It is not so much I mind having chosen a career path so vague as to rank somewhere below “illegal alien bus boy” in terms of status, but rather, I get no respect for doing it from my home that really rankles my soul.

Forget. I think people sometimes forget on the other side of any piece of written work is an actual person with a real life going on.

It’s not all fun, wayward pets, precocious children and spell-check.

Sadly, most of these “people who forget” live with me. The rest are my dearest friends.

My daughter, will tell anyone who asks that her mommy is a “colonist.” By this we can only imagine mommy vanquishes redcoats in between play dates and PTO meetings. Muskets anyone?

My son, slightly more savvy to the ways of the world, prefers to say offhandedly, “Oh, my mom? She spends ALL HER TIME on the computer, that’s all. She just plays around and does stuff.” Ahem.

Plays around? Stuff?

Satisfied. My real validation (thank heavens) is the contact I receive from wonderful people, real live readers, who tell me how they enjoy my work. Yeah, it really does happen (thanks Grandma).

So there! Work? The rest of the time, however, the fact I actually “DO something” (as opposed to, say, “stuff”) is akin to having been exposed as an undercover agent for the CIA.

Clueless. A friend with whom I had shared endless play dates and socialized numerous times, once said, incredulously, “You work? I had NO IDEA you worked! I thought you were just a mom.”

“Just a mom?” And this from a fellow mother.

Crazy. I have friends who are amazing mothers, loving, caring, deeply involved with their children, and who freely admit working at home would make them crazy. To this I say — of course it makes you crazy.

Honestly, if you’re not driven crazy by motherhood, then how can you possibly fulfill its most basic tenet — passing your neuroses onto your children? It’s a parent’s sacred duty.

If we don’t have any issues ourselves, how can our children inherit any colorful stories? It’s the craziness you get from your parents which makes the world a more interesting place. Think about it.

The world would be lacking most of its great masterpieces and literature if all of the great artists and writers had had sane parents. I’m just doing my part here.

Mommy wars. The big quandary, of course, is where I fall in the “mommy wars.” You know, this theory that moms who work outside the home are engaged in a fierce battle with moms who stay at home and that moms who work AT home (a tricky bunch they) will dart in and out of the battlelines, switching sides at whim. What I find is that most mothers are too busy running their own lives to really give a crap what you do with yours but the “wars” sell magazines and, as such, we are all somewhat drafted.

I’d love to get all worked up about it (worked up at HOME, naturally) but honestly, I’ve got a deadline. I’ve got to go, you know, spend all my time playing on the computer. Then I’ve got to do buckle down and, you know, do some “stuff.”