Search Results for: WAHM

{YML Voices} How I Make Being A Stay-At-Home Mom Work For Me

August 8, 2012 · by Tara ·

One of the most popular articles on the blog is the “I Hate Being A Stay-At-Home Mom” post from 2010. Even two years later people keep chiming in on why being at home is either a) the greatest thing that has ever happened to them or b) the most soul-sucking form of thankless work on the planet. I got a loooong comment from Victoria and asked her if I could share it with you. She’s been both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom and she’s sharing how she makes her life work now.

by Victoria Calvin

I’ve been both a working mom and stay-at-home mom. In fact, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom twice within the past year to two years. The second time around has proven to be a lot better than the first. I can honestly say that I LOVE being at home with my little girl.

However, it wasn’t always this way.

Women often enter stay-at-home motherhood with a lot of misconceptions: the children will always be well behaved, the house will be clean all of the time, a hot meal will be prepared and waiting for our spouses/partners when they return from work, we will have little stress as compare to stress from working outside of the home, etc. What most of us find is that staying at home is both sweet and sour (for some, more sour than sweet). Our expectations are often violated and we are left feeling defeated and isolated. We love our children yet we question if being at home is the best for our family. Thus, I empathize with those who have experienced the battles of staying at home.

The first time I stayed at home with my little girl I nearly pulled my hair out! I was bored, refused to get involved in mom and tot groups (I thought they were pretentious), and did I mention…bored?! I felt that I lost apart of my old self…the former HR manager turned full time graduate student. The aspiring PhD with groundbreaking (so I thought) research ideas. I wanted this person back. So, after two months, I shipped my little urchin back to daycare so I could focus on my “career.” It wasn’t long before I regretted this decision.

Alas, things change. After completing my masters degree this past spring, I decided that returning to the corporate world or working toward a PhD did not sound good and just plain made me tired. Then there was the longing to be with my baby girl. But, I wanted both worlds…to work and stay at home. I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it too! So, with the support of my husband, I started a home-based business and we withdrew our baby from daycare. BEST DECISION EVER!

To make things work, there were a few things I had to do:

1) Value my role as a stay-at-home mom – what I do is important. My baby and I have many adventures and I am so proud to be able to spend a lot of time with her. Staying at home is hard work and requires a strong level of commitment. I honestly work harder as a stay-at-home mom than I EVER did as a corporate professional.

2) Creating the “right mix” – it wasn’t enough for me to be a domestic goddess, I needed more. So I started a home-based business. It is challenging working from home with a toddler. But, I don’t have to work for someone else, I create my own schedule, I am contributing to the family income, and I have my baby with me (she has a small desk next to mine).

3) Downtime – I am so blessed to have a very supportive spouse who understands the challenges of staying at home with a child. He stayed at home with our daughter when she was infant while I worked. He literally has to force me to take a break or leave the house in order to decompress! I’ve learned to value my downtime AND make time for downtime. When I’ve had time to rest, I am a much better parent.

4) Connect with other SAHM moms/dads – I now realize how important it is to connect with other SAHM moms and dads. Those mom and tot groups are actually pretty fun! Its helpful to know what the group of women I hang out with were all working professionals at some point (i.e. teachers, accountants, lawyers) and we all experience the same challenges. We meet once a week and through out the month for activities (i.e. zoo trips, the museum, the splash park) and have girl’s night out dinners.

FOLLOW THE YOUNG MOMMY LIFE ON FACEBOOK

5) Revaluate my expectations – My house isn’t always clean, laundry may happen once a week if we are lucky, dinner may be cooked by 5:00 (or not), my toddler is bound to throw a fit (and her chocolate milk), my schedule isn’t as tight as it use to be, my toddler and I are going to be bored sometimes, and there are times when I watch the clock…waiting for my husband to come home. And it’s okay. Once I removed my rose colored lens, staying-at-home became so much easier and less stressful.

6) Kids will be kids – My kiddo is 2 years old. And two-year-olds are the “fly by night” types! There are times when she is totally on board with my planned activities and other times she would rather paint on her easel all day. And that’s okay with me. She’s only two and she is doing what two-year-olds do. I harken back to my education (human development) and remember the developmental tasks of two-year-olds. After a brief reminder, I eased up a lot and learned to enjoy the time that I get to spend with my little tornado!

Both working moms and SAHM/WAHMs are hard on themselves. Ease up ladies…both paths are paved with successes and challenges. The important thing to remember is that you ARE a GREAT mother regardless of our occupational situation.

If you like working, go to work! If you like staying at home, stay at home! Find your “right mix” and be open to change. Furthermore, it’s okay to be truthful about the challenges of being a stay-at-home and/or working mom. A women’s place is where SHE feels comfortable, valued, acknowledged, and validated.

Filed Under: guest posts, Mom to Mom · Tagged: featured, stay at home mom, YML voices

REVIEW: “Welcome To My World,” A Look At The Choices Moms Make About Work, Life and Family

October 5, 2011 · by Tara ·

A couple weeks ago, I took my son and daughter to the park and after they ran off some stream around the slides and climbing walls, we took a stroll so I could just talk to them and hear what’s going on inside their little heads.

My son leaned against my arm and said, “Mommy, is it hard for one mommy to take care of two babies?”

I was in shock that, at 3, he would even ask me a question like that. “Yes, sometimes it’s hard.”

He looked up at me thoughtfully and said, “I wish we had two mommies. And then the other mommy could help you.”

Wow, I thought to myself. I really need to give these kids more credit. Sometimes I don’t think they are paying attention to the decisions we’re making about who is home with them, and how the transitions are going. It was a simple statement, but it spoke volumes and made me vow to be more open and honest with the kids on work, home and how moms make it work all over.

That’s why I was glad I purchased a copy of Welcome To My World, a new group ebook featuring essays from work-at-home moms, stay-at-home moms and mom who work outside the home. I saw myself in all of these mothers and had to read a couple passages out loud to my husband, because they summed up what being a WAHM was like in ways I never could. Take this paragraph for instance, in which a mom discusses the fantasy versus the reality of working from home:

“That flexible schedule means I need to make every moment of the school day count (free childcare!) so I can get my work done in my woefully abbreviated day. Volunteering in the classroom or skipping out for a luxurious latte is time I can ill afford to take away from my work…The two hours I could spend sorting books in the school library, or zipping off to meet my old pal, is two hours I will need to make up after bedtime, which is two hours less sleep, which wreaks havoc on my morning…and my mood — and consequently my kids’ lives.”

THIS. IS. THE. TRUTH. Well, except the free childcare part, since I am actually paying for my daughter to go to private school. But I see myself in the stay-at-home moms as well, because they don’t sugarcoat what it’s like to be at home all day with the kids. Sometimes it’s awesome, and sometimes you feel like, “What am I doing here?” I could relate to the working moms and the exhaustion of working a full day and then starting that second shift at home. Oh yeah, I’ve been there as well.

It’s a wonderful mix of mom bloggers, and while the tagline says they “debate who has it harder,” I don’t feel like they discuss that at all. It’s more about how do mothers do what they do and raise kids in a way that makes them proud. At $6.99, I felt it was a great read and I was happy to hear that I was not the only one to feel the way I do. That’s always a great feeling.

I really do recommend you pick up a copy because all proceeds get split between the writers. Since we’re launching a group ebook soon, I’d like to consider this good karma. We’re all in this together.

You can purchase your copy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com. If you get it, let me know what you think!

Filed Under: Reviews, You + Your Kids · Tagged: featured

Why Is It So Hard To Ask For What We Need In A Relationship?

August 19, 2011 · by Tara ·

I’m not ashamed to say that for the past week or so, the grind of the WAHM life was getting to me. I was angry and tired and just ready for someone else to step up and take the wheel while I took a nap in the backseat, you know? I was tired of cleaning the house every day, and working until 3 a.m. and cooking three meals a day and taking care of the kids all day. School is looming on the horizon and I just really wanted some help before my workload got heavier.

So who did I take my frustrations out on? My husband. He came in the door one day this week and felt the wrath of everything I had kept bottled up inside. Poor thing. Didn’t even see it coming.

But instead of walking away feeling like I had gotten something off my chest, I felt worse. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings — I just wanted him to bring me home some flowers or to bring dinner home one night a week. In short, I wanted him to make more of an effort to help me manage this household. I instinctively knew that acting like an ass wasn’t going to help matters, but I lacked the energy to add a little sugar to my message to help it go down.

So I just laid low. Decided not to talk much until I could figure out how to alleviate some of this stress off my back. And wouldn’t you know, I learn the greatest lessons when I’m just chitchatting with my kids.

I had my breakthrough earlier this week as I was scrambling to toss some clothes on the kids so we could run an errand. I rummaged through my daughter’s dresser, looking for a shirt, when I noticed her top drawer was broken.

I pushed on the loose screw, trying to move it back in place. It wasn’t budging. “It’ll be fine. I’ll have Daddy look at it when he gets home.”

Well, as you can probably guess, the rest of the day was busy, busy, busy and I didn’t get a chance to tell him.

The next day, I get a shirt and I remember the darn drawer is still broken.

“Why didn’t Daddy fix it?” my daughter asked.

“Because he didn’t know it was broken,” I said without thinking.

And then bam! It hit me. The greatest of epiphanies. I didn’t expect him to just know that the drawer was broken. I would have to tell him.

For all my husband’s good qualities, being a mind reader or emotion evaluator are not on that list. He pretty much assumes everything is fine unless I tell him otherwise. So I must learn to tell him when things are indeed “otherwise.”

It seems so simple, but I really struggle with this, having to work to get my needs met. I just want to relax. Now I gotta tell someone how to help me so I can relax? Extra work. Don’t feel like doing it.

So since I know my husband is not a mind reader, it falls on me to make sure we stay on the same page and work together to keep the workload as even as we can. It’s a task that will have to stay on my to-do list, and I guess that’s okay if the end result is that we argue less and love each other more.

Tell me ladies – do you have trouble asking for what you need in your relationship?

Filed Under: Love + Family · Tagged: featured

7 Places To Find A Work-From-Home Job

August 3, 2011 · by Tara ·

I’ve written about my life as a work-at-home mom and I just want to say – I hope I didn’t scare you off.

Yes, it takes a lot more organization and patience and drive to continue to do this day in and day out. I have to know when I can work, when I need to be paying attention to the kids (which is all the time), how I’m going to run errands and make all my deadlines without breaking a sweat.

BUT!

The payoff is huge. I love what I do and I love being able to do it on my couch in my pajamas, with crazy hair and socks with cartoons on them.

In case you want to earn money with no commute, I’ve been doing some digging to find places you can begin to look to get a work-at-home job of your own.

Wahm.com

I found my most recent job (manuscript editing) from this job board. I’ve landed two or three from here in the past and I’d say they do a consistently good job of finding worthwhile jobs to pursue. There are all sorts of jobs on here, from medical transcription to writing gigs and everything in between. Best part is that it’s FREE and updated very regularly. I’d suggest you start here. Besides the job board, there are also helpful articles on making the most of the work-at-home mom life.

Problogger

If you’ve been a blogger for a while and you’re ready to branch out beyond your own blog, check out this job board for gigs all over the web. Fashion, music, landscaping – if you can write about it, there’s someone to hire you to do it. This board is free as well.

Women For Hire

This site isn’t a job board, per se, but has articles about the work-at-home life and resources/websites sprinkled in each one. I suggest taking an hour to browse through and gain as much knowledge as you can.

The Work At Home Woman

This job board is fairly new to me, but I can tell they have a variety of jobs, which is good for those who don’t necessarily want to be a writer.

Freelance Writing Jobs

If you are a writer, START HERE. Seriously. I’ve found some pretty great offers browsing through this job board over the years.

Craigslist

Craigslist gets a sketchy reputation sometimes and hey, I don’t know if I completely disagree with that. It IS kind of sketchy. But you can usually find a work-at-home job on there that’s worth your time. I have found a couple in my lifetime. Here’s a blog post with a couple tips about job-hunting on Craigslist. I can usually tell a legit ad from a scam or a sketchy one (hint: correct spelling, punctuation, name of a real company with a real way to get in touch with someone who works there). You can search for the industry you’re interested in and then sign up for the RSS feeds after searching for “telecommute.” Then all the work-from-home jobs will go to your feed reader or email inbox once new jobs are posted.

Case-by-case basis

I got a job working for Fisher Price when I was 19, writing copy for their products. I was in college, was browsing for a friend’s baby shower and just happened to click on “Careers.” Boom! Found a job and was quite good at it. I did it from the comfort of my dorm room, never having to do much more than click send on an email and wait for the check to go to my parents’ house. If you like a product or a website, poke around and see what you find. Many times they won’t advertise on the major sites, particularly if it’s a smaller company. The fact that you’re a loyal customer/reader will give you a leg up on the competition.

Here are a few others that I’ve found but haven’t personally used:

http://allstayathome.com/

http://www.freelancemom.com/

http://hiremyparents.com/

http://www.linkup.com/

Got any other sites you’ve used? Leave ’em in the comments!

Filed Under: Career, Money + School, You + Your Kids · Tagged: featured

The Good, Bad and The Ugly Of The Work-At-Home Mom Life

July 12, 2011 · by Tara ·

I’m coming up on the eight-month mark of self-employment and have had some time to reflect on how far I’ve come since last December, when I was shaking in my boots with nothing but two months’ pay, hope and prayer.

A lot of people ask me what I do in my “real life” aka what I do outside the blog and it’s a lot: I’m a freelance writer/blogger, meaning I write articles for other sites and organizations. I’m also a social media consultant, where I manage the social media strategy and day-to-day upkeep of social media profiles for a few organizations. Now I’ve added manuscript editor to my plate, where I edit books from beginning to end, making edits on grammar, style, punctuation, tone, formatting, etc. (The manuscript on my desk right now is a 300-pager. Gulp.)

The blessing is that I get to do all of this from my couch. I generally handle most of my business through email, PayPal and regular ol’ checks in the mail, with an occasional phone call or in-person meeting. My kids are home with me and I’ve slowly turned our day-to-day life into something that fits us.

But it ain’t all good. Some days it’s downright terrifying and exhausting and I curse myself for being so stubborn about being my own boss. However, I know it will all work out in the end. You heard it here first.

The Good:

I make my own hours. I didn’t realize how much I’d value this until this summer. My two-year-old has been asking me to take him to the beach for about a year now. I mentioned it to him last summer but since we rarely had a day below 90 (and Mama doesn’t do heat) we didn’t go. But one Friday morning this summer he asked me again. I looked at my to-do list and said, “Screw it.” Packed up the kids and we were at the beach an hour later. I have no boss looking over my shoulder, coming into my office asking for an update on a project. Now, I get assigned projects and I turn them in on deadline. Doesn’t matter when I get it done.

We save money. With my former job, I was in the car 15+ hours a week just to get to work. I would have to get gas every 3-4 days. No bueno. Recently, I realized I hadn’t filled up my tank in over a month! I went 32 days on ONE tank of gas. Praise the Lord! Also, the kids are out of daycare so we pocket the $1100 a month we used to spend there. We still eat out, but I’ve gotten better at making meals stretch so our food budget is actually lower.

I get much more time with the kids. With my former job, I saw my kids for an hour in the morning and two hours at night. Then weekends. I’d feel so guilty about not hardly seeing them during the week that our weekends would be a big blur of activity, leaving us all crabby and tired by Monday morning. Not my best plan. Now they are with me all the time. I love having them here and seeing how much they learn in a typical week. I love taking pre-lunch walks with them and exposing them to new things. It’s one of the reasons why I stick with this new path, even though Lord knows it has some downsides…

The Bad:

I make my own hours. Which means, if I don’t work, we don’t eat. When you work for someone else, you can actually afford to spend all morning on Facebook or have one day a week where you just feel blah and it takes forever to get something done. If you show up, the paycheck comes, even if the work is late. But since I make my own hours, I have to find time wherever I can to get stuff done. That means I might be up at 3 a.m. to knock out a project. Or I’m using my little bit of downtime during the day (aka the kids’ naptime) to do some research. It doesn’t leave much downtime in my life. I’m either working or sleeping. I’m in full grind-mode 24/7.

I have no babysitter. In theory, I wanted to be a work-at-home mom so I could stay home and watch the kids. But with the work I do, having a chance to actually, I dunno, focus is crucial. I can’t edit articles and papers if I’m stopping every five seconds to break up a fight or wipe someone’s butt. So my parents offered to come get the kids one day a week to give me a little bit of breathing room. Last week my dad picked up the kids and I sat at the dining room table for nine hours straight, working against the clock to turn in my first edited manuscript. By the time they got back I was a crazed mess. But I got it done. (And the pay is nice.)

The Ugly:

The stress. Like I said before, I’m in grind-mode 24/7, which means I’m always looking for another assignment, I’m always looking at my bank account and budgeting for the next month, and I’m always working overtime to please the clients I already have. I will not fail my children and I will not fail myself. Knowing that your fate is in your hands is oddly powerful, yet terrifying. I do the best I can to manage the stress, but I know that stress is part of the reason why I’ve been success so far. It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone and enabled me to land jobs I didn’t think I could.

In the end, I feel the good outweighs the bad right now. I’ve had my days where I wonder where my free time went, but I accept that this work-work-work life is the season I’m supposed to be in right now. I love the work I do and I love making my clients happy. I love that I will be available as my daughter starts kindergarten this fall. I love that I am making enough to cover the mortgage each month. I love that my son and daughter watch me work and they are beginning to understand what I do. I love that my husband supports my dreams and is also beginning to understand all that goes into being a successful work-at-home mom.

Life…is good.

Do you have any questions about the work-at-home mom life? Any WAHMs out there have anything to add? Let me know in the comments.

Filed Under: Career, Money + School, My favorite posts, The big picture · Tagged: featured