Remote Work Is Pro-Family

Remote work is pro-family. To be clear, remote work may not necessarily improve the health of your family—what goes into cultivating a healthy family can hardly be determined by a single factor, and not all occupations are conducive to remote work. This also isn’t to say that in-person work is to be looked down upon; your average firefighter is arguably doing something immensely more important than I am sitting comfortably at my desk. But as far as societal shifts go, remote work benefits families.

Sociological evidence suggests that the Industrial Revolution is in part responsible for destabilizing the family as an institution.[1] Mothers and fathers being dragged progressively further from their homes to find suitable work could hardly be conducive to fostering happy families. My point is not to offer some critique of industrialization; rather, I merely make the observation that such industrialization comes with serious costs. Remote work is capable of undoing some of this damage.

Historian John Tosh, reporting on the sociological findings of Michael Anderson, writes, “Some 250 years ago, most work was done in or adjacent to the home (…) The Industrial Revolution changed all this: the growth of the factory (…) meant that most production no longer took place in a domestic setting.” He continues, “Now that personal fulfillment is by far the most compelling rationale of marriage, there is far less reason for people to stay in family relationships that no longer bring them happiness.”[2] One may find Tosh’s and Anderson’s understanding of this development to be somewhat reductive or materialistic—I remain unconvinced that families today or from 250 years ago fall apart because of  “domestic production.”[3] These findings, though, do open up room for discussion: Was taking fathers and mothers further away from the home good for the family? No, not entirely.[4]

The state of the American family today indicates that something is not working properly in our society. I invite readers to consider studies on divorce rates.[5] Even with recent declines in these numbers, they hardly paint a rosy picture of the American family. Is it possible that working away from home has at least something to contribute to this breakdown? As thoughtful believers, we should be willing to confront this question and consider how our approach to work impacts our families.

I come from a home ravaged by divorce. The kids are alright—about as well as you could hope in such a situation—but the damage is undeniable. To put things bluntly, the strains of working a great distance away from the family no doubt contributed to the divorce. I am not maintaining that had remote work been an option for my parents, then necessarily there would have been no divorce. I firmly believe, however, that had remote work been an option at the time, many of the related issues that plagued our family would not have arisen.

Most Americans nowadays have never worked in a factory, but before the COVID-era, relatively few had worked in close proximity to their homes. Nevertheless, what can be said of the factory workers from the Industrial Revolution applies to many of us today. It applied to my parents. Pulling men and women away from their loved ones for work strains the family.

A parent far from home opens us up to all sorts of temptations, even at the workplace. An office romance is a seed of destruction should one of the lovers have a family waiting back home. At times work requires long hours—and can be a sign of industriousness—but it can also turn into an escape for spouses secretly hoping to avoid their domestic responsibilities. These issues go without mentioning the sheer time-drain of commuting back-and-forth—time that could otherwise be spent playing catch with the kids or going for a walk with your spouse.

We could frame things this way: We are present somewhere; would you rather be present with your coworkers or your family? Is it more important to be able to talk face-to-face with your teammates or your spouse? Is it more important to spend your breaks networking or playing with your kids?

But what if you have too much time with your kids when working from home? Commentators, such as Megyn Kelly, argue that remote work leads to so-called helicopter parenting, which in turn leads to disastrous effects for both parents and children. Helicopeter parents “hover” over their children, with children rarely being more than a few feet away from their parents or approved adult supervision. . Without wading into the debate over parenting styles, there is nothing inherent in remote work that entails helicopter parenting. From a historical perspective, helicopter parenting is a relatively recent phenomenon. As Tosh points out above, for much of human history, industry was primarily done in the home with parents in regular proximity to their children. If there were a tight connection between helicopter parenting and remote work, it stands to reason that we would find helicopter parents throughout history—but we do not.[6] Therefore, remote work remains pro-family.

Scripture does not tell us directly one way or the other whether we as a society should seek to provide more opportunities for remote work where possible. In 1 Timothy 3:4–5 (ESV), the apostle Paul notes that the overseer for the church “must manage his own household well (…), for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” Not all of us are called to be pastors, but all Christians strive to proclaim, “As for me my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). If remote work empowers us to do so, then more power to remote work.

Photo retrieved from Unsplash

[1] See Michael Anderson, “The Relevance of Family History,” The Sociological Review 28, no. 1 (1980): 49–73, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1980.tb03259.x.

[2] John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of History, 6th Ed (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 34.

[3] The natural question arises whether I have read contemporary social practice anachronistically back into the motivations of people living 250 years ago. I’ll grant the point that a breakdown in domestic production can lead to a breakdown in the family—especially 250 years ago—should the failure of domestic production result in penury. Absent this further devolvement into penury, though, it does not seem to be (at least singularly) sufficient.

[4] Neither was it entirely bad. The material gains that families experienced as a result of industrialization, though more obvious at some times than at others, should not be wholly dismissed. Alleviating poverty is a good thing, and if the Industrial Revolution did so (though over the course of centuries), then we should not minimize this impact. Thus is the way of history—rarely are matters straightforward.

[5] For instance, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/10/marriage-and-divorce.html.

[6] I have in mind the vivid description of Katherine von Bora provided in Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2013), 298–99. For more on the relatively recent development of helicopter parenting, see Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2024).