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Here's a sweetheart of a story about the best gift ever.

Eleven years ago this month, my wife gave me a 40th birthday present that's tough to match. She told me to quit my job and write fiction full time. She'd be the breadwinner, and I could tend the kids and the house and the laundry while writing books and wearing sweatpants.

(Actually, what she said was "take a year off." But what I heard was "quit your job and never, ever go back." Either way, it was a terrific gift that took the legs right out from under my impending midlife crisis.)

Ten years ago, I started writing The Home Front. The column let me chronicle the hijinks of our two sons, who generally acted the way small boys do, and my own misgivings about being Mr. Mom among the minivan set. It also caught the crest of a demographic wave — men and women using computers and other technology to work from home.

The numbers keep going up. The U.S. Census Bureau says 3.6 percent of workers nationwide were based out of their homes in 2005. In his new book "Microtrends," pollster Mark Penn says the number of Americans who work exclusively from home has gone from near zero in 1990 to 4.2 million today. Around 20 million do it part time.

It's hard to feel like you're part of a movement when you're sitting home alone in your pajamas with a laptop and coffee cup, but that's what we at-home workers are. People are getting up from their desks and going home.

There's much to attract workers to this trend. No boss, no commute, no necktie. A schedule that centers around trips to the kitchen. Naps in front of "Oprah." No deadlines except those imposed by our own overheated compulsion to avoid full-time employment.

At times, I run into readers or people at parties, and they, too, know the joy of sweatpants. It's like we're part of a secret society. We swap sly smiles and whisper about how good we've got it, and then we move on, back to our individual bubbles in the work-at-home froth.

Working at home is not for everybody. Some folks need bosses to keep them on track. They need to dress for success. They need co-workers who do not spit up on them.

Staying home with the kids is not for sissies. One word: diapers.

No matter how much you love your children, being around them all the time can make you insane. You can't concentrate on your job when kids are around; you're too busy listening for the next shriek. Distracted work-at-home parents often find themselves wandering the house, weeping and waving fistfuls of their own hair.

Income and outgo are two yo-yos that are rarely in sync. There have been times when I've waited by the mailbox, squirming like a boy outside a bathroom, praying for a check to arrive.

It's hard to separate your personal identity from your so-called career, no matter how much you tell yourself that every job around the house is important. Every time I scrub grout, I think: "So this is why I went to college."

Still, most of us wouldn't trade the freedom of our work-at-home careers for anything. We each embrace that gift in our own way, and recommend it to our friends. We recognize it's a lifestyle choice worth fighting for.

And that's how movements get started.