Well, today is my first day home alone since the week before Christmas. Both kids were going to day care on Tuesdays/Thursdays last semester since I was teaching a class on those days. This semester, I decided not to teach so that I could really make some progress in my program, but it just feels odd to be completely alone at home for a 9 hour period without having to prep/teach class and all that goes along with it. I know that I desperately need this time to read for my comp exam, do work for my RAship (which has been my primary source of income for almost the past 2 years), and think about/work on my dissertation proposal, but I often have what I deem a multifaceted "working-from-home guilt." As I just mentioned, there are numerous elements within this sense of guilt; I will name a few below:
1. Feeling bad (as I did a little this morning) that my husband dropped the kids off at day care, even though he was in a bit of a rush to make a meeting (he had asked me to drop them off, but later said that he should be able to make it). Seems a bit silly, I know. This also relates to the larger issue that some of us working moms (whether you work from home, work out of the home, or a combination of both as has been my case) deal with from time to time: guilt about day care. This waxes and wanes for me; I usually kick the guilt feeling when I reflect on the fact that it is getting increasingly difficult for me to make progress on the days that I am home with my 10 month old daughter and my son is in preschool. I have to keep telling myself that this is a job too, even if it is not a "conventional" job and I really need some time during the day to move forward. I could go on about that, but I will just end with a *sigh*.
2. Having a complex about household chores. Since I am home, I feel like I should try to do more household chores here and there. Especially on the days I am home with DD, I try to do a few tasks here and there when she is occupying herself, but sometimes I feel the tug between doing a household task and getting work done. Of course, what I end up doing also depends on the time frame I have, DD's mood and feeding schedule, etc. However, often at the end of the day I feel some sense of guilt if the house is *still* as chaotic as it was first thing in the morning because I didn't get around to giving it some semblance of order due to my work.
I guess that within those two points I mentioned there were others, but I know that there are more elements to this guilt that I have felt/thought of before and they are just not coming to mind right now!
1. Feeling bad (as I did a little this morning) that my husband dropped the kids off at day care, even though he was in a bit of a rush to make a meeting (he had asked me to drop them off, but later said that he should be able to make it). Seems a bit silly, I know. This also relates to the larger issue that some of us working moms (whether you work from home, work out of the home, or a combination of both as has been my case) deal with from time to time: guilt about day care. This waxes and wanes for me; I usually kick the guilt feeling when I reflect on the fact that it is getting increasingly difficult for me to make progress on the days that I am home with my 10 month old daughter and my son is in preschool. I have to keep telling myself that this is a job too, even if it is not a "conventional" job and I really need some time during the day to move forward. I could go on about that, but I will just end with a *sigh*.
2. Having a complex about household chores. Since I am home, I feel like I should try to do more household chores here and there. Especially on the days I am home with DD, I try to do a few tasks here and there when she is occupying herself, but sometimes I feel the tug between doing a household task and getting work done. Of course, what I end up doing also depends on the time frame I have, DD's mood and feeding schedule, etc. However, often at the end of the day I feel some sense of guilt if the house is *still* as chaotic as it was first thing in the morning because I didn't get around to giving it some semblance of order due to my work.
I guess that within those two points I mentioned there were others, but I know that there are more elements to this guilt that I have felt/thought of before and they are just not coming to mind right now!
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