Working from home - how hard can it be...? by Lorraine, mum of Joseph
We waited a long time to become pregnant with our wondrous little boy, and during those limbo years I put considerable effort into thinking about the whole work/life balance thing. Family and home were to be the absolute number one priority and I made up my mind before I was even pregnant that once I had a baby, I would be as work-shy as possible.
However, bills and mortgage payments and all the other dull things that we must cough up for don’t magically disappear with the birth of a baby! As such, I have been sadly unable to avoid all work and decided that working from home would allow me to maximise my time with baby Joseph.
Now, before Joseph was born I was one of those naively arrogant souls who thought “how hard can it be? I can beaver away whilst the little fella is asleep. Or playing. Or just being his sweet baby self.” So, throughout my pregnancy I piled up lots of work to keep me occupied during the first few months of Joseph’s life. Do feel free to laugh long and heartily at this point.
The first work I did (I am a psychologist and academic by trade) was to correct a student thesis when Joseph was five days old. He was born by c-section and was feeding constantly and I was utterly deranged. But I did the job. Since then things have become a little easier. Joseph, now six months, is not and has never been a good sleeper. He has, however, always been a mighty and lengthy feeder. This, believe it or not, is a good thing. In an average week I get to spend between 10 and 15 hours working away on the computer whilst he feeds. He is breastfed and so he lies propped up by a big cushion that in turn supports my laptop. As I am typing this article, he is feeding away and I have both hands free to type.
The biggest stressor I have found in relation to working from home with a baby is not the work itself. That is the same as it ever was (e.g. marking student work, writing psychological reports). Nor is tiredness particularly problematic. I am tired almost all the time but I can somehow concentrate, despite the fact that at times I have flatly denied reading or writing something when all evidence points to the contrary.
No, the biggest stressor has been worrying about whether or not I will make deadlines. But I always do. So far. But… I am not terribly confident that my winning streak is set to continue.
Last week I went to the birthday party of a friend’s son. This fine little chap was celebrating his very first anniversary. He and his little pals were careering round the house, averaging at least 1,001 potential accidents a minute. The mummies and daddies were continually watching, redirecting and preventing utter calamity. Witnessing one year olds in action has seriously put the wind up me. As soon as he is mobile, I think I will have to put Joseph into nursery for one day a week so that he can wear himself out knocking seven bells out of their kit. Whilst he is in nursery I can spend my time earning enough money to send him to nursery so that I can… ??? eh? How does that work!?
Seriously though, I would recommend working from home with a very small baby if you can do it as well as breastfeed your little one. Or perhaps you may be fortunate enough to have an infant who sleeps for several hours a day.
Working has kept my vocabulary up, allowed me to keep alive links with the outside world, and has paid for lots of nappies. And perhaps the odd weekend away.
One word of warning, though. People who have never had babies can have extremely misguided expectations. One student of mine complained because I didn’t respond to her e-mails for three days. She noted within her complaint that Joseph was at that time 10 days old and that surely I had had sufficient time to recover from a c-section and convince Joseph to sleep through the night! Oh well, serves me right for my own original naivety!