Usually I don’t recognize a bad home design idea until I’ve invested in it. But recently, when I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a new trend, I knew instantly that it would be as welcome at my house as the flu.
The trend? The family office. Proponents, probably women who nursed their children until they could ride bicycles, argue that having one room with dedicated work stations for every family member promotes family bonding.
But how do you bond when Dad’s on his BlackBerry, Mom’s on the phone and Johnny’s playing a computer game?
I don’t need more family rooms, I need fewer. At my house every square foot – including my so-called private office – is a family room. Take my vanity area, a 3-foot long counter where I try to transform myself from Frankenstein’s bride into someone you might want to have breakfast with. I’ve always envisioned my vanity as a place where I would sit in solitary reflection brushing my hair like the pensive subjects in a Mary Cassatt painting. Hardly. This morning both my daughters were closer to me than clowns in a phone booth while they scavenged my drawers for makeup, jewelry and hair products.
Meanwhile, my husband, Dan, inserted himself like a comma to swipe a hairbrush because one of the girls – exactly who remains the subject of debate – took his brush to school. Then they all followed me downstairs like a gaggle of geese wondering what was for breakfast.
And now we’re supposed to share an office? Trying to be productive with the kids around is like trying to play chess in an amusement park. I’ve actually had experience with shared workstations. In my last house, I had a built-in partner’s desk installed in the office, which I thought brilliant. The desk was shaped like a T. Dan had one side of the T and I the other. This was one of many failed marital experiments, like the time Dan tried to teach me to ballroom dance. The desk arrangement failed because Dan doesn’t clean up anything until it supports plant life.
After we sold that house, we wedged ourselves into a small condo for several months while our next home was being built. By small, I mean you could vacuum the whole condo without moving the plug from the outlet. The dining area doubled as a group workspace.
You want to feel stupid, sit with your middle-schoolers while they ask you to help them find the slope of a line, recall the continent that contains Swaziland, or give a scientific explanation of how waves are formed. This only confirms what kids already suspect: Parents don’t know anything.
Humiliation aside, productivity loss is the real reason not to create a family office. Anyone who works at home knows the need for boundaries. My kids know that when I’m in my office, they’re not supposed to come in unless they’re vomiting – which of course has happened.
Even Virginia Woolf recognized that to get anything done, a woman must have a room of one’s own.
Seriously, to build healthy family relationships, reduce the rate of domestic assaults and get some work done, each family member needs both a place in the home to bond with other family members and a place to retreat so they can create voodoo dolls of other family members.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist living in the Denver area. Contact her through marnijameson.com.
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Give them their space
Regardless of whether your family shares a home office, every student and working adult should have an area to call his or her own. The ideal work station should have:
An adjustable chair. This not only allows adults to set up ergonomic workstations but also means you won’t have to buy a new chair as your child grows.
Dedicated storage. If more than one person shares a work area, set aside storage space for each person. Have a common area for shared materials, such as scissors, staplers and paper.
Light control. If the area has a window, be sure you can pull blinds or curtains to prevent glare on computer screens.
Task lighting. The area should have ambient light from the ceiling and task lighting over the desk or reading areas.
Open-door policy. Have kids use computers in the open. This way parents can make screen checks to be sure Susie really is writing her Civil War paper and not updating her Myspace page.
