I spoke to a friend for the first time in months this past week when it was made painfully clear that as much as she loves the idea of
being able to work out of her home, she isn’t committed to making it work. She simply hasn’t learned to justify the time away from her
kids to work on her clients’ projects.
I’ve met many women (and even men) who’ve started a home business believing it was the end-all answer to all their problems, and then
they’re hit with reality and questions, like:
- Where does a parent draw the line when working from home?
- How can a parent deal with the complex emotions that still continue to pull her in so many directions?
- Wasn’t working from home supposed to be easier?
- Wasn’t working from home supposed to make her life balance out more?
- Wasn’t working from home supposed to mean more free time?
Whoever said it was easy to work from home lied—plain and simple. Working from home isn’t easy. In fact, it can often be more
difficult, more demanding, and more time consuming. As an entrepreneurial parent, life can often seem more stressful, more complicated,
and more frightening.
When a parent works a nine-to-five job, she gets paid a set fee for every hour she works, she gets to leave her job at the end of the
day and not deal with it until she returns the following morning, she usually gets medical insurance coverage, and she doesn’t have to
worry about drumming up new business.
But when a parent chooses to become self-employed, it’s an entirely new ballgame. She works many hours without pay just to get her
business off ground floor and showing a profit. She becomes the administrative assistant, the customer service representative, the
buyer, the manufacturer, the packager, the seller, the advertising department, the marketing department, the bookkeeper, the accounting
department, the troubleshooter, the maintenance person, the laborer, and the boss. Quite simply, she does it all. And on top of her
new roles, she still has to maintain the roles of mother, tutor, chauffeur, maid, cook, errand girl, bookkeeper, friend, and significant
other.
While working from one’s home does involve sacrifices and juggling acts to keep everything afloat, let me assure you that it’s worth all
the hard work.
There is nothing more powerful than knowing you make your own schedule. You can go to work when you want and take off when you want.
All you have to do is rearrange your work schedule. With every new business experience, you gain a new sense of freedom. With every new
success, you learn to trust yourself. With every new crisis, you find strengths you never knew you had.
And in time, you learn to develop organizational skills that help you work around your guilt of not being able to play with your children
every waking moment, such as:
- Working for two hours straight and then taking an hour off to play with your children.
- Working on projects that require client interaction while your children nap.
- Hiring a sitter to watch your children for 3 hours every day so that you can concentrate on the difficult tasks associated with your
business.
- Scheduling play dates with your children and not feeling like a liar when you tell your client you can’t meet with him on a certain
date and time because you already have another appointment.
If you’re serious about working from home, it won’t be all “peaches and cream.” You won’t be able to spend every waking moment with your
children, but I guarantee that you’ll be able to spend a lot more of those moments with them than you would have, had you decided to
stay at your regular 40-hour work-week, dead-end job.
Trying to decide if working from home is right for you?
Order our exclusive Work From Home e-book!
About The Author:
Alyice Edrich is the author of several highly praised e-books designed to help you work from home. To discover how you can
earn $50 in two hours or up to $10K in your spare time visit her store:
http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore
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