Baby Squared

jane!

I work from home and take care of olivia.

Which means I take care of olivia from 9am-6pm, eat dinner, and work from 8pm-midnight.

yup, that's pretty much the only system i have found that works.

Granted, she is only 5 months, so she is not mobile, but the attempting (and failed) balancing act is totally there, the details are just a bit different.

maybe next time we can try some collaboratin'

Jane -- I can completely relate. I work from home 3 days a week. On those days my grandmother helps care for my 18 month old twins while I attempt to "work." This Monday morning, I was Skyping into our staff production meeting when THUD.....SCREAM....one of the twins jumped out of their crib for the first time during a "nap." Needless to say I had to excuse myself from the meeting rather abruptly and apologize for the commotion. Everyone was fine...but I didn't get much work done for the rest of the morning.

I used to be a pharmaceutical journalist, and I could work from home a couple of days a week. When I came back from my mat leave (LP was 9 months old), we went through a tough phase of him being sick a lot because of the sudden contact with other kids. Daycare was very stringent when it came to kids' sickness: we couldn't bring him in if he had the slightest sniffles or watery eyes (I'm exaggerating, but only a bit). So on a few occasions I just kept him with me and did not tell my boss or editor about it.

These days were the toughest ever. I couldn't get anything done on either front. Felt like a bad mother and a bad employee. Surprise-surprise, every time I did this my boss commented on me having an "off" day.

I always imagined moms who work from home (without like, another parent or nanny, etc.), have 1-kids who nap REALLY WELL and for a long time, and 2-kids who go to bed really early and stay asleep. I didn't have that, still don't.

I'd love to be able to try it again when he goes to school though, and don't require such constant attention. I think it would be nice to be there for lunchtime at home, homework, and summer vacations... A nice middle ground.  

In regards to working from home with small children, if you have a mute on your phone, and your child is old enough for m&m's and you have a giant bowl of them that are just a special "office treat", you can have a 2-3 minute conference call. But you will not remember what was said on the call. And during those 2-3 minutes your office/workspace will be covered in paperclips, m&m's, sticky notes, etc. so that it resembles that scene from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" where the walls are covered in notes... you know the one I'm talking about.

You can do it while they're small. But squeezing in work whenever possible (during naps, movies, while nursing, etc.) makes for one long day.

And when the children are old enough to notice your attention is elsewhere, it's nearly impossible. Hire/beg for back up.

Or work after bedtime. Preferably, not yours.

Someday...someday I hope to work from home. I just know my girls and it's not possible right now, so I'm not even going to try! As I write this comment I've already gotten up 3 times to tell them to stop playing with the curtains, stop banging on the window, don't climb on the dining table, etc.

Hmm maybe I should try wearing a tutu when cleaning the floor...looks like more fun that way!

I wouldn't even attempt it.  Not that I could, being a secretary is a "gotta be there" kind of job.  But I know I wouldn't have the discipline to do it anyway and having Michael at home would only make it worse.

Jane, as a full-time writer contemplating having a child, this scenario is kind of what I suspected:  that I will have a take a few years off until said child is in school!  Thank you for your honesty.  I always love reading your blog.

It's possible to check email; sometimes even to answer email.  My husband manages some communications via laptop during breakfast, or in front of an episode or two of Curious George... but real, honest-to-goodness work, complete with concentration, problem-solving and actual phone conversations with other people doesn't happen unless there's someone else around to watch our son.  If our childcare doesn't happen, we each work when we're not watching the kid.

I think as the girls get older, even by six months when they are old enough to want to start playing with each other or on their own, it suddenly becomes magically easier. I think also they simply weren't used to you being home in the morning, if you aren't usually. If this is something big and exciting (Mommy's home! HOORAH!) they're naturally going to want to play with you even if they're perfectly capable of entertaining themselves.

If you ever wanted to make working from home a thing, I think the girls would grow into it the way they've grown into letting you do household chores. Kids that age are crazy adaptable like that, and don't actually need you watching their every move. (Though why wouldn't you WANT to? It's so cute when they move! When it isn't driving you crazy, that is.)

I cannot work from home unless Cooper is napping. Or duck taped to the wall. I KID.

I have noticed a kind of ebb and flow with this. First, when my daughter was tiny (3 months old) I could write in the mornings, rocking her cradle with one foot, while my other jittered its way through a short story.  But then around six months, all of that went out the window, and pretty much stayed out the window, until recently (she's 8 now).  I did notice that I became extremely adept at being scattered and tracking scatteredness. In fact, that's not gone away.  I now work on 18 different things at once, jumping back and forth, remembering this or that as I go.  I blame that on my daughter, for better or worse.  

I can spend an hour at my email, or triaging a technical problem over breakfast, if Denton's got his laptop open next to mine and some youtube videos to watch.

Forget the non-functional laptops, he uses (at 2 1/2) a real, albeit old one, with a USB mini mouse attached.

I'm not doing creative work, though, and I might well be freeing some attention to shovel oatmeal into him while we sit there.

I still believe that Virginia Woolf was on to something with that "room of one's own" concept. (Susan Orleans recently brought up the topic, but specific to writing mothers vs. dads.)

Micah works at home full time.  I watch the boys while he stays in his office and does his computer programming job.  He has learned to ignore the screaming.  He also makes them cry when he has to shut the door in their face to get back to work.  He also mutes his phone during conference calls because otherwise his coworkers would hear "Oooh let's change that poopy doopy, dangit come here Harrison."  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh"  "Well that is what you get for trying to resist, you end up  banging your head on the wall.  I don't feel sorry for you."  I think they might call CPS on us.  

Granted this is not the exact same situation you are in, but it is a little slice of what a work at home situation is like with childcare.  

You got me beat anyways, I can't really even get housework done when I am the only one on duty unless they are watching tv like mindless zombies.  

How appropos that this is on my daughter's second birthday.

I've been working from home since Charlotte was 11 weeks old.  My job is all data entry, doesn't require any phone calls.  It IS a 40 hour a week job that requires a certain output on my part to keep my numbers within acceptable parameters.  And that means that I hang out with Charlotte all day, and then work all night.  And make up extra time on the weekend after bedtime, during naptime, during Daddy/Charlotte time.  It doesn't leave a lot of time for me, and some weeks that bothers me more than others.  It's not a perfect system, but it's the only system I know.  I'm alternately looking forward to some kind of day care or pre-school, and dreading it.

I currently work from home two days a week (hoping to make it three soon!), but my 13-month-old still goes to daycare.  When I mention this to people, they often look at my like I'm crazy, but there's no way I could be productive with her home.  I'm an editor, and it requires a certain amount of attention to detail.  What working from home does give me is a shorter commute (like over an hour less road-time), and I get to spend more time with her.  Sometimes, I feel guilty about it, but she's happy at daycare, and it works, and everyone feels balanced and happy.  Can't be too bad...

I'm a professor, and I'm on campus two days a week. But on the other days, even though I should be spending most of my waking hours reading, writing, and grading, I'm not. I'm taking care of my kids - by choice, and happily, but man! it's really hard to get anything done while they're awake. I do get to work while they're napping, and at night (woo-hoo). But the real kicker is that everyone thinks that my off-campus days are "days off." Yeah, right.

On the rare days when I need work from home (car problems, trying to fit an appointment in near home, etc.) the thing that works for me is one of those indoor playspaces that have wifi. I end up looking anti-social because I'm working instead of chatting with the other parents and nannies there, but it's possible to get some quality work done.

LOVE your blog - thanks for the laughs.

Hmm, I always wondered how mothers could get away with working from home.  In your situation I can see it is truly difficult, but sometimes ultimately necessary.  Regarding my boss, however, who works from home 2-3 times a week, every week, I think it is more that she just doesn't want to work, period (I think she sleeps and watches soaps all day).  Alas, her kid is 13 and is definitely not in need of supervision.  I hate when she abuses this power and the discrimination that I, as a single woman with no children, must suffer because of it (I am NEVER allowed to work at home).  But this is off topic, just wanted to vent.  Thanks for listening.

Hi Jane,

I'm a bit late on this one but felt compelled to comment anyway. I work at home about 75% of the time. I teach six college lit/English courses -- two on the ground, the rest online. And I tutor online. How do I do it? I usually start work between 8 and 9 p.m. every night and often stay up until 2 or 3. Or, I go to bed around 1 or 2 and get up at 5 or 6. At least twice a week, I sleep for only two hours. I could work more during the day (my husband is here as he works nights), but that means less mommy time, and I'm already gone on Tue/Thurs/Sat for four or five hours each. Since my job is really a 50-60 hour a week one, it's not going smoothly. As the breadwinner, it's necessary, though, and I've actually taken on extra work lately because of financial issues (like everyone else is experiencing).

In terms of sacrifice? Most everything. My husband and I spend about an hour or two a week alone together (no exaggeration -- truly), I have no free time (I try to squeeze a few hours a week in, but all other time is accounted for), I rarely see friends, I don't watch TV or go to movies, and the only time I get to read something other than a children's book or student papers is in the bathtub. Of course, I'm often eating in there too, or on the phone, to kill a few more birds with the same stone.

Does it suck? Oh, yeah. It does. I was in the hospital with my laptop three days after a C-section gone nearly wrong and three days of labor, little one in the NICU. It had to be done. I try to remind myself about 50 times a day that what I'm doing is important and necessary and that it won't always be this way. Except I think it will. Ahh, well.  

Quite a few people tell me how lucky I am to get to work at home. Rarely does anyone see just how tricky balancing this act actually is (I do sometimes work during the day when Reed is up, and it's next to impossible, really).  I'm glad I have so much freedom and can work in PJs with dirty hair, but there is a huge trade-off.