As if working moms don’t have enough guilt, now a new study shows that if a child has a working mother people don’t like that child as much.

Give me a break (but here I am up at 5am, worrying about it before I head off to work in a few hours).
Researchers at Kansas State University studied the perceptions people have of women and their children based on the women’s work status. (The participants were unmarried college students—99 percent of them childless.) Among the findings:

1. People value mothers who stay at home.

2. People value mothers who compromise between working and staying at home—moms who work part-time, for example.

3. People devalue moms who work full-time outside the home.

4. People perceive the children of moms who work full-time to be “troubled” and their relationships to be “problematic.”

5. People think that moms who work full-time don’t have good relationships with their children.

A few thoughts come to mind:
- Many of the women surveyed still plan to work when they grow up and become moms.
- I was the child of a working mom and I had lots of friends.
- My sons have a working mom (me) and have lots of friends.

What do you think about this study?

Some days, we long to work from home to be more accessible to our kids, maybe throw in a load of laundry while we’re on a conference call and actually make a homemade dinner - before 7pm at that. Be careful what you wish for, because it just might come true.

This week our town is being hit with a massive snowstorm - even blizzard conditions - and school is canceled for the entire week. Telecommuting is really the only option - you can’t even drive on the snowy, icy roads.

But, this afternoon, I long for the peacefulness of my desk and afternoon snack of wasabi peas stowed away in my drawer; of office Internet connections that enable me to work more quickly; of surroundings that don’t call out to me to cook, clean or make a fourth cup of coffee.

Our county called another Snow Day for my sons’ schools today, something like the fifth this season. And all over just four inches of fluffy snow. As I attempt to work from home with my two lively sons this morning, it’s nice to be home…but not so nice to not be able to focus on my work.

Trying to be a good mom, i’ll take them sledding at lunchtime. Trying to be a responsible mom, I declared an hour of “non-electronic time” to get them off the Wii, their Nintendo DSs, their laptop and the Black Eyed Peas (who are great, I admit). But fifteen minutes in, I couldn’t work because they wanted me to entertain them, so I declared “non electronic hour” over.

Studies show our kids have too much screen time. It’s true, but if you ask me, when a single mom has to work from home, sometimes, it’s simply necessary.