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Being a work-at-home-mom I have done it all from changing diapers, to attending calls, feeding the little one to preparing client reports, school pick up to analysing data, tantrums to typing emails. But this does not stop me from making confessions of being a WAHM...

When my daughter was born, I had already exhausted my three-month maternity leave and as I was not confident to resume to work, so I took another three months unpaid leave. And after six months of a long sabbatical leave, I was still not very positive to leave my daughter. Also, getting back to work was giving me jitters as I thought that I had forgotten everything at work and was only good at handling a baby (motherly instincts). I did resume to work, but it was for a very short term as I resigned after a month. Soon after I applied for work at home jobs and I was lucky to get one within a month of resigning. And now I am a work-at-home-mom (WAHM).

So now when people ask me what I am doing I tell them that I work from home. On this, I get varied reactions. Some are like "wow isn't it lovely you get to spend time with your baby and work as well", "best of both the worlds", "that's so good" and blah blah blah...

Office going moms give me a jealous look and stay-at-home-moms often wonder how I manage to do the house work, baby work, and office work altogether. Well, to be a WAHM has its pros and cons; and how I wish that there were more than 24 hours in a day to finish all my work. I have to designate time for my baby, hubby, family, office work, housework, friends and myself (literally in the order).

I don’t have to dress up for my calls and meetings as most of them are on Skype. But at the same time taking calls can be challenging. Once I had a call with my manager and after ten minutes of the conversation, I realized that I was speaking in ‘Parentese' ( a language spoken unknowingly by new parents to connect with their babies). On realizing my tone, I excused myself for the same ... but since then my manager keeps reminding me to stay off parentese during calls (as he was quite amused by it). Another incident which I remember quite vividly is that I was in the middle of my appraisal call and my daughter wanted to go to the bathroom. So she walked up to me and said, “Mumma, potty coming". At that point, I was in a catch 22 situation not able to figure out which issue was more important and should be given priority.

Another setback is that kids want immediate attention. If I am in the middle of an important task, like reading, typing, thinking or emailing I have no other option but to request my daughter to wait for 5 minutes. But she just comes back within maybe say 30 seconds and says, "Mom listen to me please put away your laptop and listen". And as soon as I hear this, feelings of guilt set in. I feel that I do not spend enough time with her while staying at home.

As I have flexible working hours, I do most of my work when my little one is at school or at home. So every day I have to bill for a certain number of hours, but on some godforsaken day, I am not able to meet the required hours, due to my daughter's unpredictable sleep pattern. And this reminds me I have to work on her sleeping habits also.

But none the less being a WAHM, I enjoy every bit of my baby world, professional world, and personal world though sometimes feeling of guilt knocks at my door.

Let me know if you are a WAHM and have any guilt feelings.

Shubhra Rastogi

After nearly a decade of working as a practicing doctor, healthcare analyst, medical writer and above all a mother of a 3-year-old, finally decided to pursue my passion for writing.

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