The WFH Mama: The Ugly Side

“You are so lucky to work from home!”

“That’s so great that you get to be there with your daughter instead of going to the office!”

I usually hear some variation of this every day while I’m working. Most of the time, I laugh and agree. I mean, they aren’t wrong. But on bad days, I’m harshly reminded that they aren’t exactly right either. 

Working from home as a parent is a grey area. It’s straddling that line between “this is great!” and a complete mental breakdown. If you work for someone, you probably have to be on the phone or have deadlines, Zoom meetings, productivity goals, or maybe all of the above. And if you haven’t learned this yet as a parent, you will: Kids are unpredictable and as tiny little humans, have needs. 

It’s a stressful balancing act. It’s hard to laugh off a screaming baby when you’re trying to sell someone insurance. It comes across as unprofessional. Further, it’s hard to even hear anything when your baby is screaming or fussing in your arms. Baby Kas is in a very clingy phase, so she wants to be hanging onto mommy while playing with her toys. That means I’m working on the floor with one hand while the other holds her up or constantly pulls her away from my laptop. With that clinginess comes fussing. She doesn’t know why she’s fussing, so she can’t understand being quiet. Hell, my three year old stepson can’t grasp needing to be quiet because RaRa is on the phone. He’s not there yet. 

So you have a mental struggle, a physical struggle as you literally balance work in one hand and your baby in the other, and then on top of that, you have to deal with this misconception that being a work from home mom and a stay at home mom are the same thing. Why are you struggling to get basic chores like doing the dishes and vacuuming done when you’re home all day? 

And it’s not just them placing unrealistic expectations on you. You will probably be guilty of that too. Why is cooking dinner so hard? It’s not like you’ve been working and caring for a baby all day. It’s hard to not look at everything that needs to be done and feel guilty. You’re the one who is home and staring at the dirty dishes, the laundry that needs to be put away, and the general chaos of having four kids. 

I’m not trying to deter anyone from working from home. Like I said, people aren’t wrong when they say I’m lucky to work from home and be with Baby Kas. But there’s the work from home fantasy, romanticizing this as a life where I get to take a call and then spend an hour playing with my baby and then take a break to clean the bathroom or do laundry or some other chore, and then go take a nap with my baby in my arms. 

And then there’s the reality. Where some days, she entertains herself or makes super cute noises that charm my customers. And then other days, where the dishes are stacking up, the laundry is in a pile waiting to be put away, and my work day looks like this: 

So if you’re thinking of working from home with your baby or you already are, set your expectations accordingly.