At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
~Golda Meir
You know she’s a monkey. I mean, at least part monkey. She’s two years old and becoming obsessed with the space between her big toe and second toe. She tears off her shoes and socks to examine it closely. She’ll pull out a piece of lint and ask herself, “What’s that?” But then she transforms.
Something about the way she walks makes her seem like a little elf. She thinks no one is looking and she stealthily makes her way into the innocuous oven that comes with her kiddie kitchen. She’s just the right size to sneak inside. She likes to hang out in there and wait for someone to find her. This is tremendous progress from her hiding by shielding her eyes while she sits in plain view.
Suddenly she’s out of the oven and again she is transformed. She’s a fairy sprinkling magic dust around the family room as she visits with her toys and dolls. Or are they cookie crumbs?
It’s easy to be spellbound by this creature. Dalia Maria. She changes all the time. Excited and jumping one moment. Small and snuggly the next. Her index finger strokes her nose as she enjoys her delicious thumb. I want to just take her and hug her and drown her in kisses. But while she is full of magic, I am cursed with a headset and laptop that keep my fingers typing. I have this wonderful consulting job that allows me to work from home so that I can be with her, but I’m seldom really with her. I have to have my eyes on the monitor at all times, my ears perked to hear the special bell that indicates someone is sending me a message on IM that I need to respond to. My phone is either on or recharging as I jump from conference call to conference call.
Dalia lives in a netherworld of playing games, dressing dolls, discovering ants, reading books and watching Sesame Street. I live in an alternate universe of connections and being connected, responding to a never ending stream of e-mails and listening to what seem like interminable “virtual” meetings discussing the same issues, challenges, risks and mitigations day after day after day. The daily grind is shaken often by critical messages that need to be sent out, urgent meetings that need to be arranged to discuss essential topics that cannot wait until Monday. You would think we were saving lives and not creating software.
I have slacked off and left my computer to go play with Dalia. It is so blissful to get down on the floor with her and make the Little People dance and sing, or color in her Diego coloring book. But when my time is up and I return to my computer, she cries and screams and the chastising eye of the babysitter makes me understand that sometimes it is better if I just stay in my office and not “torture her” with Mommy’s presence. So sometimes I sit behind a closed door and listen to her laugh and sing, hear her ask for water or beg for a cookie and I have to stand my ground and not let her in.
Our babysitter is Colombian and speaks almost no English. She has taught Dalia to say that “Mamá está trabajando (Mommy is working).” My daughter now understands this to mean, “Mommy can’t be with you because she is doing something else, something more important that has to take precedence.” And it kills me that this is the case.
I am blessed to be able to have the flexibility to be at home — if my daughter is sick, if we are leaving that night for a trip and I need to pack during my lunch hour, if I have to throw in a load of laundry — I can do those things. I can dial into a virtual meeting and have my laptop ready and connected to a wireless Internet. Not everyone has this option.
But sadly, the picture that other working moms have of me sitting with my child on my lap typing, happily running around in our yard or visiting the park, is just not a real one. I am the mom waving goodbye as a babysitter takes her away to do those wonderful things. I tried visiting her at the pool to see her splashing and having fun but once she laid eyes on me, there was no turning back. Either we all had to go home together or I had to stay. There was no way she would let me leave. And a conference call was planned so we all had to head home. Mommy seems to take all the fun out of everything.
Until 5:00 P.M. Until the laptop closes, and dinner calls, and Dalia and I put on our aprons and make dinner or play a game or go for a walk and then we are free. At 5:00 P.M., I’m like every other working mom who is so happy to be done with my day and so happy to spend time with my baby. Working from home isn’t the same as being at home. It’s a subtle difference I’ve learned to accept.
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