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Parenting in the Home
Office
When my husband and I launched our home-based business a few years back, the
local newspaper sent a reporter over to take a picture of my partner and I spending
"quality time" in our home office with our three preschoolers.
It was a lovely photo: the kids looked like model children, we looked like model parents, and the office was so tidy that it looked like - you guessed it! - a model home office!
But it was all a big charade.
Underneath the desk were laundry baskets full of clutter, and Neil and I were actually smiling through clenched teeth as we tried to cajole our three active offspring into simultaneously co-operating for the photographer. ("Leave the keyboard alone, Scott. Julie, put your gum back in your mouth. Erik, sit still while the photographer takes our picture.")
As anyone who has tried to run a business from home can tell you, there is a downside to having both a family and a home-based business. Most people find it's a constant struggle to try to balance the needs of the family with the needs of the business.
While we still have a long way to go (just call us on any P.A. Day and find out for yourself!), we are slowly learning how to tame our home office.
Here are a few of the strategies that have worked for us:
Our Office is Our Castle. The office has always been - and probably will always be - off-limits to the children. We put up a baby gate to try to keep them from getting at the computer and, at first, that did the trick. When they learned how to take down the baby gate, we hung doors on either end of the office. When our youngest learned how to use doorknobs, we installed locks. The good news is that the locks generally do the trick. The bad news is that we sometimes forget to lock up when we're finished in the office, and have - on a number of occasions - found five year old Scott merrily editing whatever file was left open on the computer. (Thank God for automatic backups!)
Our Office Hours Are... In the early days of the business, we made the mistake of letting the telephone take precedent over anything that might be happening on the home front. I'd take the cordless phone into the bathroom at night and field any calls that came in while I was bathing the kids. (Ever try to sound professional with three kids fighting in the bathtub? Trust me: it can't be done!) We also noticed that the kids - Scott in particular - would start to get into mischief as soon as the phone started ringing. The solution for us was to train ourselves to ignore the phone during inopportune moments, and to try to confine business calls to business hours.
The Search for Mary Poppins: Any naive ideas we had about being able to run a business and care for kids simultaneously were soon tossed aside. We have been fortunate enough to find a couple of excellent part-time childcare providers who are willing to work around our zany schedules. We know our children are getting the time and attention they deserve, and we don't have to deal with the frustration that stems from constant interruptions. An added bonus: I no longer have to pretend that everything is under control while I'm speaking to business clients. (I was once interviewing the President of one of Canada's best known market research firms when all Hell broke loose in the background. I apologized profusely for the interruptions, and mentioned how I hated to have to keep putting him on hold because he was such a busy man. His gracious response? "I don't think I'm as busy as you are!")
In Praise of Date Night: Setting aside time for your partner - even if it means blocking off one night a week for "date night" - is critically important when you're sharing your home with a business. (Neil's strategy, God bless him, is to write his name on my appointment calendar whenever he wants to spend time with me!) During our busy times, we may end up spending "date night" stuffing envelopes, but if we do so over a bottle of wine while watching a good movie, it almost - almost - feels like a real date.
The Great Escape: The only time we're really able to relax is when we pack our bags and head out of town. Then, we really appreciate what we have as a family, and return from vacation more committed that ever to taming the home office monster.
While we certainly haven't got the problem licked, it is getting easier.
We've established childcare routines that allow us to separate work time and family time.
The children are getting older and are learning to respect the fact that they can't touch things in the office. (We do, of course, have momentary relapses, like when Scott decided to use the paper-cutter to chop up a business card he found lying on the coffee table, and when Erik used the CorelDRAW! CD to decorate his LEGO castle!)
We've also learned to put the needs of the family ahead of the needs of the business as much as possible. The reason? We want our kids to have fond memories of their growing up years, not to spend their adult years wondering why their parents raised them in an office!
And so in the inevitable tug of war between the family and the business, these days it's the family that's winning.
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Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books on pregnancy and parenting, including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books and The Mother of All Baby Books. She is also the co-author of The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby (2nd edition). Ann teaches online pregnancy and baby courses through WebMD.com. She can be contacted via her Web site at Having-a-baby.com.
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