The kid at the co-working space

My son got a day off from school. I got a reminder of why I chose this life.

Headphones on, toys out, totally unbothered by my failing test suite.

The other day I took my four-year-old to my co-working space.

I had him all set up. Duplos. An Etch A Sketch. Headphones with a story or two queued up. A snack Multiple snacks.

I figured I’d get maybe 15 minutes in before things fell apart.

I got 45.

He must have grabbed my phone at some point because I found this masterpiece a few days later!

He walked around the space like he owned it. Got kombucha from the self-serve station. Grabbed mints from the front desk. Sat back down and built something with Duplos while I knocked out a client email and reviewed a PR.

And I sat there thinking: if he’s home sick one day, this might actually work for a little bit.

That’s such a small thing. But when you’re independent and a parent, those small things are the whole game. There’s no calling in to your manager. There’s no backup. There’s just you, figuring out how to get 45 minutes when you need them.

I’ve been independent for long enough that I’ve stopped romanticizing it. The freedom is real, but so is the weight. Every hour I’m not working is an hour I chose not to work, and that choice is never fully clean. There’s always a client waiting, a newsletter to write, a product to ship.

And now, an agent waiting for their next prompt.

But sitting in that co-working space, watching my kid drink kombucha and hand out mints to strangers, I remembered why I do this. Not for the flexibility in the abstract. But for the flexibility in the specific. For that day, specifically.

I don’t have a lesson here. I just wanted to share it.

What’s your version of this? The small moment that reminded you why you went independent, or why you want to. Drop a comment. I’d love to hear it.