I have long thought the distinction between personal and professional suits men and not women.
Indeed, this hit me very forcefully when I was interviewing celebs for soundbites about 10 years ago, while working from home and juggling two children under 3.
"What's that weird noise?" said Bob Skinstad over the phone, suspiciously.
"What noise?" I said, serenely, cradling the phone awkwardly against a towelling nappy whilst swapping Benj from my left to right breast, with another alarming *smmmuck!* sound. "I hear no noise."
And of course, that was the moment toddler Joe started shrieking from the bathroom: "Wipe my bum! WIPE MY BUM! WIPE MY…"
Bob tactfully finished the interview, without saying another word about the strange sounds emanating from "my office". We've never met, but a decade later, I still have a soft spot for him.
It was around that time though, the Work in Pyjama Years, that I stopped trying to pretend that I was neatly tucked in a Ikea-type office at the bottom of some swish garden, or indeed, in some other spanking freelancer work spot, but rather 14 steps from my bed, at a desktop jammed between a changing mat and an industrial pile of nappies.
And it was such a relief.
Because many, many, many of us intertwine our working and family lives, and to try and pretend there's some imaginary divide is to play into the hands of those wanting all working folk to think and act like bland men in ties.
Now I have an office job and work with freelancers and in-house writers and PRs and publishers and design folk, many of whom have children… and many of whom have abandoned this divide too, men and women alike.
We tell our bosses we are going to our children's weekday morning sports events, and finish our e-mail off from our home VPN connections. We take work calls from Jimmy Jungles and finish presentations from our beds in the evenings. We're (mostly) on top of our work, involved in our children's lives… and a bit rushed off our feet, but then, who isn't?
I'm so much happier not pretending that I am not a mom during the day, or that I am not an editor at night. And lucky to have a boss who understands, and indeed, to have become a boss who understands in my own right.
What I'd like to know, though, is how many of you have this flexibility? And who prefers to have a rigid split between work and home?