unexceptionalparenting

By now you’ve probably seen the clip shared ‘round the world of Professor Robert Kelly being interrupted mid-Skype interview with the BBC by his two adorable children:

Kelly, an associate professor of international relations at South Korea’s Pusan National University, has been commended for keeping his cool during the whole affair. He neither broke contact with the camera nor smacked the child with a brick, as some might have done. The children have been praised for being so darn freaking cute.

But I think we are missing the true hero of this entire episode and that is the frantic mother who comes slamming into the room and hustles the kids out with the speed and dexterity of a special ops commando.

This moment, now forever cemented into our hearts and YouTube viewing histories, is pure gold because it perfectly and silently sums up parenthood.

While the rest of the world is busy being articulate, well-groomed and capable of discussing weighty matters such as the geopolitical ramifications of leadership change in South Korea, parents are a bunch of lumbering, frantic maniacs scrambling about on what amounts to a never-ending suicide watch over creatures who have the speed and determination of pumas but the common sense of dog turds.

(At least one commentator has already described the scene as the “patriarchy in a nutshell,” but honestly, I can just as easily see a mother in the interview seat while a beleaguered dad scampers after the tiny offenders in the background.)

Any parent watching that scene can hear her inner monologue:

“S—t, s—t, s—t! I turn my back for one minute to clean up the cat barf the toddler was using to finger paint the baby and she runs in and interrupts what was probably the most important analysis to take place of Park Geunhye’s ousting EVER. Crap, crap. Am I still in the shot? I’m still in the f—king shot. Just. Gotta. Get. This. Door. Shut.”

This woman is a maternal goddess in my book. Some might deduct points for the fact she “let” the kids slip past her to get into Dad’s interview den, but in my opinion those people are heartless douche bags who can go eff themselves.

Kids are slippery, stealthy, crafty little Houdinis at that age. For all we know that adorable toddler hamming it up over Dad’s left shoulder just undid five “child-proof” locks and drugged the dog before creeping into that room.

The fact that Mom caught them in the act at all makes her a g-dd—n hero, in my opinion. My kids would have managed to pop the top on a value-sized bottle of aspirin and waggle their naked butts at the camera before I caught on that they weren’t, in fact, watching Backyardigans in the living room like I thought.

Hell, even her form is impressive. The speed that sends her practically sliding across the floor, the skill that allows her to corral the toddler and yank the baby’s walker out of the shot, the physical strength that allows her to crawl practically combat style back to the door to yank it shut?

If retrieving interview-destroying little people from Dad’s study were an Olympic sport, this woman would win mad gold, y’all.

What is even more impressive is that she accomplished it on four hours sleep, tops. She has the deadly toddler-baby combo on her hands, which means she is on call round-the-clock, dealing with the demands of two insatiable — but adorable — little maniacs.

Pair that with the fact that Dad was probably sweating bullets over his appearance on the BBC, she’d probably been on high alert all morning. No doubt she helped him pick out his suit, gave him a pep talk, tidied the bed and neatly stacked the books in the background — all without having showered or eaten — before assuming kid duty so Dad could get his brain on in a live international broadcast.

Even if she is, as some have suggested, a nanny, she is AWESOME. I adore her. If I ever get to meet her I’m buying her the biggest box of Chardonnay Rite Aid sells.