Secrets of a Work-from-Home Mom

Every once in a while, a friend will make a comment about "working" from home as if they honestly believe that when I say "working" what I really mean is "watching daytime television in my pajamas all day and getting paid for it." Okay, fine, the pajama thing might be true some days.

I want you to imagine this for a minute. Imagine all the stuff you normally "mean" to accomplish in your normal workday. Now imagine that you've got about 25 percent more of it than you usually do. Then imagine that your boss is waiting for you to return each item of work as you complete it and that he or she has an uncannily accurate idea of how long this should take you. (Now hope you don't need to pee at any point during the day.) For added fun, throw in a dog, two kids, a dishwasher that needs unloading, the phone ringing, the mail carrier at your door to tell you wasps are building a nest in your mailbox, six loads of laundry (and kids with no clean underwear), someone IMing you on Facebook, and a bathroom that is so dirty it's likely crawling with flesh-eating bacteria. Also, you get no designated lunch break. Good luck with that one.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. Even on my worst day--after reading the same letter with very minute changes 600 times for an Anarchy International direct mail campaign--I realize how lucky I am to work from home, to be here to take my kids to school (actually, I would pay someone about $500 a day to deal with that nonsense, but that's another story), to be here when they come home again (even if half the time I'm working while they're here). For the first time in a long time, I don't feel conflicted about what I am doing. I don't have to leave my babies and wonder how their days are going because I'm soaking up every last entertaining, infuriating minute of it.

But working from home is a lot like constantly having a research paper due. There is always, always work to be done. In that way, it's very different from working in an office. I can't leave work at the office. If I make the mistake of checking my e-mail before bed, I'll often see that I have work waiting for me in the morning. Sometimes I'm off picking my kids up from school and my boss is texting me about clients having questions or about files not coming through. I often have to work weekends, though I'm getting a little better at avoiding that. So I'm still *working* 40 hours a week. Plus the house and the kids and the dog and all of that fun stuff.

I hate to tell you this, but the daytime television thing doesn't happen. Like ever.