their brains fuelled – let them bring a snack to ‘school’ aka kitchen table.
• Have a 10-minute break every hour.
• To some degree, let them arrange their own timetable, for example, give an element of choice around what they want to start with.
• Get them out for a daily walk – even if it involves some bribery!