Around the Clock
The joy and pain of being a work-at-home parent.
by Steve Almond
September 10, 2007
The crazy part is, I'm embarrassed to bring this stuff up, like I'm somehow "letting my personal life" interfere with work. I was recently made to feel guilty because I refused to take a day away from my family to schmooze at some cocktail party for an hour. I felt like Dustin Hoffman toward the end of Kramer vs. Kramer, when he can't work late at the office and do the dumb parties because he's a dad, and his asshole boss cans him.
Some of this probably has to do with gender. If I were a mom working at home, I suspect folks would view me as the primary parent, which would come with its own sexist baggage, but at least some basic recognition. And, in fairness, some of this has to do with being a freelance writer, a field in which you're constantly being made to feel like you should be grateful for every scrap of money or attention you receive. (And if you make any trouble, there are twelve replacements waiting in the wings.)
But a lot of this just boils down to corporate culture, which has the same tolerance for parenting as sulfuric acid does for skin. The basic attitude is that a worker's first and last loyalty is to the shareholders. It's nothing personal, just a matter of efficiency.
The big fat irony here is that people who work in offices are — in my experience —As my wife said to me the other day, rather wistfully, "Remember when I worked in an office? I had so much free time." about the least efficient on earth. As my wife said to me the other day, rather wistfully, "Remember when I worked in an office? I had so much free time."
The bigger the office, the more time gets sucked into bureaucratic wrangling, neurotic miscommunication, and good old proletarian bullshitting. You all know what I'm talking about: the office pool, the wheel-spinning meetings, the CYA memos, the dozens of emails sent and received to facilitate a single (pointless) two-minute conference call. As a parent working at home, I don't have time for such shenanigans.
The only consolation I take in all this is that one day some of these office dwellers really will have kids and try to work at home, at which point they will realize what assholes they were. Some consolation.
In brighter moments, I fantasize about a world in which a brilliant and enlightened CEO — a mom, most likely — assigns all her mid-level managers a baby for a week. In fact, she makes her child-free employees take the baby home and work from there. Granted, a few babies might need to be rescued. But at least the larger work force would develop some sense of what work-at-home parents face. And I can't help but feeling that their productivity would go way up the following week.
©2007 Steve Almond and Nerve Media
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