Can the passage of time ever assuage parental guilt? After all, brooding over what can’t be changed is a pointless diversion. Unfortunately, guilt is a duplicitous bedfellow – and one which never sleeps. So even though, in my own case, my children are ‘all grown up’ (two married, one living abroad and one at university 100 miles from home), thoughts are often triggered about my deficiencies as a mother during their upbringing. Not least thanks to the ubiquity of the so-called work from home ‘revolution’, which frequently leads me to pick at the past.
You see, my name is Angela and working from home made me a bad mother. Not for the reasons just given by Ofsted head Sir Martyn Oliver, who last week said that parents working from home ‘makes children feel school is optional’. In my case, I was always more than happy – enthusiastically so – to usher my children out of the door. I was keen to discharge potential interruption (as well as the small matter of their education).
By the time the children came home from school, I was ratty
No, what made me a bad mother was giving up office life to work from home in the first place. It was transformative for all the wrong reasons, reducing me to a bored, lonely and frustrated version of myself. It’s why I feel the need to roar a warning at any prospective parent even thinking of opting out of office life presenteeism.
When I gave up a newspaper staff job to go freelance after becoming pregnant with my second child, I thought it would be the perfect compromise. I’d tried working part-time from the office with my first-born, and it had been a hassle (nearly missing seeing him turn in an impressive performance as a tomato in a harvest presentation). This was the early 90s when mobile phone connectivity was hardly the norm. On one occasion, I remember an usher approaching me in the local magistrate’s court where I was covering a case to say the office had rung – my eldest had thrown up his lunch and I needed to pick him up from nursery. Verdict guilty – that was just me.
Surely, I told myself, writing from home would be a far better option with an expanding family. And so, I did it. For years and years. And there were practical benefits: no scrambling for cover during school holidays, for example. But I never did anything properly. With no set hours, I’d find myself yearning to finish writing a piece even though the children were home from school, and I needed to dish up an unremarkable shepherd’s pie. When an editor rang to discuss alterations to a feature, I longed for my desk and resented the conflict. It probably showed.
More significantly, I was bored and lonely. I hated that I didn’t have to dress smartly. That I could go the entire day without seeing an adult – or enjoy the spark of sharing ideas in a lively conference meeting. As such, by the time the children came home from school, rather than being a merry, beaming momma, I was ratty. I desperately missed the fabled water cooler chats. When we came back from holiday, there were no workmates to coo over my tan or look at my photos (pre-Facebook). All trivial matters – but ones that would conspire together to make me feel lost. Meanwhile, I tussled with the guilt of not enjoying parenting more even though I loved the very bones of my children to distraction.
With naked envy, I would see working mums at the school gates, flustered in their suits and heels, as they gave exuberant welcomes to their children. They’d had their fill of adult time and were ready for the blare of the telly. I remember doing a school rota with one friend who couldn’t make the pick-up since she had to work late in the office. I wanted to help and did. But inside, I boiled with indignation. I wanted to be that person – heck, I told myself arrogantly that I was smarter than her. Yet for all my sparkling exam results, I didn’t have physical real-time validation from adults. Which made me grumpy as the kids piled in the car. I’d even find ways of delaying going home from school – say doing the supermarket shop – so I didn’t have to be in the house in the middle of the afternoon when my working sisters were elsewhere.
Thankfully my brood don’t seem to be worse for it. Proudly I can claim they are funny, affectionate, with an admirable social conscience and strong work ethic. Though they do joke – and I wince at this – that their home life was hallmarked by the ‘clang of my office door’.
These days I feel I serve them better for the career I now have – half office-based, half in studios (I’m a broadcaster as well as a writer). I just wish I’d had it then. So I tell women who think working from home is the best option to think again. Negotiate flexible hours if you need to. But don’t surrender the office. It may be a juggle but you’ll be better for it. And your children won’t remember the clang of your study door.
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