Kelby Carr

It’s Mother’s Day, and I’m happy. I got to sleep in (first time since, like 2003, I think). I came downstairs to find three children making me construction-paper-and-crayon Mother’s Day cards. Life is good.

I love that I finally get to spend more time with my children (in December I switched from long-time hardcore workaholic career mom to working at home all but one day a week). But the road there has lasted since I was pregnant with my daughter (and she’s 5). We did spend a year in France with my daughter, but to do that we sold our house and lived off our equity.

The rest of the time, I’ve worked full-time by day, raised children, busted my ass after bedtimes and before waking times freelancing. I’ve been doing a job (writing) for years that absolutely did not require my presence in an office, and absolutely could have been done from home. I’ve got plenty of experience to qualify me to do this job (more than 15 years). But no employer has allowed it (especially being that I was in the paranoid and twitchy newspaper business until 2006).

It took all of that time, all those years, all those late late nights, to hit a critical mass of freelance work and work at home clients that I could stay at home.

Ridiculous.

Sadly, when it finally happened, I was in a day job I finally loved. But the fact still remained: it was physically away from my children.

It’s exactly the reason, it’s the entire motivation and purpose, behind my creating Type-A Mom. I wanted to create one option, as unimportant as that might be, where moms who want to work at home (and who deserve to have the best of both worlds) actually can. The site is still young, just a year old, and it’s still building, but that is my dream.

So here is my Mother’s Day wish. Companies will finally get it. Companies will make it not only allowable for moms to work at home (and dads, too!), but encouraged. Sure, there are many positions in which you physically need to be there. In many, many jobs you don’t. At all.

So why are companies still requiring that moms be there, despite studies and anecdotal evidence that moms not only can accomplish work at home, but that those who work at home are, in fact, often times more productive? Just so they can get that warm and fuzzy feeling one gets from hovering over an employee?

So companies, how about it? Treat your moms right. Make our lives easier. Let us work from home.

Shoot, it’s not like you need to be selfless and take a hit for doing so. COMPANIES benefit from letting parents work from home. You need less space, no insignificant factor considering the cost of real estate. You need less equipment. It benefits the environment, as there are fewer people commuting. It’s quite simply a win-win.

And what of your big fear? That moms will just “work” at home, but really goof off. Well, fire them. Just like you would fire someone who goofs off and gets nothing done in the office. Not too complicated.

To hell with the Mommy Wars. Make it so any mom, all moms, don’t have to choose between work and home. We can do both, and we should be able to do both.

Do you know of a company that is amazingly family-friendly and allows moms to job share, work from home, telecommute, or generally be devoted to kids and work? Comment below so they get some recognition, and so moms know where to apply.

Photo of working mom by Piotr Bizior.

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