I Let My Toddler Eat Off The Floor

and other winning strategies I’ve used to advance my career

Some Context

I was just back at work as a Digital Product Manager after being off work for over a year with my first baby, who is now 7. I found returning to work extremely nerve wracking.

I felt like I’d forgotten all the stuff I only sort-of-knew-anyway before I went on maternity leave and acutely intimidated by my own shadow.

And from that rock solid place, I was due to participate in my first global stakeholder call since returning to work. I desperately wanted to make a good impression and prove to myself I could still do an effective job despite the fact… ya know, like, NEW MOTHERHOOD — which deserves its own post.

On the morning of the call, my 14 month old daughter started to run a fever. That meant she was not allowed to go to her child-minder’s house and had to stay home. My husband had just started developing a product for a health start up — super high pressure — and that day he was unable to stay home. So that left it to me.

At the time I didn’t feel like I could miss more work because I felt a bit guilty about having been on maternity leave anyway and I didn’t feel I could miss the call without disappointing others. Neither did I have the courage to ask for the meeting to be rescheduled.

While I was able to work remote from a logistics standpoint, I wasn’t sure what to do with my very vocal daughter. My poorly little treasure was happy as long as I was holding her, but the moment I put her down, she’d wail. I knew I could easily enough hold her on my lap as long as I wasn’t speaking on the call. She could happily sit, my phone on mute and the individuals on the call would be none the wiser. But when I needed to present on the call, she would most definitely want to help me talk on the phone and chime in herself, which I decided I’d rather the earth open up and swallow me than my toddler interrupt my meeting. I hatched a plan to schedule my daughter’s big nap for during the conference call.

Great plan on paper except 14 month old ill children don’t give two shits about your insecurities or work aspirations so she felt under no obligation to stick to the nap plan, and so she didn’t.

Allow us to take a moment for Prof Robert Kelly. The fear is real.

So I did a thing

I hatched a plan to distract my ill, now sleep deprived ball of pure mania.

I took a punt and thought perhaps the only other thing besides mummy snuggles that would keep her quiet would be chocolate.

I took a bag of chocolate chips and made a trail of them on the wood floor looping it around the island in the kitchen. I set my poor little fever baby down on her diaper clad butt at the first chocolate chip and dialled on to my call. Delighted to find herself sat in front of a chocolate, she quickly stuffed it in her mouth. After she finished the first chocolate chip, she scooted forward on her butt to the next chip, picked it up and ate it. From there she shuffled forward another little bit and gobbled up the next chip.

I mentally congratulated myself on being a super genius and prepared for my moment of glory on the call.

When my moment came and I shakily found my voice and started to present from my silent kitchen. One problem. As I went on, I noticed with alarm the rate of “scoot, nom-nom, scoot” was a lot faster than I’d anticipated!

There was a dawning realisation that covered me in cold dread.

I wasn’t going to get to the end of my bit before my daughter reached the end of the chocolate trial. Not only that, but she seemed to be becoming more efficient at “scoot, nom-nom scoot.” Rats! I hadn’t factored in the learning loop of a toddler when chocolate was involved! When she finally reached the last chocolate chip I was only midway through my presentation. Disaster was imminent. Once she gobbled up the last chocolate, she looked up at me from the floor and believe me when I tell you, there was barely contained hysteria reflected in one another’s eyes. She wanted more chocolates, I wanted space to complete my presentation.

I did the only rational thing I could.

I took a handful of chips and with the motion of skipping stones across water, scattered a terrifying number of chocolates across the kitchen and dining room floor.

In My Defence

My delighted daughter spent the rest of the call fishing chocolate chips (and, might I add, resourceful little thing, old Cheerios) out of the nooks and crannies of the kitchen floor.

I went on to have a completely sufficient conference call and no one knew I was home with a poorly toddler. I am also happy to report my daughter suffered no lasting ill effects from eating the mother load of chocolate chips or old Cheerios.

Additionally, no one is ever going to be able to accuse me of not being able to come up with creative solutions under pressure.

Sorry, Not Sorry

and other winning strategies

From this vantage point, I can see that while that call meant quite a lot to me at the time, my performance in that moment wasn’t really make or break for my career. But I did pick up a few winning strategies from the experience that I’ve carried with me over the years.

1) Psychological safety is the secret sauce of teams. Now that I’m in a very different place in my career I focus on creating psychological safety in my team so that people can be transparent about what they are juggling and comfortable to ask for support.

2) Focus on the Big Stuff that stays Big Stuff. Not the stuff the only feels like Big Stuff in the moment because of other stuff going on in your life skews your perspective. That stakeholder call wasn’t Big Stuff. It was little stuff. The Big Stuff I could have addressed was why I felt such a deep need to impress, guilty about having taken maternity leave and a lack of confidence in myself?

3) I don’t feel at all bad about feeding my kid chocolate in that way — she loved it and I’ll do it again with my son when he’s old enough but this time JUST FOR FUN!