- Sadiee Bean
Things people say to work from home moms. What it's really like.
Things people say to work from home moms. What it's really like.
Working from home allows me to stay home full time with my daughter, which is one of the biggest blessings I could have asked for. If any of you have tried to get anything done with a kiddo around, I'm sure you can imagine it's not easy.
Being your own boss must be great! Yes, it's fantastic! Even though I would never go back to the days of working for someone else sometimes, it's nice to have responsibility fall on someone else. I'm running a one women show here so when I'm behind on emails, phone calls, texts because my kid is a teething monster that's all on me. Though clients understand motherhood at the end of the day, they are paying me for a service, and I'm a business professional.The day's of "let me get my manager" because you don't have the mental stability to deal with someones bull$h!t are over. You have to maintain being professional and deal with it
I wish I could stay in bed all day and make money! HA. Me too! I know 'working from home' sounds like staying in bed all day with Netflix in the background as you make butt loads of money doing nothing. But more often than not my day looks like having my laptop set up in my kitchen while my daughter throws her banana breakfast at me. Trying to take a phone call while in the driveway because she fell asleep in the car on the way home from errands *fingers crossed* she doesn't wake up screaming. Or getting #2 of 17,000,000 things checked off on my to-do list during her nap time. Meanwhile, the house looks like a tornado just went through.
Setting your own hours must be nice! Though I LOVE the fact that I can make my own schedule I still have to put in the hours to actually get the work done. Sometimes this means staying up crazy late because it's the only time I have to myself to focus. (or sometimes getting up early... but I'm soooo not a morning person). Setting my hours means being ON 24/7 because the I can't shut the business off during my "off" hours. As much as I try to have unplugged time my brain is always on business mode. Lots of working on weekends because that's when I have the most help with the baby, which sometimes, unfortunately, means less family time.
What do you do with all your free time? Free time? What's that? Working... running a business... taking care of a baby... what part of that sounds like free time? Did I miss something?
So do you just get to play all day? Balancing working from home with a baby is probably the hardest thing ever. One to two hours of napping a day isn't enough to get 40+ hours worth of work done. Making sure I'm giving her enough attention, so she doesn't grow up with her moms face buried in front of a screen. Trying to get work done while she grabs at my computer and cries at me to pick her up when I put her down for 3 seconds to finish typing an email is a daily struggle.
Are you ignoring me? Aren't you home today? No, I promise I'm not ignoring your 17 memes you sent me this morning. I was trying to be productive and knock out my to-do list before I responded to personal stuff... you know just like you'd do at 'REAL' work.
I want to start a business and work from home too. Can you tell me how you did it? It's not that hard right? I wish you the best of luck with that. No, I'm not going to give you free business advice. I love when people make starting a business sound so simple. It's more than just you see on the outside. If you think you can start a business and make money working from home overnight, it's not for you. Being self-employed especially means giving up job security, 401K, vacation time, sick days, insurance benefits, being able to leave work at work, and possibly your sanity. If you still seem interested and are willing to put your blood, sweat, tears, and money I say go for it.
