If a father took a part-time job at home he would likely be referred to as first an employee of XYZ company and second as the primary care giver of his children.

I’d prefer the term “flexible work arrangement” which would mean that the job allows you to work around caring for your children. Why should ads touting jobs for stay-at-home moms not continue? Because those ads lessen the work of motherhood. Being a full time caregiver IS a job. When we expect women to both care for children and hold down paid work we are expecting too much and setting up moms to feel like failures.

I need to squeeze in at least one hour of work to check emails and send out a few critical pieces of correspondence but PBS Kids isn’t cutting it. He’s wandering around looking for something to do. That means pulling all the tape from the tape dispenser, removing every star shaped sticky note from the pad, and dumping paper clips across my work table.  Actions like this used to bother me a lot but what am I going to do? Getting upset about it won’t change the situation. He needs my attention and I have responsibilities to both him and work.

Now that I’ve caught up on my emails he is helping me write this post by pushing the enter button every few spaces. In a few years both of my kids might  actually be helpful around the office. I can assign little chores or they can do their homework at my work table while I type away at the desk. For now, however, on the days when they are home thanks to a snow day or illness I’ll do my best to enjoy their busy little hands getting into everything and creating paper clip works of art around my office.

The lousy thing about telecommuting is that because I work from home it just naturally falls into my lap that I “stay home” with the kids on the snow day. Should I work in an out-of-the home office I suspect we would flip a coin to see who calls in for the day.

You may be able to check a few emails here and there but a day’s work will not get done (at least get done well) with small children running afoot.