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Do the Kids Even Know that I work?
How do I model my professional status when I work from a home office?
Sometimes I wonder what my kids think of their remote-working mother. They must know I work — I feel like I spend 90% of their summer vacation ordering them out of my home office — and yet they will bypass their dad to interrupt me because he’s “busy.” Is this because of deep-seated gendered biases that they have absorbed from our culture? Is it because they think I’m a softer mark? It’s hard to tell.
Remote work has given me more freedom to choose the type of mother I want to be. Before my daughter was born I decided I would be the mother who cooks. I am also the mother who works full time, but that was a given. I prefer to keep my family in rent and groceries. Ergo, I work full time. Cooking from scratch is my choice. I grew up in a family that showed love through good food. As an adult I equate simple ingredients with health. And so I make time before work, on my lunch breaks, and after work, to do things like make bread or simmer chili. Instead of commuting to work I make waffles.
I worry that my kids think I’m doing it all. Or that they discount the outside work I do because I perform it inside the home.
