海角大神

Robert E. Kelly, a scholar of South Korean politics, has become an Internet sensation this month in a way he couldn鈥檛 have expected. Kelly, a political science professor at South Korea鈥檚 Pusan National University, was giving a live Skype interview to a BBC TV anchor last week when his two small children wandered into what appeared to be his home office, creating a comic mishap that鈥檚 gone viral around the world.

Most viewers seem to be laughing with Kelly rather than laughing at him, since his parental predicament was one many mothers and fathers have confronted themselves: How do you work from home while keeping the kids at bay?

Writers were perhaps the first parents to recognize the challenge, since they were among the first professionals to work from home. Kate Chopin, best known for her provocative 1899 novel 鈥淭he Awakening,鈥� wrote on a lapboard surrounded by her small children 鈥� the kind of literary regimen in which children weren鈥檛 a momentary interruption, but a way of life.

When Virginia Woolf published 鈥淎 Room of One鈥檚 Own鈥� in 1929, she argued that writers should have exactly what eluded 听Kelly 鈥� a place to work for extended interludes without the demands of family. Woolf wasn鈥檛 a mother herself, and her message focused on the special needs of women, who were 鈥� and quite often, still are 鈥� shouldering the major burdens of domestic life. But in an era where more and more fathers are involved in the daily demands of parenting, Woolf鈥檚 observations resonate across genders.

The issue is an old one, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow demonstrated in 1859, when he wrote a widely celebrated poem, 鈥淭he Children鈥檚 Hour.鈥�

It paints a picture that Kelly 鈥� and, indeed, any work-at-home parent 鈥� would find familiar. It鈥檚 about a daily ritual in which Longfellow鈥檚 children barged into his study, begging for attention:

They climb up into my turret

O鈥檈r the arms and back of my chair; 听

If I try to escape they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms around me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! 听听听

Although the poem is essentially whimsical, it has just a touch of the macabre. The bishop of the poem, scholar Christoph Irmscher reminds us in his wonderful 2006 book, 鈥淟ongfellow Redux,鈥� refers to a wicked cleric in Robert Southey鈥檚 1799 ballad who鈥檚 consumed by rodents.

Longfellow seems to hint here at the way that children can seem to require听everything that we are, with nothing left over for the world of work.

Ultimately, Longfellow welcomes his children into his home office, reaching a conclusion shared by many work-at-home parents: Sometimes, if you can鈥檛 place children a part from your work, you might as well make them a part of it.

Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the author of "A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House."