My Daddy Works in His Underwear

As a work-at-home dad, I once was innocently tagged by my daughter as that dad who “works in his underwear.” Such is my home office lament.

So imagine the surprise when this mom read the subtext of what her child drew about what Mommy does for a living…

Suffice it to say, Mommy felt the need to clear the air…

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.

From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely, Mrs. Smith

Now, I’ve become quite suspicious of stuff being passed as “truth” on the Internet. But fact or fiction, this is plain funny.

I’ve worked from home since before the three Zbar offspring were springing off into a concerted effort to make my workdays a chaotic, dysfunctional mess.

Since “Take Your Child to Work Day” has no place in a home office (it’s just another excuse for them to play hookie with little actually learned about business), I have my own take on what I do here compared to kids’ reckoning of what goes on in the SOHO workspace.

Kids 10 Misperceptions About Dad’s Home-Based Job…

1. My high-school daughter comes home from school, sees me in front of the TV, and likens me to the guy from Grounded For Life…

2. … but she still thinks I’m a nut for working at 3 am (hence the need for a little R&R come mid-afternoon).

3. My kids see me as their playmate: 2 pm swimming sessions, hoops, bike rides and trips to the batting cages…

4. Or their personal financier, whose wallet is their ATM. Wait, that’s the bane of every dad. It’s just that mine is more conveniently located in the room right by the home’s front door.

5. Or as their personal chauffer. “… As long as you’re giving me $20 bucks for the movies, can you drive me there - right now?” (with right now defined as 2 pm on a weekday).

6. Or their storeroom clerk. “Daddy, I need the stapler, and your scissors, and some paper, and can you print for me this beautifully colorful (meaning it’s going to consume every micron of color ink in my insanely expensive ink cartridges) picture that’ll just wind up in some stack on my bedroom desk that’ll be thrown away in three months when you or mom or both go on a cleaning frenzy in our bedrooms that have been declared Federal Disaster Areas by FEMA…?

7. “What is it you do from that room again?”

8. Doesn’t everyone’s dad take these vacations and shuttle their kids around and sleep in the afternoon and work at 4 am and crash at 8 pm, and…?

9. My then-five-year-old (the one now going into 11th grade) told Miss Shiela and a classroom full of kids, “My mommy is a nurse, and my daddy works in his underwear.” Busted!

10. And to almost all of the above, I would happily acknowledge full responsibility, culpability and joyful embracing thereof. That 11th grader was born into a home office household back in 1991. And none of us have every looked back.
Hey, it’s better than the alternative…

We know what you’re thinking.

You see some guy working from home, walking to the mailbox in the early morning sun, cup of joe in one hand, portable phone perched in his shorts pocket. Your mind gets to thinking about his evil ways. He’s a corporate drop-out, you smirk with disdain, someone who couldn’t hack it in the “real” world.

So he shoves his wife off to work every morning to slave at her day job, so he can sit home and pretend to ply some trade – all the while catching reruns of Law & Order, and snatching up his spouse’s net at week’s end.

We’ve all suffered the snickers. We’ve been the bane of parents-in-law for half a generation now. Even my daughter has publicly misconstrued my career. When Miss Sheila asked a class full of 5-year-olds what their parents did for a living, Nicole responded, “My mommy is a nurse, and my daddy works in his underwear.” Egad!

You think being a man who works at home is all hack reruns and slack schedules? Walk a mile in our flip-flops.
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