When I think about it now, I really wish one of my parents or both of my parents worked from home, I think it would have been a lot nicer! Unfortunately for me that was almost impossible considering my father was a big shot Chiropractor and my mom was his assistant.
I ended up spending most of my time when I was little either in daycare, with my grandma, or in the back office of my dads business coloring.
Personally I would have rather spent every day in that back office with my mom and dad.
I loved being with my grandma, and my parents were awesome, but I just wish I could have somehow spent more time with them! Fortunately for kids now, their parents have a very good chance of working at home.
Now you can either do this by working with an existing company and asking them if you can work at home, or you can open your own business, service, franchise right from home on your own time, with your own pay, and your own rules and best of all as your own boss.
Sounds good right? Well don't forget; since you will be your own boss you will need to have some major responsibility.
In my time at working at home I have come to an understanding.
The more I work, and more available I am to my customers and prospects, the more money I will make, the more I can save, and the quicker I can establish some sort of a "nest egg" for my future.
Now take a quick look at a few of these little details: Time - If you work at home and need to go on business errands, you can take them with you.
Obviously if it's a business meeting, you may not want to unless you are with a company that you work for and they have some sort of a daycare.
It would only be for an hour or two and then you can take your kid(s) back home with you.
On the other hand, if you work for yourself you will most likely be dealing with a lot of people over the phone, or through email.
Obviously this doesn't take any extra steps besides your kids understanding (if they are at that age) that mommy or daddy needs to make an important call.
My cousin works from home and has two kids, both kids know that when she says she needs to make an important call that this means they have to be quiet.
Flexibility - If you have kids, obviously you will need to be flexible with your time.
Since most kids go to school during certain hours, it's a good idea to plan your day ahead of time.
Take kids to school at 9am, work until 4pm, pick kids up, then spend time with the kids, then after they go to bed, you can work some more if need be.
However, if your child gets sick or if it's the summer time and they just do something like go to camp for a few hours, you need to be flexible enough to accept this, work around it, and move on.
Obviously your children should be the most important thing! Accommodations - Now if your kids are at that age where they understand things well, it's a good idea to make a sort of deal with them.
Call it a bribe if you will.
Tell them that you are working from home now, so that you can spend more time with them, but also tell them that you need to also work as well.
So make a deal with them, tell them if they let you work for, however, long that you guys will do an activity or go somewhere afterwards, some place fun.
Most kids won't understand that you are home but that you also have to work while at home, so you need to explain this to them as gingerly as possible.
Also, if you are going to work at home with your kiddies, don't ignore them.
That is so not cool! Unless your lucky enough to have a mom that can come over and help or a nanny of some sort, you're still going to have to make time for your kids! Remember, you started this because you wanted to spend time with them! They are a perk! A plus! And completely mandatory! The main objective of being a work at home parent is to be able to incorporate work with family time and parenting responsibilities without the loss of income or opportunity.
This is a great way to make the money you want, but still be able to spend time with your kids, and in the long run even if they don't completely understand it right now, they will be more than happy in the end.
And really, isn't that the most important thing?