There's no place like home for take-the-kids-to-work day

One day, my daughter's teacher directed a disapproving tone across the desk at my wife and me. "Your daughter," she said, "believes that neither of you have a job."

There it was. It was hard to know what to say. Both my wife and I work at home. She is a "writer," I am a "freelancer." We can also call ourselves "consultants." There is, in fact, no one in our house who goes off to work. I stammered some explanation. Somehow, we moved on and completed an otherwise positive parent-teacher conference.

Thursday, on "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day," this lack of official household employment poses a special dilemma. Our daughter gleefully put her finger on it when she announced she was looking forward to this day, because she would get to stay home from school. I remembered that conference with her teacher. Are we a house full of deadbeats? Loafers? What are we teaching our children about the value of work?

As I rise in the early morning, I often imagine a farmhouse in a small, agricultural community, perhaps in Maine 80 years ago. This imaginary farm provides the means for the family's getting by. The chickens give up eggs; the cows, milk; and the soil, vegetables. Well-tended, the farm generates income at market as well as sustenance at home. It is the economic engine of the family. All hands work at making it run.

Our own house is like that farm, updated for the early 21st century. Instead of milking the cows, I fire up my screen and scan the night's e-mail. Instead of harvesting the turnips, my wife drafts a new report for a client. Instead of feeding the chickens, the kids could collate a mailing (admittedly a rare occurrence). All of this puts food on the table. And it all happens at home.

I know most people go off to work. But, ours is not some oddball approach to life. The way we live shares similarities with many of the people I see every day. On Sunday, I got a call from my dentist's office asking to reschedule a Monday appointment. Where does one find help willing to make such a call on a Sunday? It's the dentist's spouse - they work together. My local barbershop is run by a husband and wife team who have a back room where their preteen kids spend lots of time. They wander back and forth between "work" and "home" all day long. I know more neighbors whose entire work life is focused at home than I do neighbors who go off on a daily commute. This is too small and idiosyncratic a sample to say there is a trend. But it's clear that there are many households where "work" has taken on a different meaning, where the lines are blurred and the house itself seems to be the economic engine for the family.

As we hurtle into an uncertain future, it can feel as if we're going back in time.

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