Let’s look at Patti, a forty-year-old web developer, and mother of three children. Patti’s testimony is refreshingly different from the others I’ve collected. She and her husband, Scott, a mortgage consultant, decided upon the arrival of their third child that Patti would bring her full-time career to an office at home.

Patti’s decision to bring her occupation home was a result of a constant angst she was experiencing. During the early years of her two oldest children’s lives, she had been working full-time outside of the home while her children attended daycare. She recalls being plagued with feelings of guilt. She recalls feeling “unhappy, unbalanced, not right.” Her desire was to be able to see her children off to the bus in a calm, peaceful way each morning and to be at home waiting for them when they arrived home from school. Scott loved the idea of having her in the home, and supported her fully.

The nature of Patti’s work allows her to perform her job from home. She is now going into the office only once per week for meetings and other tasks.

Although her pay scale remained the same, there were other sacrifices that accompanied this new venture. Patti was well aware that the opportunity to earn the highest amount of money possible would be sacrificed in this decision. After her employer offered Patti a lead position, she and Scott discussed the opportunity. Although excited by the new prospect, Scott and Patti both agreed that the added responsibility would require too much time away from the family, and Patti turned it down. In a conversation with her husband during the decision-making process, she recalls him saying, “You can’t have it all.” She now recalls this as being “a decision I’ve never regretted.”

Obstacles have inevitably been a part of the decision for Patti to put her family first. She describes it as “going against the grain,” and believes her situation to be a privilege. Patti believes that most employers are not yet ready for this kind of employee arrangement, stating that she has had to fight a hard battle to acquire the kind of schedule she now has. Co-worker jealousy has also been an occasional complication in her situation.

Patti says that since the career adjustment, she has finally found the sense of balance and peace she had been seeking. She now feels she is a better mom, wife and employee. She has made a conscious effort to make the time before school a peaceful experience-to make her home a place where her children like to be.

Patti is proud to take advantage of her favorite time of day-the small twenty minute window of time she’s noticed after her children return home from school. This is a time in which her children are open for discussion, and a time in which she feels they need her the most. She uses this time to discuss whatever is on their minds that day, but even when the children have nothing to say-they know that Patti cared enough to make herself and her ear available.