FEATURE
Our Children | Fall 2021
PHOTO: BRUCE MURRAY/VISIONFIRE
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Career Daze How working from home might have changed your kids’ view on what you do By Heidi Tattrie Rushton
Bankers count money, nurses heal people, and carpenters build things. Children often sum up their parents’ jobs with a single sentence, if they have any idea at all about what they do all day. But when all our lives converged on the dining room table during the pandemic, many children got a front row seat into their parents’ work life, a view that may change how they think about their own futures. Dr. Christine Chambers is a professor at Dalhousie University and scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health. Pre-pandemic, her work had her travelling extensively, presenting at events, and meeting many people. “My entire job changed with the pandemic … all these meetings and travel got broken up into what has seemed like endless back-to-back virtual meetings,” Chambers says. “Before the pandemic I used to feel my children were so proud of my work, even though I was often on the road and away from them. Now I worry they don’t think my job is nearly as exciting as it used to be.”
Chambers has four children ranging from 10 to 15. Justin and Lauren are both 10 and say that they knew their mom helped kids in pain but mostly knew about the “fun” side of her job. “She was going on important trips and sometimes we could come along,” Justin says. Lauren adds: “She used to work in her lab, and we used to visit and play with her toys.” Since the pandemic started, they have new appreciation for the complexity of her work. “She has a lot of meetings … it looks hard,” says Lauren, adding that she’s learned that she doesn’t want a virtually-based job. “I would have to be on Zoom calls all the time and I didn’t like Zoom calls when I was in virtual school.” Justin says there were some advantages to his mom working from home. “I got to see her more and I got to meet some of her colleagues (on the computer),” he says, but agrees with his sister that he wouldn’t want to sit in front of a computer all day.
