Talk to Me is a new video series from HuffPost that features parents and children in conversations where the kids get to ask all the questions.
It was a joy to have Cecilia, my oldest child and only daughter, interview me. The video will give you a sense of her utter coolness.
But my favorite part is when she interjects and reminds me of the numerous nannies that have helped us through the years. I may flinch on the video, but I didn't mean to. The truth is, at various times during my career, my husband David and I have needed a lot of help. A lot. Every system -- an intricate system of homeland security or intimate system of home sanity -- requires back-up plans, redundancies and a whole lot of pivoting.
I write about these experiences of adapting home and homeland in my book Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home. In the years when David and I were both in federal government, we were absent from a lot of the details of our family life. We relied heavily on my in-laws, friends, neighbors, teachers and, of course, nannies. I could feel guilty about it all the time, or feel, as Cecilia surely does here, that such realities are the most natural thing in the world.
The system works however you put it all together. Just don't forget the back-up plan.
And that is the best part of how she talked to me.
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