April 14, 2026

You’re the One Who’s Home

My husband worked from home quite a bit during the COVID shut down and ever so slowly the days he could work from home dwindled and when he took his new position it was said that one day a week could be remote. We are thankful because when he has an appointment or is sick he can work from home (and honestly he is able to lock in more at home than when he’s in the office and makes headway on projects that sit there when he is participating in more direct support of his team in person), but working from home one day per week has turned out to really not be a thing there unless really needed.

I have flexible part-time employment from home and have taken a set schedule as a part-time contractor in person on a couple of other days of the week and have been balancing the two positions while also advocating medically for my parents who live with us which includes many appointments, phone calls, portal messages, sometimes inpatient visits, and beyond. I also try to keep afloat the management of our house through chores charts for the kids, communicating with out part-time house cleaner and landscaping company, and trying (and often failing) to pick up the rest of the slack around home while my husband, Dad, and Mom do things here are there as they can and my kids need a thousand reminders to pitch in.

My husband does a number of things, but I am responsible for a whole lot more and he is resistant to coming up with a schedule where we take turns doing a number of things and plan ahead so we know who is doing what when. He grudgingly helps drive the kids to their activities because I am unable to be at multiple places at once and we don’t know what we would do without my mom-in-law’s help as a third driver, but he makes it clear that he would rather I take fewer clients and be the uber driver more often even though I have often “ubered” my aging parents during the day. I frequently hear, “but you’re the one who’s home,” meaning that I have more hours when I can be home during the week while he works full-time out of the house.

It feels tiring and lonely to be the one asking “How high?” when each family member asks me to jump in their direction when they want or need something. My husband gives and does, but not to the same degree.

He is not expected to divide his attention between work and home and between so very many Sandwiched categories at home.

On Monday we had a gentleman come replace our carbon monoxide detectors and my husband’s understanding was that the plan was for the gentleman to also replace all of our smoke detectors. My husband scheduled this and put it on the family calendar on a Monday with plenty of notice, but in his mind when the company said this gentleman was arriving anytime between 8 AM and 5 PM, I would just clear my entire day. Monday is a flexible, remote work day for me where I make my own schedule (generally speaking- I still need to work when the clients can schedule their sessions), but that’s the entire day he is thinking I will keep open. On that particular Monday I had a 7 AM scheduled (fine of course as it was outside of the timeframe for his potential arrival). Then my husband got an email narrowing the timeframe and my day was not completely filled with back to back clients as is sometimes the case.

But I determined that 11 AM was a possible timeframe for this gentleman to show up and had a client scheduled for that time and found out that my dad would be out of the house then. I did not want to leave the door unlocked because my mom would be the only other person home and she has mobility issues. So I had to call the company (got a very kind call center rep) and explain my situation and share that I can open the door before 11 AM and after 11:45 AM but could not let the gentleman in during the 45 minute session. The rep had to put me on hold longer to call the technician and she came back with a non-solution to my dilemma. Essentially it was no one’s problem but mine that I was working from home and this gentleman was scheduled to come to our home potentially while I was in with a client and I couldn’t really know when he was coming exactly so that I could plan.

Found out we were the second job of the day and that he probably would not be there while I was on a Telehealth session with this 11 AM client, but there’s a chance and she explained to me that he can arrive and wait 5 minutes at the door and then must leave a note and we would have to reschedule. So I had to put the dog out back early (not a big deal) and then had to leave the front door unlocked just in case and gave verbal permission (through the call center rep) for him to enter the house if it was between 11 and 11:45. He didn’t end up coming until later than that so I was able to let him in but the first thing he said was that no one’s told him he was replacing smoke detectors (carbon monoxide detectors only) and that without a work order for the smoke detectors he doesn’t carry those supplies on his truck. So I called my husband and put him on speaker phone so they could talk about this and my husband asked him to just change the batteries in the detectors which the gentleman said he would do but looked annoyed.

Thankfully my next client was not until 2:00 PM and he was heading out before that but I felt I had to hang around in case there were questions throughout that time and I walked him around and dealt with the little headaches that were part of getting that done because I am the one home.

I have an interview coming up for a full-time in-person job that would be great for my career and we could hire some help to provide support for my parents and to start the chauffeuring of the kids to activities (along with our oldest who gets his license soon) while we make our way home from work, but it is clear that no matter what this job pays my husband does not want to pay someone to help us in this way and wants all of the things I am doing (or not quite getting done) now to remain on my plate.

But I think I want to branch out from being the one who’s home because there’s more at home (especially in a Sandwiched home) than I want to continue juggling primarily on my own with expectations attached.