Working from home doesn’t eliminate good-byes | Jul 30th 2007
by Jacqueline Dooley
The other day I was hugging my children goodnight and preparing them for a one-day business trip I’d scheduled for the next day. “I’ll be gone before you get up tomorrow, so be good for daddy. I’ll see you Tuesday.”
It’s something I’ve said a lot over the past few years in one form or another, and it always makes me a little heartsick. What it boils down to is that it doesn’t matter how many times I say good-bye, I always regret leaving my children behind.
My expectations were somewhat naïve when I started working from home. I wanted more time with my child (I only had one back then) which eliminating the commute, however short, definitely gave me. But I also wanted to avoid the heart wrenching separation anxiety I felt each morning when my toddler sobbed and begged me to stay home. Unfortunately, self-employment didn’t change that as much as I thought it would.
It doesn’t matter whether you work from home, have to deal with a daily commute or fall somewhere in between, working parents are accustomed to frequent good-byes. Each day, whether my kids are home or in school, I hang out with them for as long as I can and then I kiss them on the cheek, give them a big hug and say good-bye.
Some days I welcome this good-bye, even though it inevitably produces that now familiar tug of sadness as I ascend the stairs to my office. Separation can be a good thing. It makes me appreciate the time I have with my kids more than if they were always near me. It also gives my children an opportunity to connect with other people in their lives – their father, their teachers, their friends.
But I’ll admit that most days the tug of sadness I feel during those morning goodbyes doesn’t completely go away. What’s even worse is that by 5:00 p.m., I’m often emotionally and physically spent, having been up since 6:30 a.m. running around all day.
I wish I could offer up the perfect solution to the ever-present feeling of missing my children. I’d thought that self-employment would be the answer, but I was wrong. I can dream of vast wealth and the unlimited freedom it would give me to spend my days the way I want, but that doesn’t change the number of times I say good-bye to my kids each week.
For me, the process of self-actualization – of realizing what it is I want to do with my life and building a path towards that dream, brick by painful brick, is all part of the learning process. Right now my family needs me to work full-time, and I’ve been able to create a business that gives me the flexibility to do that AND maximize my time with my children.
But I’m afraid that’s not enough for me. I am determined to find a better way to success – one that reduces the number of good-byes, allows me some time to work on something I love and will eventually provide for my family, and doesn’t take everything out of me each day.
I know it sounds unlikely, but if you asked me if it was possible for me to do my job entirely from home five years ago, I would’ve said, “probably not, but I have to try.”
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, July 28, 2007.