If you’re like me, the idea of going back to work in an office after you have kids can cause equal parts excitement and dread.  Sure, it’ll be great to have some adult conversation, use your brain for something other than adding up how many wet diapers your child has gone through in a day and the extra money certainly doesn’t hurt.  But leaving your babies all day can make even the most hardened corporate mommy feel, well, guilty.

“How can I leave these precious angels?” I thought as my children emptied yet another brand new package of baby wipes all over my living room floor.

“How can anyone love them and care for them as much as I do all day?” I wondered as I hid in the bathroom, sneaking Oreos from my stash hidden under the sink, behind the bathroom cleaner, inside an empty tampon box.

“How could I stand missing all of this?” I questioned, wrestling a pair of safety scissors away from my daughter before she could give my son another hair cut.

The how was easy for me to answer – we needed the money.  Kids need to eat several times a day, every day and because of all that eating, they outgrow clothes at approximately the speed of light.  Going back to work was a necessity for us, but it has also turned out to be a pretty good for me, because there are a lot of great things about going back to work that may not occur to you when you first start thinking of re-entering the paid work force.

• No one wants to watch you go to the bathroom.  My kids think that going to the potty is a spectator sport.  Not so my co-workers.  They have a respect for a closed bathroom door that I can only pray my children develop.
• You are forced to take a shower every day.  My kids don’t care if I smell funky.  They usually smell pretty funky too – that curious combination of sour milk mixed with essence of Crayola crayon with notes of overripened banana.  My co-workers, however, have a deep appreciation for personal hygiene.  As a result, I hose myself down every day before work.  And, man, does it feel good!
• You have complete radio control.  Whenever I’m in the car with the kids, going to ballet or preschool or the pediatrician or the emergency room, I bow to the musical whims of preschoolers.  Laurie Berkner, Radio Disney and the Phineas & Ferb soundtrack rock my minivan.  But when  I’m driving to and from work, I can listen to whatever I want!  Eminem, and NPR and the oh-so-controversial traffic channel.  Its bliss, I tell you.  Bliss!
• No one eats off of your plate.  Maybe my kids are the only ones that scavenge for food like raccoons, but assuming they aren’t, isn’t it nice to imagine that when you sit down with your lunch, no one else is going to be making a beeline for the Fritos or asking for a sip of your Diet Coke?  It is nice.
• No one wipes bodily fluids on you.  Unless you’re a nurse, you can be pretty much assured that no spit, vomit, snot or other effluence belonging to someone else is going to end up on you.  The power of that cannot be overstated.

I’m fortunate now to be a work-at-home mom (as if we all aren’t that already), but there are still days when I tell my husband that I HAVE to go to the office. And yes, I am productive and do indeed do some work, but mostly, I just go for the bathroom privacy.