The Editor’s Desk – From Beneath the Clutter

What a weekend it was! So long as you count Friday last week as a part of the weekend, which I did last week. You see, it snowed. About 3 or 4 inches, which is a big deal here. More than the area usually gets. They even closed school for the day. Makes sense when you think about how hard it would have been for the teachers to get the kids to pay attention all day. My kids had only ever seen snow on the ground once before, never mind getting to see it fall.

I lost a lot of good working time, but what’s the point of working at home if you can’t sometimes take a little time off to really enjoy being with your kids?

Work at Home Moms – Childcare, Or No Child Care? That is the Question

Congratulations, you have started your own business, and it’s going rather well. Going SO WELL in fact, that you need to dedicate more time to it. What if that little bit of extra, uninterrupted time, could mean a BIG difference to your income? Of course uninterrupted time is the thing that we all know and miss as work at home moms, in fact it is darn near a thing of the past in most households where there are young children.

What if just having a few extra hours a week of uninterrupted time was all you needed to really break into the next gear, finish that awesome high paying assignment or project?

The fact is, that at some point you may need to consider a hiring someone for a few hours of help so that you can complete your major project or assignment.

Some of us are blessed with extended families that are only to happy to take our children into their homes and their busy schedules, for a morning a week, or an afternoon here or there. However, there will be that one situation where you absolutely HAVE to get things done, your deadline is looming faster than a sprinter on steroids, and murphy’s law, that will be the one day, that all your family are busy, or out of town, or ill.

It *will* happen. You know it will, it has happened before. So what do you do? What about those of you who don’t have extended family nearby, or even in the same country? What do *you* do? Sooner or later you may need the help of a qualified nanny, baby-sitter, or if you’re really lucky an au-pair.

Moms are notorious suckers for punishment, and many are taken aback, or even offended at the idea of having to hire someone. What? We’re not perfect? Who says? Hello? We are all HUMAN. (Ok, as women we know we’re really super human, but still, we’re not perfect). Why not hire someone, who’s job it is to care for and entertain your kids for a few hours?

I learned a valuable lesson from my youngest son, when I made the difficult, heart wrenching decision to let him go to a playgroup for a few hours for the first time.

I was torn apart.Less at the idea of letting him go, but more with the idea that I should have been able to entertain him ceaselessly, see to his every need and still close that multi million dollar deal. Isn’t that what every mother does? Here I was, feeling like I was a failure simply because I could not do it all, all the time, twenty-four hours a day.

Until I realized just how ridiculous that sounded. At what point did I decide that I HAD to be this perfect person, who did everything? It really dawned on me how silly it was, when I was packing his little back-pack to go to the playgroup again and he saw what I was doing, and he started clapping his little hands together and shouting, “Yay, Yay, Yay!!” I realised that the person who ran the playgroup, had chosen this as a career.

She chose it because she loved children.

She chose to spend her time with 5 little youngsters and make their day as fun, as entertaining, as educational, and as routine as possible. Her absolute mission was to make sure that the kids were looked after as well as if she were their real mother, ha ha, their well rested, imaginative, never-runs-out-of-patience mother, who also closes multi million dollar deals. Hah.

Being a mother is something I chose, but reality insists that I also earn an income. My chosen form of income bringing activity is graphic design and photography. It is not child care. Though some aspects of childcare come naturally to mothers, I must admit, that I am absolutely terrible at thinking up fun and games all the time, and certainly not when I’m trying to finish that huge project that demands so much of my attention.

So in the same way that I take my child to the doctor when they are sick, I also choose to take them to a childcare expert when I need time to do what I am good at, and that which allows my children the lifestyle that they enjoy, and some months it is the only reason that the food on the table is there at all.

So if you find yourself in the position where you are needing childcare, I implore you, do not feel like a failure, think of your strengths and the many advantages that YOU and your strengths bring your family, then make your decision.

Vanessa MacLeod is the Editor in Chief of NessWorld Magazine a website which aims to promote business and support amongst WAHMs (work at home moms).

The Magazine is always on the look out for WAHMs who would like to advertise their home business for free, and who would like to contribute helpful articles to the network, and to the print version of the magazine due out later in 2010.