MM Comment
Attention all work-at-home mums! Don’t feel that you have to make excuses for not going out to work! MM’s editor takes a wry look at working from home…
As a freelance journalist, no two hours let alone two days are the same. One minute I can be running across Northern Ireland to interview someone for MM, and the next writing an email in the persona of one of my clients. It’s busy, busy, busy - but always varied and interesting - and, I like to think, I’m setting my daughter a good example by enjoying a career that I love. So, you can imagine my amazement
when I read my daughter’s essay homework – ‘My mother’s job’ - the other night. ‘My mum,’ the little darling had written,
‘doesn’t really have a ‘job’. She works at home as a journalist, so she usually meets people for coffee, talks to them and then types.’ To say I was shocked would be the
understatement of the year. My daughter didn’t, I realised, see me as a busy career woman churning out reams of Pullitzer Prize-winning material. No, to her, I was just a coffee-swilling chatterbox who, oh yes, also did a bit of typing. My shock was only compounded the
next evening when I was regaling friends with the tale. ‘I mean,’ I gushed breathlessly,
‘Typing???? Typing? I’m creating…..’ But then, I reminded myself, my
daughter is simply buying into the idea 64 Modernmum
that women, who stay at home, or who work at home, aren’t really doing anything. More worryingly, it’s a concept that has been voiced to me on occasion by people who, to be honest, should know better! Why is it that women, who work from
home, feel that they have to explain themselves to others? Now, I know that I’m in a very unusual
and lucky position. While almost all of my friends have well-established careers, which combine full-time hours and often long commutes, as a writer, I can work from home, with no travelling and no long hours at the office. It’s not the first time someone has said to me, ‘gosh you’re so lucky working your own hours’ and I’ve had to stop myself from replying, ‘yes, and I find that the harder I work, the luckier I get!’ While I can certainly work my own
hours, I can also be at the computer at five o’clock in the morning or at midnight – or beyond – to meet a deadline for someone, who has given me a job
lastminute.com. Not too many offices open at these times, hmmmm? Put simply, the question, ‘And what do
you do?’ doesn’t worry me in the slightest. I could have had a high-flying, structured career if I’d wanted one, but, instead, I always went down the line of
doing my own thing. By being a stay-at- home - but working - mum, I get the best of both worlds. For a start, I get lots of ‘me time’. There
are plenty of days when the ironing may be falling out of the basket, the floors need mopped, and the garden needs weeded. These chores will get done, but, as a work- at-home mum, they’ll get done in my time. Very often, I can be found of a morning sitting out on the patio with a good book and a cuppa. Does it bother me? No, because I know that me-time is also very important. By starting work extra early in the morning I don’t feel any guilt at taking time for myself during ‘work hours’. There’s no doubt that being a work-at-
home mum can be isolating. But only if you allow it to be. Not having to go to work means that you can miss out on the fun of girly chats at the office, but it’s very easy to make your own interactive time – hence my ‘coffee-swilling interviews’. If you’re a work-at-home mum, it’s time
to stand up and be counted. Be proud of being a work-at-home mum! Make sure that your kids appreciate that what you do is just as important as the work of those mums, who leave the house first thing in the morning! Now, I’m just off to type….
And
what do you do?
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