Laptops and Lullabies

Why working from home works for this male spouse.

By Thomas Litchford

While I don’t want to say having a career is more important to men than it is to women, I will say I think it’s differently important. For most men, having a career is all wrapped up in notions of masculinity. The idea of “just” being an at-home dad has never entered their minds.
 
Years ago, I had a pastor named Jim O’Connor, and we’d meet regularly on Friday mornings for coffee. He was a mentor to me, and he was always concerned for my future. When I talked about someday having children, he asked me about my other ambitions. One day, he asked me, “How will your children know you’re a man?”

At the time, I thought it was a silly question. Pastor O’Connor is a retired Navy captain. He’s from a different generation, a generation for whom it would be absurd for a man to stay home with his children while his wife went to work. But for my generation, and generations to follow, it's no longer such a strange idea.

However, Pastor O’Connor’s other questions about my ambitions were not silly. I did have other ambitions. My dream was to write books, as I told him. Once when I had brought my laptop with me to the coffee shop to work while I waited for him, he pointed to it during our conversation and said, “I think this is going to be your salvation.” And indeed, it has been the computer and the Internet that has freed me from having to work in a news room in New York and allowed me to work from home as a writer and pursue my dream of writing books.

Freelancing, or working from home, can be a great option for military spouses, especially for those who are less concerned with making piles of money than they are with challenging themselves and using their education.

Of course, hobbies can be great for that, too, but, hey, if you can get someone to pay you to do your hobby, why not?