If I had R50 for every time, on hearing that I was a work-from-home mom, someone would quip, “Well, at least you get to spend more time with your kids,” I’d have saved up for a deposit on my new office space lickety split.
Instead it took me three years. Three years of Angry Mommy yelling because someone had destroyed the nibs of her expensive fine liner pens.
Three years of Anxious Mommy interviewing CEOs for profiles and magazine features, from the balcony or the shower or right from the bottom of the garden where no-one could hear her autistic son scream and hoot and whoop.
Three years of Resentful Mommy, as I tried to make my family life and work life gel in the cramped square metres of our tiny townhouse, where you can hear the neighbour’s TV through the walls and your husband’s frustrated sighs when you flip open your laptop after dinner.
It got so bad that sometimes I found myself longing for my days in corporate and the serenity of my office cubicle – with its pinboard walls and neatly highlighted schedules. It’s only once you go freelance that you truly appreciate the perks of a 9-to-5 job. Medical aid. Pension fund. Office canteen. Unlimited access to the printer. The security of a monthly paycheck.
You know what’s ironic? Working from home is supposed to be the holy grail of employment. Especially for new moms who want to spend time with their babies, while at the same time bringing home some bacon.
Me? I hated it. No matter how determined I was to keep ‘work’ and ‘family’ in separate boxes, they kept elbowing each other in the ribs.
I just couldn’t make working from home, well…work.
Most of all, I hated what it meant about me as a mother that I wasn’t enjoying the privilege of spending the extra time with my kids.
Because there are perks to working from home as well. You can go grocery shopping at 10am when the mall is deserted, and pop dinner in the oven while the kids are having an afternoon nap and you’re taking a break from typing up your latest article. Most of all, you can Be There for your children. Do school drop-offs. Kiss ouchies. Make mud pies.
But these things weren’t enough for me. I felt hollow inside (and frantic, because it’s hard to make mud pies with joyful abandon when you should be meeting a 4pm deadline).
At the beginning of this year my husband put his foot down, and insisted that I get an office. It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order.
I’m still self-employed, but now I no longer work from home (except for the odd occasion). I have a glorious, 41m2 office space, that is 15 mins away from home…an oasis of child-free calm and reams of decadent blank A4 paper unmarred by Crayon artworks. I have a business partner, we have employees and have graduated from freelancing to being a small agency.
You know what I’ve learned? It’s not freedom that I wanted when I started freelancing – it was flexibility. I didn’t want to spend more time with my kids; I just wanted a flexible enough work environment that I could Be There for my kids – WHEN they need me to Be There.
Without the stress of not clocking in at 8.30am and having to explain to my boss that I’m late again because I got roped into a chat with a teacher as I was putting my two-year-old’s bag into his locker. Or having to ask for yet another afternoon off so that I could fetch the kids from daycare because my husband has an appointment and can’t make it.
For me, that that’s perk of being self-employed and renting office space instead of working from home. I’m there for my family when it matters, but I can still pursue what matters to me.
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