In the balance

So, some reader mail:

What struck me about your editorial was that you were spending time with your family and still checking email. Is your family really that unimportant that you have to check email when you are having family time? This is a prime example of work/family balance having gone all wrong.
There are too many examples of people not knowing how to relax that they eventually succumb to a stress attack that prevents them from working again – or worse, their family loses them permanently. Perhaps it is worthwhile learning that email is like postal mail. You CAN leave it until you have finished the family time. You can also switch off the mobile phone!
Nothing – especially work – should interrupt family time. No wonder the divorce rate is so high.

Now, of course, there’s nothing I like better than reader mail, even when it’s nosy and presumptuous. In this case, I reassured the writer that my work/life balance was just fine, and that the divorce rate here in the Robichaux family is holding steady at 0% after 11 years. I also pointed out that checking email while the kids are napping hardly constitutes vacation abuse. I didn’t bother to explain that checking email regularly is one of those quaint business practices that allows me to make it so my family can eat regularly, and that an IT support manager for a company specializing in HR communications might not understand that so well.
So, the executive summary: I love hearing from y’all, but let’s leave my family out of it, ‘kay? Otherwise I shall have to improve my work/life balance by sending my three noisy, energetic young sons to your house.