When it comes to picking up extra work, I’ve gotten more finicky with age. I won’t work on anything for just anyone and whatever price, and although that makes it seem as thought the extra money is less important to me now than it was when I was twenty-two, it’s actually more important, it’s downright integral. The difference now is that there’s not just a cost to the client but a cost to myself, and it’s not always easy to balance that out.   
Read the rest of this entry

Some days it sure feels like I’m trying to do it all myself, but even in my darkest woe-is-me hours, I know that I definitely, definitely am not. It would be hard to overlook the hands-on support of my does-more-than-his-fair-share husband, and then there are the “it takes a village”-style friends and family who are a part of my son’s life too, but when I take an even bigger step back and look at all the balls I’m juggling on an average day, and I see how impossible it is to do that alone, I realize how much I rely on not just a village but a sprawling network of helpers (paid and not) to keep things running (relatively) smoothly, and I imagine most other working mothers do too.
Read the rest of this entry

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to stay connected to the world if you spend most of your days in charge of a small person who calls you Mama. Join a playgroup! Frequent library storytimes! Sign up for mommy-and-me music classes! Join baby bootcamp! Start a blog! All this in the name of forming contacts with other parents of small children, presumably as much for our own sanity as for our kids’ social development. But what do you do if you’re home all day without your kid?
Read the rest of this entry

My husband is a spontaneous, adaptable good sport who shines under pressure and thrives on improvisation. And since every yin must have its yang (or is he the yang and I’m the yin?), I’m his other half, the one who depends on structure and consistency and all the pieces of my life fitting together just so or else THE WORLD IS ENDING AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIIIE. For the most part we’ve found a way to make this work in our relationship, but unfortunately we don’t always get along with our jobs as well as we do with each other: He works regular hours in a building across town, and I work eight a.m. to whenever, and wherever, depending on what day it is and who needs me. I’m the one on call for sick days and holidays, I’m the one playing chauffeur, and I’m the one working late into the night because my nine-to-five was interrupted at 10:30 by a toddler spouting volcanos of vomit all over daycare.
Read the rest of this entry

You know the saying “I’m working for the weeked?” I think it stops being true the second you have kids. Kids seem to be of the collective mind that oh-hell-no o’clock is the perfect time to wake up EVERY DAY, and none of them have even heard of Loverboy. What this means for me is that most of the time I’m not working for the weekend but working for the end of the workday; forget spending several days apart from my job, I’m excited for those several hours each night, when I might have some peace and quiet and time for myself at last before it all begins again in the morning.

Because I mostly work from home, defining the end of my workday is both harder and more important, and a lot of the time I don’t manage to do it very well. On thing I think might remedy that is having a consistent after-work ritual to help me shift the gears from workbrain to homebrain. I have some ideas, but I’m also taking suggestions. 
Read the rest of this entry

Don’t hate me because I bounced back. I promise that I diligently ate my way through the postpartum haze and I always chose sitting down instead of situps, and yet, no matter what I did, the baby weight just seemed to fall off, and four months later I was feeling fit and fly and ready to rock my pre-preg jeans, just in time to return to work. But, you see, it wasn’t my fault. It was the fault of that other kind of genes. There was truly nothing I could do about it.

And so, resigned to my speedy metabolism (but of course I wasn’t resigned; I was thanking my lucky stars and praising the heavens), I kept eating whatever I wanted and I dutifully adhered to my sedentary lifestyle and then my baby got older and breastfed less and then I got older and my body got slower and…well, here we are, a year and a half later and I’m not feeling so fit and fly and foxy anymore. My weight is more or less the same as it’s always been, but my stomach has taken on the softness of a fresh-baked doughnut (no coincidence), and my butt is spreading across the couch cushions like an army set to conquer the living room, each dimple of cellulite a minion on a mission. 

It’s been happening to me for a while now, this motherbody, but I really began to notice the difference when I started working from home almost exclusively. (For a while I was going into the office one day a week, but wouldn’t you know that day was always Tuesday, aka Doughnut Day?)

So how has working from home negatively affected my body? For one, my office isn’t a place where everyone has a bowl of candy on her desk for grabby passersby, and aside from Doughnut Day (a relatively new phenomenon), the only regular free-for-all goodies are herbal tea and fruit from someone’s backyard organic tree (welcome to Berkeley). This means that when I’m in the office I pretty much stick to the healthy lunch and healthy snacks I’ve brought from home, which is a textbook way for me to keep myself on track.

When I’m working at home, though? There’s a stocked, doorless pantry right in my field of vision all day, and instead of only eating when I’m hungry, I eat because I’m bored or anxious or sleepy or because I’m procrastinating or even just because the food is there, staring at me. For the most part, I’m not eating junk (usually), but I’m definitely eating more overall. When I’m at home, it’s easy to turn that morning cup of tea into a second morning cup and then an afternoon cup and then an early evening one too, and with milk and sugar to boot. And no matter what time of day or night, I can always go for a bowl of cereal. Add to that the fact that I don’t have to sneak my snacks from a receptionist’s bowl, and I can’t even be guilted into cutting back, even just to save face.

Based on what I’ve experienced in most workplaces (bottomless coffeepot, monthly birthday cakes, catered meetings, Doughnut Day, Bagel Day, Hot Dog Day…), I think it’s unsual that I actually have an easier time controlling my food environment in the office than I do at home (save for those damn doughnuts). As for fixing the situation, I have a variety of options–install a locking door on the pantry? rediscover exercise? hire a personal assistant to give me withering looks whenever I go for another granola bar?–but I’m also open to suggestions.

Anyone else experienced work-at-home weight gain? Anyone found a way to beat it? 

Okay, I admit it. I cheat at the Working Closet. (You know, the Flickr pool fashion parade version of Work It, Mom’s original “Working Closet” blog?) The basic idea is for members to upload photos of their work outfits, but beyond that, you can make it whatever you want to make it: a record of your wardrobe, a chance to show off your personal style, or, if you’re like me, an incentive to put some effort into what I wear to the office.

And that’s where I’m cheating. I only go to the office proper one day each week, and my Working Closet contributions only ever reflect that one day–the day I actually put on accessories, style my hair, and consider whether my shoes go with my belt go with my purse go with this decade. But the days I’m working from home? It’s all sweatpants and sweatshirts and sweaty armpits because I can’t be bothered to shower unless I’m actually going to go somewhere. It’s not a pretty picture, and certainly not the type of thing I’d submit to a public Flickr pool.

I’ve heard it said many times that mothers have much to gain from getting dressed each morning, whether that means shower/hairstyle/accessories or just changing out of pajama bottoms into some “nice” (or at least clean) yoga pants. One theory has it that changing clothes can help us change our mindframes; getting dressed can signal that it’s time to get down to business, whether that means wrangling kids or back-to-back conference calls–kind of like Mr. Rogers trading his shiny shoes for his canvas ones and his suit coat for a cardigan, only in the opposite direction.

I have all sorts of excuses why it’s easier to not worry about my appearance when I’m at home (it saves time, it means less laundry, it means less chance my son will use my pantleg as a napkin or drive his matchbox car across my favorite leather boots), but I’m starting to think I need to step it up a little lest the scales of Chic v. Slob tip irrevocably in the latter, sadder direction.

What do you wear when you’re working from home? Do you make a special effort to get dressed for the day, or do you just roll out of bed, grope blindly for the nearest pair of pants, and shuffle your way into the home office in your bunny slippers? Do you have a  WAHM mom uniform, and is it stylish or sloppy or somewhere in between?

While I was pregnant (and even before), I read a lot about the experiences of pregnant working women and, in particular, how they handled the Big Question: whether to continue working, either inside or outside the home, after the baby was born, and if so, in what capacity. Following maternity leave–six weeks? sixteen weeks? a whole year? however long it takes to pull your pants up and log in to your email account?–what were the experiences of women who went back to work full-time immediately, eased back into 40-hour weeks gradually, switched to part-time permanently, switched careers entirely, started working from home exclusively, or became stay-at-home moms, either putting their jobs on hold temporarily or giving them up completely? An analyst by nature, I knew that if a “right” answer was out there, I’d be able to find it, by golly.
Read the rest of this entry

I never thought I’d become one of those women whose priorities so obviously shifted once I became a mother. Of course I’d want my family to think they were my top priority (because they are), but I also thought I could make my bosses and coworkers feel like work was my top priority, even if common sense told them it couldn’t possibly be. I just thought that in the best of all possible worlds I could be everything to everyone—the best mom, the best employee—and no one would feel like they were getting the short end of the me stick (except maybe myself, but oh, isn’t martyrdom the curse of the modern mommy?).

Read the rest of this entry

I spent last Saturday in my sweltering home office racing to complete an assignment I told my supervisor I’d have done on Monday, no excuses. Because I only work half-time now, it takes me twice as long to complete my projects, but because I never want to be the weak link in the company chain, I’m always agreeing to impossible deadlines and then kicking myself later as I try to steal an extra hour or two (or eight) from my so-called free time (so-called because that’s what I’m working for: free). 

Parents (and mothers especially) often find themselves the subject of extra criticism in the workplace–we don’t take our jobs seriously anymore, we receive special treatment, we suffer from mommybrain–and perhaps it’s those judgements at the heart of my situation: I’m working longer, harder, better now because I’m forever trying to prove that I’m not the weakest link, that motherhood hasn’t compromised my work ethic.  

Read the rest of this entry