Jan. WAHM hot topic: Do family/friends understand that you're a WAHM?

[Maribeth]

Do family/friends understand that you're actually "working" at home, managing a job, and have responsibilities and deadlines in addition to being a stay at home mom? Do they encroach (or try to) on your time? How do you make them understand you're not just a stay at home mom?

Share your thoughts with us! The thread will be archived for our Work At Home Parents Cubby: http://www.storknet.com/cubbies/workathome

Thanks and enjoy,
Mari

[ink-stained mom]

I'll start.

I've had to become much more aggressive about this lately; I think the problem before was that I was too willing to say, "Oh, well, I'll just work around it."

My office becomes the dumping ground for junk whenever we're cleaning up for guests; as you can imagine during the holidays, things got pretty ridiculous. I finally struck a deal with DH -- I can handle stacks on the floor, but nothing touches my desktop!

My parents are coming to visit in a week and a half; they're coming in the middle of the week, which could seriously cut into the hours I need to meet my deadlines. So I've talked to them and they're staying at a hotel (our guestroom is also my office); that way I still can work in the mornings. Getting them to come on a weekend would have been even better, but I guess I'll work on that for next time.

I think part of it is just respecting your time yourself. If you often find yourself saying, "well, I won't worry about work today" or "I'll knock off early" when something comes up, it sends a strong message to those around you.

The reason I got into this was because my schedule could be flexible; as long as my monthly deadline is met, it doesn't much matter how and when I met it. But there's such as thing as too much flexibility.

[Lizbaby4]

I work in the office 2 days a week, and work from home 3 days a week. It saves me money on gas (almost $2 a gallon ) and parking ($11 a day). My friends and family understand that I work during the day, but I am having a hard time getting dh to understand that.

My office closed at the end of last November, and relocated, so working from home was easier all the way around, however, I am working out of a closet in the baby's room. I have plans to re-do the basement, to include a home office and walk in closet for storage, but this is not a priority for dh, therefore, it sits unfinished. Plus, his brother moved in with us 2 weeks before Christmas, and he wants me to give up the baby's room so he can move his brother in there. Where am I supposed to go? I still have boxes of files that remain unpacked, because I have no where to put the stuff.

I do like the flexibility that working out of the house affords, but I have to remind dh that I could be made to work in the office 5 days a week, which means that he would have to watch the baby instead of running errands (or take her with him, and he would have to wait for her to wake up), pick the kids up from school, take them to clubs/CCD, etc, and have dinner ready at 6 pm. The occasional running is OK, but I feel as though dh takes advantage of me most of the time.

Just because I work out of the house does not mean that I am a SAHM. I suppose if I was only working part time, and worked when the kids were not around, I would consider myself one, but I work full time, and run a house and manage 4 children. How many men do that?