My Daddy Works in His Underwear

My day started this past Thursday with carpool at 7 am. It was followed shortly by another carpool at 730 am. I then saw that I was to walk Bailee, a neighbor’s dog, at 11 am. From then on, my morning and early afternoon were my own — until I had to drive carpools again at 215 and 4 pm.

Oh, and Robbie was headed to Sebring for the day to visit family.

I knew this to be true because Outlook said it was.

Interesting thing about this “work day.” Outlook had no mention of any “work” at all. Just a clutch of events that had everything to do with being a work-at-home dad.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t be busy. My white board was filled deadlines, and a half-dozen open Word docs revealed a fairly filled day ahead. And that doesn’t mean I wasn’t organized and my time wasn’t well managed. I was on top of it. It’s just that “it” had little to do with work.

But I thought when I gave up my corporate job almost 20 years ago I’d also given up the commute. Apparently not. Then again, being a work-at-home dad — or parent — means juggling business and family, finding compatibility between the two when you can.

Technology makes much of this possible — and makes me more reliable as an at-home parent. When I used paper-based scheduling and calendaring, I’d regularly miss appointments because I’d simply forget them. Even with Act!, and now Outlook, if I don’t schedule Bailee’s 11 am walk, she’ll go the day without a traipse around the block, leaving me to fib to her owners that, “Why, yes indeed, I did walk Bailee. I have NO idea why she pee’d for you for five minutes…”

And I always include a reminder 15 minutes before the scheduled event — even if that event is a walk with a dog.

Some out there are grinding their teeth right now, fuming that a neighbor would impose on me — someone who’s every bit the professional of my counterpart downtown, only one who works in the suburbs — such inane chores as a dog walk. Or that I’m driving four separate carpools. I don’t really have a problem with people who ask the occasional favor — whether Bailee’s humans or my kids’ mother. We impose on others. And no one’s habitual about their imposition.

Moreover, my kids have never seen daycare, early drop-off or late-stay/after-care. So I’m OK with all this. Besides, if I have to spend time in the carloop, I’ll being my BlackBerry or laptop and get some work done.

So one recent Thursday I had a very busy day indeed. I know I did, because Outlook told me so. It just didn’t make much mention of actual work needing doing. But such is the life of a work-at-home parent. We define “work” a bit differently in these parts…

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…