Anticipating The $#*!-Show That Is Summer At Home With Kids? Here's Your Anthem

New Holderness parody video nails what it’s like working from home with the kids on summer vacation

Summer vacation is coming and for those of us who work from home, it presents a unique set of challenges. It seems silly to pay for daycare when we’re right here, but trying to get anything done with the kids buzzing around is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. Utterly futile.

Thankfully, the Holderness parents understand this special struggle and created one of their famous parodies to pay tribute to those of us in their shoes — dealing with life as a work-at-home parent when the kids are on summer break.

Penn and Kim Holderness have covered a lot of parenting topics with their hilarious videos and this Bon Jovi-infused take on work-at-home parents is no exception. It nails how we all feel while trying to do our jobs while surrounded by demanding kids, because oh shit, we forgot all about summer camp sign-ups and you need to do that months in advance. We feel you, Holdernai. We really do. Check out the video here and prepare to die laughing.

The lyrics are hysterical and totally dead-on. As a work-at-home parent, this hit me right in my lazy little heart. It’s so easy to do my job well in a silent house with no one asking me to make them lunch or unfreeze Netflix. But in a month, shit’s about to get real. Daddy Holderness croons, “Right now we are good at our jobs. But in a couple weeks, the schools are all gonna close. Kinda blows.”

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It super blows, Penn. Can I call you Penn?

Although the school year presents it’s own problems (HELLO ENDLESS COMMON CORE MATH WORKSHEETS) summer is particularly tough for a work-at-home parent. Many of us don’t make as much money as we might in an office job, so spending a few hundred bucks a week for childcare would seriously sting. That means we do our work, just like we do any other day. Only with kids literally crawling all over us.

“We can’t wait to have them around. But what happens when we’ve got a big call, and they’re making weird sounds?” Oh, dear God. How many video and phone calls have I been on for work where I have a child pop up like a mole and either make insane noises, or wave to the camera? I’ve become fairly adept at locking them in a room with a long movie, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still make an occasional (embarrassing) cameo. Thank heavens for the mute button. Doesn’t help with video, but at least they’re kinda cute?

Father Holderness sings of putting the kids in front of movies and taking them to play-dates, because of course, they forgot to set up summer camp to occupy them. The camera pans to the kids sitting on the couch looking bored, antsy and expectant: a sight I’m so sadly familiar with. Like, what do you want from me? Go find some of the thousands of dollars in toys I know you own (because I bought them!) and leave me alone?

Of course, we feel bad semi-ignoring our kids so we can get our work done, but this is part of the deal. They watch lots of TV sometimes. And fight with each other. And eat a bunch of crappy snacks because some days, we can’t stop long enough to make a real lunch. This is life. We accept it.

We might whine a little, but there are so many benefits to working from home and believe me, most of us aren’t looking for people to pull out their violins for us or start a GoFundMe (but maybe could you? Summer camps are expensive as fuck!) We’re so glad we’re in yoga pants all day and getting our kids on and off the bus instead of driving them to daycare at the crack of dawn and doing the evening hustle after we get home from a long day at the office. Trust me, we know we’re in a good spot. But still. Summer is one of the big cons of working from home, and since it won’t be solved any time soon, we might as well laugh about it.

Thanks for being so damn funny and relatable, Holdernai. Please return in August with a song about the joys of sending them back to school so we can get down to business once again. Which for me, means drinking a bunch of coffee and scream-singing Adele while I write in the peace of my blessedly empty house.