Does Working at Home Really Work for Moms and Families?

A long time ago (OK, only eight years), I worked in the publishing industry. When I had my first son a combination of factors conspired to make stay-at-home motherhood sound like a good idea. One obvious point in its favor was that, in my industry, it is relatively easy to freelance from home. I looked forward to being home with my son while taking on just enough projects to earn some extra money and stay relevant in my field.

(I’ll admit it, I was also a bit seduced by J.K. Rowling’s tale of writing the first Harry Potter book in a coffee shop while her daughter napped.)

Working from home worked, to a point. During my son’s first year of life I had regular freelance work for a suburban Chicago newspaper group. Much of my work could be conducted over the phone or—when I had to go to meetings—in the evenings when my husband was home. I was often up late filing stories but with an infant I wasn’t sleeping much anyway. This arrangement worked well for about two years. And then my son turned 2 and stopped napping. By that time I had another infant. Out of necessity, I scaled back on my freelance work, occasionally taking on assignments for valued colleagues but not expending much energy to seek out opportunities.

Maybe the whole working from home thing would have worked if I’d had extended family, or a regular sitter, to help me. What I hadn’t considered when reading stories about women (and men) who successfully managed a career and a family was that these people had school-aged children or outside help.

Now that both of my children are in school for a good chunk of the day, I have jumped back into freelance writing and editing and I’m a little smarter about working from home. Which is not to say it’s not frustrating. It’s tough to change gears and put work aside for an hour while I pick up my kids (from two schools) and then help them with their homework. Also annoying is when it’s 4 in the afternoon and I’m still working, yet my boys (who usually play well together) are engaged in a throwdown over the equal distribution of Lego pieces in the next room. Have I used the TV to buy an extra hour of quiet? Guilty as charged.

While some doomsayers cite ever-evolving technology—iPhones, BlackBerries, social networks, email—as the downfall of modern civilization, one advantage to our increasing interconnectedness is that people in many professions can work from just about anywhere, including home offices. This has been an advantage for parents who—for a multitude of reasons—find that such a setup benefits their families. I spoke with work-at-home members of my moms group to get their take on working from home.

“It's not for everyone. It can be very isolating. You also need to be highly self-motivated,” says Sue Collier, self-publishing expert and co-author of The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, 5thEdition. Collier has been self employed and worked from home since 1996.

“You need child care,” adds my friend Melinda (who asked that I use her first name only). She employs a nanny to care for her kids in their home while she works. “I don't think it's possible to do it without it. You still need to be able to spend undivided time on your work.”

OK, so you’re motivated and have child care (or school) lined up for your offspring. That’s one huge obstacle removed and working from home should be a snap, right? Not so fast. There are other factors that must be considered.

“The perception from others is that you are not really working and so are available during the day for phone calls, etc.,” says Collier. “It is also tough for me to compartmentalize home and work; they sometimes feel like one and the same. I never really get away from either.”

That sentiment is echoed by most of the work-at-home parents with whom I have spoken.

“I had to really ‘train’ my kids to understand that even though I'm at home I am working and they can't hang out in the study with me,” says Melinda. “Other times, it's challenges around getting other people to recognize that just 'cause you're at home doesn't mean you're not working. It's easy to fall into the trap of being the one to let in the repairmen and Fed Ex guys and whatever.”

Tammy Halligan concurs. “I will admit that it is hard to focus 100 percent on work when I am working from home. I think about the laundry that needs to be done and the housework that is sitting there.”

(True? Let’s just say that in the midst of writing this article, I left my house to mail a package for my husband, deposit a check and pick up some library books I’d reserved for my kids.)

The women I spoke to also mentioned feelings of isolation and lack of “face time” with colleagues that often go hand in hand with working from home. Another friend told me that she has never had a promotion because she is considered “mommy tracked” in her industry.

But the “flexibility” that results from working from home can work in one’s favor, no?

“On days that I work from home I can walk my kids to school, which is really, really nice,” says Tanya Alteras. “I enjoy that a lot more than the rushed putting them in the car and speeding our way through drop-off.”

In fact, all of the women I surveyed cited the lack of commuting time—and resulting extra family time—as a major advantage to working from home.

One of the reasons I initially decided to stay home with my kids was to avoid losing family time to a commute. My husband (by design) works in a nearby East Bay city but when we lived in the Chicago suburbs he commuted into the city—one to three hours each way. My own commute had been 45 minutes each way. Without a lot of extended family nearby to help out, we felt that it was important to have one parent at home full time. It was the solution that worked best for us at the time and has continued to work (with a few bumps in the road), even as I ease back into upping my work-from-home hours.

Like my friends, I find that working from home is occasionally frustrating but the benefits are worth it. Yes, it means working after dinner or after the kids are in bed sometimes so I can work in my kids’ classrooms or watch an afternoon baseball practice. But these are the things I would miss if I had a standard 9 to 5 job. These are the things I felt I missed out on when I was in school because my parents—one a middle school teacher, the other a public school administrator—were rarely able to come to my class to help with parties or watch me run in cross-country meets that took place during school hours.

My parents didn’t have the option of working from home. I don’t blame them for not being available every time I wanted them but at the same time my childhood experiences informed my parenting choices. I want to be the one to pick my kids up from school and work in their classrooms.

“What usually ends up happening is that I put family first during the day, so I deal with the sick kids and the school volunteering and whatnot during the day when I have the nanny and should be working, and then end up doing my ‘real’ work in the evenings,” says Melinda.

She continues, “I don't love starting my workday at 7:30 p.m., but it's a trade-off that's worth it to me because it means that I get to be more involved in my kids' lives while still having some semblance of the career I worked really hard to build.”