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I am typing on the computer, trying to keep up with the flood of
emails and programs that require my attention, when my 19 month
old comes to me for the fourth time this morning calling
‘potty!’ I rush upstairs to the bathroom when I here the
doorbell…my friends children have arrived as usual, since I care
for them four days a week while their mother takes off for an
adult world I hardly recognize. It is 7:20 am.
Breakfast follows, I set them up and dash to the computer again
to finish what I started, but then the four year olds are
fighting and the one year old has dumped her applesauce on the
carpet. I determine that office environments were created for a
reason. It’s 7:35 am.
Since I am paid to care for these children, I cannot devote much
time to my other business during the days they are in my home.
But that does not stop me from feeding my own children peanut
buttered bread for breakfast and sitting them in front of the TV
from 6:00am until 12:00 on my ‘day off’.
As you can see, or know from experience, working from home in
any capacity is a change to your family’s life no matter what
the business. But as much as I would love to dote on my own
children and spend hours baking and coloring and folding laundry
(RIGHT!), I, like many mothers, have been faced with the choice
of returning to the typical ‘working world’ and passing my
children into someone else’s care, or juggling to bring in an
income while caring for them myself.
Our strategy has been for me to develop an online business while
maintaining an income we can survive on by babysitting. The
babysitting is temporary, and not my first choice, but I do love
the children I care for, and now that we’ve all adjusted I am
going to miss them terribly when we move on.
However, I knew the babysitting was not the long term solution,
and I ache for the independence I read about with internet based
business. So I plug away early morning, nap times and evenings
after the children are in bed. This is how we move towards a
simpler life. Eventually, my kids and my husband will have me
pretty much to themselves. I know that working will always
interfere with living, but this is a solution that I can accept.
My main learning, or coping strategy, is to do things in blocks.
Writing an article is one block. Reading and responding to
emails is another. Feeding the children, taking them for a walk,
or planning an afternoon out (which is what I do with mine every
day off), all combine to make this work-from-home mother’s work
day move forward.
Should my children be classified as part of my work? No,
absolutely I do not view it that way. This is the fabulousness
of working from home. Stressful as it may be at times, I am
choosing a life that allows me to step out of my office (so to
speak) and cuddle on the couch with four little darlings (well,
some of the time!). I can shake off the frustration of figuring
out HTML code by having coffee with my neighbor. This is a life
worth choosing.
So to all you work-from-home mothers (and fathers too), perhaps
balance isn’t always possible, but keeping priorities is. You
can decide that the children must quietly watch a video while
you make a phone call or finish your project, and know that you
are not putting them in second place. Why? Because you are
there. And as long as you know when to put the office ‘away’ and
be there for your children, you are giving them a life that,
while busy and not always easy, it is a life that you are a
bigger part of.
To all of you who take on the important task of raising your
children, while making a living, my congratulations and
encouragement!