Photo of Multitasking Mum Goes Viral

A photo of a mum cradling her baby daughter while working in the office has gone viral.

New mum Melody Blackwell had recently returned from a three-month maternity leave and was bringing her baby, Nora-Jo, into the office once a week while working from home the other four days.

“I was excited when [my boss] said that was a possibility,” Melody told Yahoo Lifestyle. “I didn’t know if it would be.

“I knew it was going to be hard for me to leave her when she was so young. I know it’s hard to drop them off at daycare when they’re just two or three months old.”

Dr. Elizabeth Baker, who owns Maryland Farms Chiropractic in Tennessee, US, where Melody works, was walking past the mum’s desk when she spotted her busy multitasking. She decided she had to capture the moment and share it on her business’ Facebook page.

“That was one of the first few days Melody brought the baby in the office,” Elizabeth told Yahoo Lifestyle about the day she took the photo.

“I honestly was taking it to post onto our office Facebook page for our patients who had been asking about how mom and baby were doing since she had been gone for three months. I wanted to share that with our little following for the office. I never thought it would get so many comments and shares!”

In the post, the chiropractor praised the “sweet and content” baby as well as Melody, who “makes it look easy.”

She asked people to share the photo – and to share their own photos – to encourage “more small and large businesses to see this is doable and should be allowed more often”.

“Once she got pregnant I knew we needed to figure out a way to make this work,” Elizabeth said. “We had nine months to plan, at least!”

Melody says she’s grateful that she gets to care for her daughter and work full-time.

“All the patients love to see her when they come in,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle. “But so far no one has asked to hold her, probably because she’s so young.”

The chiropractor realises that remote work situations — and allowing babies in the office — are not always possible everywhere, but she encourages employers and employees to at least open up a dialogue about it.

“If it’s an environment where baby crying is okay,” she said, “I think more small and large businesses should look more toward allowing that.”

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24 Comments

- - rovermum said
  - 30 Jan 2019
    11:57 am
Wow! Clearly, not always an option but great that it is for this Mama. I struggled enough to work from home with a child who needed constant attention so kudos to this business and Mum.

- - ella12 said
  - 29 Jan 2019
    12:05 pm
Sounds like a great company to work for and good on Mum!

- - mom111059 said
  - 29 Jan 2019
    10:06 am
Yes a very clever mum. Hope she has time to look after herself as well.

- - ~Loui~ said
  - 28 Jan 2019
    10:53 pm
What a clever Mum

- - mom111059 said
  - 28 Jan 2019
    6:49 pm
A lot of pressure put on her to be working and looking after bub at same time. Can’t be easy.

- - tessie said
  - 27 Jan 2019
    1:12 pm
I wish more companies would do this if it’s possible.

- - mom112217 said
  - 26 Jan 2019
    3:00 pm
Great she works for a company that allows it!

- - rachel1970 said
  - 26 Jan 2019
    9:35 am
This is the life of every mum out there. We always have to multi task whether we work or not. I had to go back to work when my fourth child was 6mths old. I was lucky that I was a stay at home mum until then, with my other 3 children. Sometimes we just have to go back to work.

- - MisChip said
  - 26 Jan 2019
    4:14 am
I dont think I would want to work so soon!

- - mom101628 said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    11:51 pm
I often worked with my new babies on my shoulder – but in those days there was no social media so I was left alone and very happy with my babies and my home work.

- - Blossom said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    9:46 pm
Obviously the baby is comfortable but I don’t think mine would have been with my neck and head at that angle

- - MrsA said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    9:18 pm
I can’t even imagine leaving my 2.5 year old or my 6 month old, I don’t even know how people manage to leave their 3 month old baby! Must be so heartbreaking. So great that her work allow this.

- - LuckyMum said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    2:46 pm
This looks like a win win for every body involved !

- - MuthaNita said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    8:51 am
I wish this was more the norm. With childcare so expensive at that age it would save families so much money and make employers so valuable. My last workplace allowed me to bring my daughter into work with me a few days a week in the school holidays and I appreciated it so much. She also got to see what a real workplace was like and the different jobs that are out there. Not everyone had access or can afford childcare, ideas like this keep more mother’s working.

- - Ellen said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    7:48 am
Beautiful that this business allows this mum to bring her baby to work.

- - mom265671 said
  - 25 Jan 2019
    12:34 am
Absolutely amazing. More businesses need to take note. She’s absolutrly right. They had the 9 months to work together to make it work and look how well it did.

- - rnash02 said
  - 24 Jan 2019
    10:39 pm
This is fantastic

- - Mum2archer said
  - 24 Jan 2019
    9:07 pm
This is great, and more companies should allow things like this! Those first few months are so precious, and you just want to enjoy every second, but not everyone gets alot of maternity leave

- - BellaB said
  - 24 Jan 2019
    7:22 pm
It’s great that more businesses are being open to this sort of thing.

- - youngoldlady said
  - 24 Jan 2019
    2:13 pm
Great to see some workplaces supporting mums who want to work.