BBC Dad, the OG of interrupted work-from-home calls, is back with the kids
Marion Kelly is back and still stealing her dad’s thunder in live BBC interviews. The OG of “interrupting a work-from-home parent’s video call,” Marion and her family appeared on BBC today to share tips for dealing with cooped-up kids while working from home during the pandemic.
As Marion and younger brother James squirmed and protested behaving on camera, her mother Kim Jung-A said the family has tried to get outside as much as possible, while under coronavirus lockdown with the rest of South Korea. “We try to go see the flowers and trees so they can shout and scream.” Dad Robert Kelly added it was tough: “There’s only so many games they can play and puzzles you can do before they just kind of, you know, run around.”
Marion, then four years old, famously interrupted her father’s 2017 live appearance on BBC News as he tried to discuss the intricacies of politics on the Korean peninsula. She strutted in wearing a yellow shirt and plopped down beside him as he heroically tried to continue the interview. But then baby James rolled in, and even though Kim ran in and tried to corral the kids and salvage the situation, it was pretty much over at that point. A meme was born.
South Korea, where the Kelly family lives, has been praised as a model for flattening the curve, preventing the spread of coronavirus infection with widespread testing, tracing the source of infections, and cooperation with social distancing measures. The head of the World Health Organization suggested other countries should follow its lead.
“I think social compliance here has been pretty high,” Robert Kelly said in today’s BBC interview. “You don’t see the kind of stuff that you’ve seen in the United States, with like people crowding beaches and people refusing to stay off the subways and stuff like that. South Koreans have actually really responded really well, and that’s why the curve has flattened now to only 100 a day. So it’s actually been pretty successful.”
He then started to apologize for the obviously bored kids who were mugging it for the camera (young James actually left the room and returned with what looked like a video game at one point during the interview), but the BBC presenter interrupted him: “That’s one thing you can never apologize for now,” he chuckled.
So if you’re worried about your kids interrupting your video calls while you’re working from home, maybe don’t be. The BBC Dad and family are faring okay (even if things seem a little bit loud).
Marion Kelly is back and still stealing her dad’s thunder in live BBC interviews. The OG of “interrupting a work-from-home parent’s video call,” Marion and her family appeared on BBC today to share tips for dealing with cooped-up kids while working from home during the pandemic. As Marion and younger…
