When Helen Hayward had her two children in London, 25 years ago, she found looking after them easy. Loving and looking after her kids was straightforward. However loving and looking after her home was not. She had long been instructed to put her career first. So she did. Yet what to do with the mushrooming laundry by the bathroom door? And what about if she actually liked cooking? Home Work is a series of personal essays motivated by three questions.

1. Is there an art to running a home?
2. Can it be a satisfying thing to do?
3. Has the work we do around the home — which accounts for roughly a 1/4 of our waking hours — something important to teach us about life itself?