My youngest wandered into frame on a Zoom call the other day to tell me something fascinating about African leopards. I was meeting with a client. He didn’t notice the red light on my desk — the one that means “Dad’s in a meeting.” He didn’t see the notes open on my second monitor or the serious faces looking back at me from the screen.
He just wanted to share something cool. So I paused the meeting and listened.
It lasted maybe 20 seconds. When I was his age, I wanted to be a zoologist, so talking animals is kind of our thing. When he was done, I told him gently that we could pick up the conversation in half an hour when I was off the call. He looked at the faces looking back at us, nodded, and disappeared out of frame. I turned back to my client and, without apology, picked up the conversation right where we left off.
The story I tell myself is that the moment barely registered for my son or the two guys on the video call, but it mattered to me. A lot.
A few years ago, I probably would’ve been angry with my son for interrupting a call. I might have even made it embarrassing for myself and the people on the other end of the call as I reminded him, forcefully, that I was doing something important. Then, I would have apologized to the client, laughing it off in a courtesy-laugh kind of way. Honestly, I would have let the interruption reduce the mental score I gave the meeting — minus two points on the professionalism scale for kid interruption.
Not anymore.
My kids are old enough now that they’re mostly independent and don’t need as much help opening peanut butter jars as they used to. I still get interrupted plenty of times during the day, but now it’s to talk about things that are interesting to them or to answer any number of questions. What’s really changed — what makes me pause now — is that I want my family to know they have access to me, not only when it’s convenient, but when it matters to them.
I can’t say that I’ve been balanced with being present at home and showing up 100% in my work. Sometimes I use the everyday chaos of home life as a kind of buffer for doing deep work. Sometimes I dodge family responsibilities under the guise of “I’m busy doing important work stuff.”
Balance is hard.
Especially when the world tells you (or you tell yourself) that your worth is measured by availability, hustle, and responsiveness. Especially when clients expect access. When deadlines loom. When you feel like your professional credibility has to glisten, no matter what’s happening on the other side of the camera.
There are still plenty of times when I buy into that “philosophy” too much. When every Teams ping feels like a fire alarm. When my schedule is so overprogrammed that every stray interruption feels like a threat to throughput and productivity. If I’m being honest, I’ve even allowed myself to be slightly embarrassed to work from home because it meant I couldn’t always pretend to be the consummate professional.
For all the bad things that came from COVID, it did help break some of that — which is helpful.
When the world shut down and everyone was stuck at home — partners, kids, pets, delivery people, roommates — we all had to loosen our grip just a little. A kid walking into frame or a cat walking across the keyboard stopped being unprofessional and started being part of the cultural backdrop. For a while, at least, the lines between work and home blurred. I don’t think that was a bad thing.
For me, it was a good reminder that professionalism doesn’t have to mean pretending you don’t have a life outside of work. More importantly, that boundaries are not about keeping kids out. They’re for keeping our humanity in.
Now I use a light on my desk. Green for “come in,” red for “let me finish this.” But the light is just a guide, not a hard rule. My two youngest miss the cue sometimes. My 14-year-old will walk in with a question about how something works or want to share his next big idea. My 10-year-old is deep in his animal-fact era and is constantly excited about the latest tidbit he’s learned.
Those interruptions matter, and they’re different from interruptions at the office when people don’t want to read the standard operating procedure you just put on their desk. Most of the time, interruptions at home are not profound, but they’re meaningful to my kids — and it’s important for me to remember that the window of opportunity where my kids will come to me — curious and open — won’t last forever.
That’s something I think about a lot. I’ve got a 21-year-old son getting married soon. He still comes to me for advice, still calls with questions, but the center of gravity is shifting. As it should. His life is his own now.
It wasn’t that long ago, it seems, that the interruptions were in toddler form — crying, pulling on my arm, needing help with snacks or accidents or finding a lost toy. Now they come in bursts of curiosity, invitations to play, or questions they’ve been thinking about all day and can’t wait to ask. Or just chat.
I don’t want to miss that because I was too busy trying to appear uninterruptable.
There’s an odd tension in my life as a mid-career entrepreneur. On one hand, I’m building something — two businesses that need time and attention and the kind of deep focus that doesn’t come easy. I’m building these to provide for my family in a meaningful way. On the other hand, I only get this version of my kids right now. Twenty-one, nineteen, seventeen, fourteen, and ten. Those years only happen once, and they grow out of needing you so fast.
I know I have to work. I know I trade my time for income, and that there’s a balance to the fair trade agreement. One of the primary reasons I’m on this introspective journey, however, is that somewhere along the way, I came to accept from myself clients — then expect from myself — that my clients were entitled to every ounce of me all the time. That they got my best thinking, my best energy, and my best ideas. That they outranked my family.
Now, I’m working on changing that.
Years ago, someone said to me that people should be grateful we show up for them at all — employers, clients, customers. I’ve held onto that. It’s easy to forget when we feel like we owe them every ounce of our focus and time. But the truth is, the people we work with are lucky to have our care, our expertise, our investment.
They don’t get to come first just because they cut the check.
There’s no justification for not working hard or striving for excellence. I’m a believer in trying to be excellent at what I do. I try to show up with integrity, give people my full attention, and make meaningful contributions. But I’m also working on reminding myself that work is not what’s most important.
My kids are.
So yes, I let them interrupt me. Not all the time. Not without some boundaries. But enough that they know I’m here for them. That their questions matter. That their curiosity is something I love. That their voice is heard, even in grown-up rooms with muted microphones and quarterly earnings calls.
It’s not just about them either. Letting my kids interrupt me without getting frustrated reminds me of exactly who I want to be — someone who’s recovering from the need to work hard to control every outcome, someone who doesn’t miss the point trying to protect something that doesn’t really matter that much, someone who is trying to remember why he’s working in the first place.
I’m still figuring that out most days. My patience has gotten a lot better, but I’m still working through the guilt that overwhelms me when I’m not being “productive.”
Still pausing sometimes to ask: What’s really important and urgent here?
Some days, I get it right. Most days, I don’t. But I’m trending in the right direction, and more often than I used to, I’m making room for interruptions.
Because sometimes the interruption is the point.
Sometimes, the conversation about African leopards matters more than the one about software.
Sometimes, stopping for a story is the most productive thing I’ll do all day.
And sometimes, a red light turns green not because the meeting’s over, but because there’s something better waiting on the other side.
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