Working Hard or Hardly Working

Posted by Diane Laney Fitzpatrick Jun 21, 2007

I have so much respect for the mom who works from home with little ones scampering about.

Some years ago, with a toddler and a preschooler at home, I was doing some freelance writing from our suburban Washington DC house. Many of my assignments had me on the phone with people in the Capitol and the White House.

I was new to freelancing, but I knew how to come across as a professional and to hide the fact that I was in sweats, barefoot and drinking coffee out of a chipped cup.

What I couldn't hide was the fact that I had two rambunctious boys, who loved to turn up the TV full volume whenever Mr. Rogers sang the neighbor song, and who waited until they saw the phone to my ear to cry or complain about each other.

Occasionally I had to crawl into a closet to do a phone interview.

I became a big fan of mothers' helpers and hired any 10-year-old girl I could find to come over after school to play with the boys while I made calls. Then I'd wait until everyone was asleep to do my writing.

Not exactly the way I had pictured a freelance writing career, but it got the job done.

I once read an interview with a successful novelist who said the only way she could get any writing done was to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and write for a few hours before her kids got up. No waiting for inspiration, no time for writers' block, no luxury of "being in the mood" to write - she wrote as fast and efficiently as she could until the baby monitor made its first sounds of the day.

If being a stay-at-home mom for you means being a work-at-home mom I hope you find whatever strategies work for you.

Hopefully, they keep you out of the closet.