A Stay-At-Home Mom Mingles in the Working World.

I’m at a party at a gallery in Mayfair to celebrate the launch of a new publicity agency in the antiques trade. The owner of the firm, a friend from reporting days, invited me. There’s good wine and a silly debate about the superiority of wine versus diamonds, in which the guests must choose sides.

Afterwards there’s more wine and talk.

I meet a reporter. She asks what I do for a living. At events like these, it’s a question I dread.

“I’m at  home with a baby,” I reply.

“Just the one?” she asks, which I confirm.

“Nice work if you can get it,” she shoots back, and a chasm between us grows.

I think of my day: laundry, dishes, a dash to the park, more dishes, smelly diapers, Go Dog Go! read five times in a row, eggs mopped off a kitchen floor, a scramble to find a sitter.

I imagine her day, which as a luxury goods writer probably goes something like this: a latte, some emails and calls, newspapers to read, lunch with a source, more emails, maybe even a story to report, Facebook and other Internet surfing, and then off to a party in Mayfair.

Nice work if you can get it.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography