I’m certain there are other moms in the world who have a similar work/childcare set-up as mine, but I don't know many of them. I'm a work-from-home mom. My partner takes our son with him when he leaves for work in the morning and drops him off for part-time daycare on the way to his office. I’m left at home, often still in my pajamas when they leave, stumbling for the coffee maker and embodying many stay-at-home mom stereotypes. And I am a mom, who stays at home. That part is technically true. It just so happens that my kid isn’t always with me, and when he's not, I'm working. While it all makes sense to me, when it comes to everyone else, it looks like a lot of lines about roles and responsibilities are super blurred in our house. And you know, fair. Let's discuss.
Over the summer, my partner and I tried juggling our parenting responsibilities without additional help. He teaches, which gives him lots of flexibility in the summertime. However, we quickly discovered that there would be no way for both of us to keep up with work demands while still giving our son the attention he deserved. So we got help, in the form of a few mornings a week at a local children’s center (I still haven’t figured out why it’s not called a daycare, but whatever, I'm not here to tell others how to self-identify). My son ends up being outside of the house for about 80 percent of my workweek, and for the most part, it’s worked out really well. However there are some aspects that are trickier than I expected, and they're things that I'm sure a lot of parents deal with regardless of whether or not they work at home. But I do think a lot of childcare/work balance issues are especially hard on work-at-home parents, such as: