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Working Overtime,
Even at Home, Is Hard on Mom and Family
© 1999,
by Azriela Jaffe
For women and men in search
of a way to spend more time with their children, working from
home, as opposed to an outside office, is often viewed as the
solution to the problem. Freed from mandatory working hours,
the inability to be at home when children come home from school,
or the inflexibility of two weeks vacation and five sick days
a year, some professionals find that working from home provides
just the balance they need for also caring for their family.
The concept sounds
good, but it doesn't always work as well as hoped for. Working
full-time, even at home, is still working full-time.
Recently I heard
from Shelley Coolidge, a colleague I met when she was a staff
writer for a large national publication, and she interviewed
me a few times for various feature stories. She seemed to have
the best of both worlds - she was on staff for the publication,
but allowed to work from home. So, I was surprised when she sent
me an email announcing her new website, Shop
For Your Kids.
(It has links to more than 100 of the best places on the internet
to shop for your kids - check it out!)
Shelley shared
a story with me that will be familiar to many women and men who
are constantly searching for the right balance between work and
child care:
"Two years
ago, I relocated from Boston to Los Angeles, to take a new assignment
at the national publication where I was employed. At the time
I was five months pregnant with my first child, and I knew the
new assignment would be a tremendous amount of work. But the
job also allowed me to work full time out of my home, which I
thought would make it easier to balance a full time career as
a reporter and motherhood."
"I wasn't
getting any special treatment - it was just one of the benefits
of the new job. Almost all of the bureau writers work from home
-it saves the paper big bucks -no office space to rent, etc.
I assumed working from home would make it much easier to balance
motherhood and a full time career. And it did in many ways.
"My daughter
was born in April 1998. I took a four month maternity leave,
and then headed back to work full time, still working from home.
I had a great care situation. My sister-in-law watched our daughter
in her home five hours every morning. Then I worked during her
afternoon nap and late into the evening, to finish up my work.
"The set
up was just great. It worked well for me to knock off work in
the later afternoon (when my daughter woke up) and have some
down time with her and then go back to work, rather than work
twelve consecutive hours, which is what I used to do when I worked
in our Boston office. At the end of those twelve hours I wasn't
all that productive."
As most working
mothers discover, whatever caregiving set up we establish for
our children is always subject to change, and can, with a snap
of the fingers, go from perfect, to not working at all. Shelley
knew her child care arrangement was temporary. It lasted for
five months until her sister-in-law ( and caregiver) became pregnant
and Shelley needed to find another care provider.
Shelley then
pieced together a combination of daycare and stay-at-home mom
sitters, but she found the constantly changing schedule exhausting.
She also wanted to spend more time with her daughter, who she
found increasingly engaging as she grew into a toddler.
People often
asked her ( and me), "why do you even need child care when
you work from home?" I applaud Shelley's response: "
Being a mom is a full-time job and so is being a reporter. I
can't do two full-time jobs at once."
Shelley got permission
from her employer to work part-time from home, and she and her
husband gave up all company benefits and made the necessary cut-backs
in household expenses and savings. What Shelley longed for was
the ability to work no more than 40 hours a week, and that's
what brought her to launching her new website. Shelley shares:
"Now, I
spend about 20-25 hours a week writing and another 15 hours a
week on my web site. Some people say, 'Well, that's close to
40 hours a week, where's the scaling back?' When I worked as
a staff writer, I regularly put in 50 hour weeks and I always
had a deadline for my editors. Now, if I don't meet a deadline
on my website, it's no big deal, because I'm the boss!"
The notion of
full-time work may range from 35 hours a week for some employers,
to an expectation of 60-80 or more hours a week, depending on
the company and corporate culture. Even working from home will
tear you away from being present for your family more than you'd
like, if you are expected to do the work of two people.
The question
for each parent is really not, "full-time or part-time",
but, "how many hours do I want to work, so that I can still
parent my children the way that I'd like to, in the way that
they need from me?" That question must be balanced with
financial needs as well.
Shelley has found
her answer, for now, anyway. She expects it to continue to change,
as she and her family grow and develop. Nothing in life is static,
especially entrepreneurial life.
- Azriela Jaffe is the founder of "Anchored
Dreams" and author
of Honey,
I Want to Start My Own Business, A Planning Guide for Couples (Harper Business 1996),
Let's
Get Into Business Together, Eight Secrets for Successful Business
Partnering (Avon Books, 1998) and Starting
from No: Ten Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection and
Suceed in Business. (Dearborn 1999).
For a free online newsletter for entrepreneurial couples, or
for information about her syndicated column, "Advice from
A-Z", email [email protected].
Questions and reader response can be emailed, or write to: PO
Box 209, Bausman, PA 17504.
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