In March 2020, only a few months after I returned to the office, the Covid pandemic sent me right back to my home desk and the complexity and contradictions of remote work. As this new mode of work became my daily life, I began to wonder: Could remote work allow people to return to a time when work and home were inseparable allies rather than antagonists? Could it help families like mine recover the wholeness that was missing in an age when both parents left home each day to work traditional jobs?

Could a return to work centered on the home, as it was for much of history, be a good thing?