All day at work you experience stress. You witness other people’s stupidity. You are the victim of their moods and emotions. Your phone pings constantly with alarming news of the world, the pangs and envies that drive social media.
What are you to do? Much in the way that politics are supposed to stop at the water’s edge, so must the stresses of the world stop at the threshold of your front door. You can’t bring that crap home with you. You definitely can’t have it running on CNN in the background while you eat dinner as a family.
As Randall Stutman said, you need to make that fast transition from frustrated professional to fully present parent so that your home remains a safe place that you are the protector of. Not a protector in the sense of a warrior but closer to the role of a bouncer: No, sorry, you’re not on the guest list. You have to be Teflon. Your boss’s temper can’t be allowed to stick to you. The contagion of panic or divisiveness shouldn’t be tracked into the living room on the bottom of your shoes. You must keep a clean house. You must turn these things away.
When you arrive home, you must be ready to be present. Ready to have fun. Ready to be the parent they need . . . not the one that’s left over after the ravages of the day.