What My Son's Birthday Taught Me About Switching Off
17 Oct 2026
My son turned 14 at the start of our holiday. Halfway through, I left for work.
My son turned 14 at the start of our holiday. Halfway through, I left for work.
His birthday almost always falls on the first days of the October school holidays. So every year the plan is the same: start the break with his day, then switch off.
This year we spent his birthday evening building a miniature of a Kyoto street (and instantly found a new hobby).
Then an event in Barcelona, where I was invited to give a talk, fell right in the middle of the holiday. Plus three proposals with deadlines in the following days.
So the laptop came along. Most days I worked early in the morning, during breaks, or in the evening. I felt grateful for the opportunities and guilty for being in work mode on the beach. (Bless a good hotel wifi!)
I do not have a neat answer for how to do this. Some weeks just look like this, and you try to get the important things right.
Next year I will plan it better. Probably. Or not 😌
Do you ever fully switch off?
Why I am telling you this instead of the version with a neat lesson
I could end this with a tidy rule about boundaries. I am not going to, because it would not be true to what actually happened. The honest version is that I planned the holiday around my son's birthday, and a work trip landed in the middle of it anyway, and I did the work early in the morning so the rest of the day could stay his.
This comes up often in my coaching conversations with senior leaders who are also parents. The guilt is rarely about the hours worked. It is about the gap between the plan and what actually happened, and the story people tell themselves about that gap.
Three things I remind clients, and myself:
→ The guilt is a sign you care, not a sign you failed.
→ A plan that bends once is still a plan. It only stops working if it bends every time.
→ The version of "switching off" that matters most to your kids is usually smaller than you think. The evening building a Kyoto street mattered more than a full week off would have.
If this is a pattern you recognise in your own life, between the work you are proud of and the time you protect for the people who matter, I have a free A Child's First Book on Executive Coaching, a playful way to open that conversation with your own kids about what you do and why it sometimes takes you away. Leave your email here and I will send it over: https://www.thechangerepublic.com/free-resources