Dad At Work

I wonder if this is a change in our cultures over time. When I was little, I was always playing outside with whatever kids seemed to be around. Obviously I may not have recollection of if my parents were involved in meeting other parents first, etc, but it seems like my brother and I were pretty much just given free reign of the neighborhood. We didn't have "playdates", we just "went outside/to Michelle's/etc. to play".

I remember that in grade school, I often called up a friend who lived a block down and others who lived farther away to see if we could get together to play, after asking my parents if I could.

Now, my wife and I live a pretty secluded life. Our friends all live in other towns. We know no one in our current community beyond the "hello, how's it going?" conversations with neighbors. We're both introverted and I work from home, so we just don't meet other people.

I'm wondering if your neighbor is just on another wavelength, more like our parents (though maybe I'm projecting and no one else had the same situation as I when I was younger). Maybe she just sees it as normal to send the kids next door to play.

I can see my introversion is going to be a problem for my son, and I better work on changing it soon. A couple with a 1 year old just moved in next door, and it would be nice to have our son (who is now 2) be able to play with her in another year. The neighbor has invited us over "anytime". We haven't taken her up on it for the same reasons others have stated - we'd rather have someone call before just showing up. I see other families in our neighborhood with kids around his age, too, but we aren't out much in the front of the house to just meet them as they pass by.

Also, my wife and I feel we're just so busy that recreation time really doesn't exist during the week and is mingled with general house duties on the weekend. We don't like the way our house becomes during the week, but we'd rather save cleaning and chores to days when we haven't been overstressed at work.

So we've got to make changes here - to be more open with ourselves, keeping our affairs in order, finding new friends, and encouraging him to make friends. I guess that's why today kids have "playdates" - that's the only way to get them together in the world of hyper-scheduled familes and suburban seclusion.

I want to use this blog to explore some of the highs and lows of the work-at-home dad lifestyle, but I've run into the issues of wanting to write about other topics (politics, religion, pop culture, etc.) and not having material to write on here. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, it's that I don't have any single thing to write about well.

So let's brainstorm about some work-at-home dad topics to give me fodder for future posts, and some in depth features.

Health insurance for self-employed
Staying focused
Exercise
Defining your workspace for yourself and your family
Time management - doing the laundry when you should be working
A life outside the home
How to know when you're taking advantage of your flexibility
How to squeeze extra time out of your day, and how you should use that time
Personal hygeine - Yes, you can work in your boxers, but should you?
Dad as care provider
What to look for at a quality day care
How to talk to your child's day care teachers
How to say "no" to extra home expectations
Resources for the stay at home dad
Resources for the work at home dad

That's a good start. If anyone stumbles on this and wants to add more to the list, please contact me at mitch42{AT}ghostowl.net .

I'll do my best to tackle one of these topics by Friday.

The weekend is good thing for me. When Saturday rolls around I can feel justified in not following up on work emails, or trying to sneak in an extra hour or so of logged time.

On the weekends, I'm only a Dad (and husband). No conflicts of interest during the day. I have chores to do around the house. I have our son to watch (and have fun with). I have my wife to have meals with and some alone time when our son is napping or sleeping for the night.

There's never enough weekend time. There's a growing chore list for this house - of both recurring and one-off items. There's under-cabinet lighting that's been sitting around to be installed since Christmas. There's the weeds over running the landscaping. There's the lawn. There's the bathrooms. There's the playroom we're trying to get ready in the basement.

And then there's all the self-improvement things that are pushed off until we have "free time". Perusing Craigslist and the want ads for possible work. Writing the novels I've started. Entering writing contests. Writing in blogs. Exercise programs to start. Reading to catch up on.

All this and the normal Dad job of taking care if my son, which I feel includes taking time to play with him. I could just sit him in front of the electronic babysitter. We do have to do that when it's necessary for us to get something done in the next 30 to 60 minutes. But I'd like to think we don't do it very often. Today, the TV didn't get turned on at all until Jenni and went to watch a movie after our son's bedtime. We played hard today, and he really tried some walking on his own - just a step or two here and there, but it was great to see.

And now I sit here in bed trying to squeeze in some more enrichment time before I surrender to the next day and going back to balancing work and my home, while sitting amid the latter.

Today was a typical day... or what a typical used to be for me before I moved out of the office into my home office.

Of course, my company's office is a lot like my current office. The Angel Anthony Group is a four-person company run out of the home of the President and Vice President, Angel and Tony. When I lived in Wausau and started working for them, I made an effort to treat the office as a serious work space. And while there, I was involved in a lot of the grunt work of the business - answering phones, catching little fixes as requests came in, answering client emails, etc - all while I was trying to make progress on major projects.

Since I moved out, I've had a more focused role on development and maintenance work. I get a task. I work on the task. I finish and move on to the next. The little stuff gets caught by the other three still working at headquarters.

But this week, the bosses are on vacation (though still checking in every now and then). So our administrator is catching all the calls and funnelling all the little work my way.

This is great, actually. I'm not complaining. Something I'll get into later is how I work better with a full-load of tasks. Overload me with stuff and give me a firm deadline, and I'll crunch through it. Give me a few, broadly-defined projects, and I'll procrastinate until the due date and then realize I needed more time to get it done. So I've been more productive this week than I've been in a while.

Of course, I'm also a little more harried. While I stay productive when pressured, I'm seeing the deadlines of the larger items looming ahead and wondering if I'll ever get them done. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I have to make it productive, or else two or three big projects will be languishing way past deadlines.

I'm tired from today and the worry that's building over a few issues. I took a break mid-afternoon to bake a Quick-Quiche for dinner, and then when I picked our son up from day care, we went grocery shopping. Thankfully, our son was a happy kid at the store (those carts that are made to look like cars are brilliant!), or else I'd be even more exhausted now.

So early to bed tonight, I guess. And then early to tackle the long list of items on my task-list for tomorrow so that when Tony and Angel get back they don't think they can never go on vacation again.

Starting a new blog. My other one is a little out there, and not up to date with my latest internal ramblings.

I decided to do something more focused here: concentrate on my role as a working-from-home dad.

I work for a web design firm developing and maintaining sites. I work from my home about 36 hours a week. Monday through Thursday, I cram in as much work as I can, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I work 10 to 12 hours. On Fridays, I stay at home with my son. This allows us to save a little on day care and give Ben the benefit of having more time with his parents. My wife is a veterinarian, and also stays home one day a week.

So I'd like to use this space to tell you about my experiences working at home, share with you my life as a Dad, and discuss topics on these themes.

If you have any comments you'd like to share, I'll be implimenting the commenting system, or you can email me at mitch42@ghostowl.net.