My stepson was enrolled in an expensive daycare. It wasn’t cheap, but it gave him structure, friends, and routine — and it gave us the ability to focus on work without constant interruptions.
Recently, I transitioned to working remotely. The moment I told my husband, he smiled and said, “Perfect. That means we won’t need daycare anymore!”
I thought he was joking.
He wasn’t.
I tried to explain that working from home is still working. I have scheduled meetings, deadlines, performance metrics, and clients who expect immediate responses. Just because my office is in the house doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a full-time caregiver.
But he brushed me off.
“You’re here anyway,” he kept saying. “How hard can it be?”
For weeks, I struggled. I muted myself during meetings while managing snack requests. I answered emails with a cartoon playing loudly in the background. I worked late into the night to catch up on everything I couldn’t finish during the day.
Yesterday, he came home early without telling me.
He opened the door in the middle of one of my back-to-back video calls.
And he went pale when he saw…
