Ever since my little preemie was born 6 years ago, I've been working at home. I'm a programmer. Never really planned on working at home, just kind of fell into when my son was born early. I had a great boss who offered it to me. It's worked out great!
I've been working 30 hours per week, which is great. 40 hours per week is much harder when kids are around. I could actually go to work at 40 hours, but I just don't see the point of working to pay someone I don't know to take care of my kids. I'm not much of a people person and I don't trust other people very easily. Daycare in this area is a couple hundred dollars per week, so the extra money I would make would go directly to the daycare. Why bother paying someone to turn them into brats because you know they wouldn't get as good of care as they get being home. They would also start craving attention and act even worse. Living with intolerable kids doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Not to mention all the sickness that would be brought home. It's bad enough all the sickness my oldest brings home from kindergarten, but at least we get a break in the summer. Double the sickness, year around, I'd be home more than I was at work anyways.
How do you even get to know your kids when you are at work all day and they are at daycare all day? You'd see them for a couple hours at night and weekends. That's a big loss of time when their childhood goes so fast.
The biggest thing to successfully work at home is to set up a schedule and stick to it. If you don't set up a schedule, then before you know it, the day is over and you haven't gotten anything done. When it's time to work, you have to work, no matter what, unless there's an emergency. I work in between breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner. Some people work at night after the kids go to bed, but by then I'm too tired and the last thing I feel like doing is deep thinking. I like to work when I'm fresh and clear. Takes me all day to get 6 hours in, but is much better than sitting in an office staring at a computer for 8 hours straight. I would go nuts.
I work upstairs on the loft, which overlooks the living room, so I can do work and not have kids underfoot, but still see everthing the boys are doing. They don't bug me and I don't bug them. I think that is why they are so independent. They have tons of free play time, so they have learned how to keep themselves occupied. Kids these days, especially teens, seem to have problems keeping themselves busy. The ones I know are always complaining about how bored they are. I provide the boys with a play area with tons of toys and put the tv on educational kids shows. I talk to them all day long too. They don't just sit on the couch watching tv all day either. All day long they keep themselves busy playing, something kids these days have problems doing. Probably because parents are always underfoot and schedule them with activities. When kids do get some alone time, they don't know what to do with themselves.
Both boys are very creative and play independently extremely well. They are also happy, well adjusted boys who love to learn. I credit all of that to being at home.
That's the work at home life we've been doing. I work, they play, we're all good.
Unfortunately, the big company I've been working at for 10 years ran out of work and booted me out the door, so now I've turned into a stay at home mom. Something I thought would be much more fun and easier, no pressure of having to get work done. Now that I'm doing it though, I realized it's not really that great. It's really weird, kinda boring. Luckily I know how to keep myself occupied. If I didn't though, I'd be spending the day cooking, cleaning and bugging my kids. It's pretty relaxing, but definitely not the best way to spend every day for any length of time.
Work at home is the best of both worlds, and you get a paycheck.
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I've been working 30 hours per week, which is great. 40 hours per week is much harder when kids are around. I could actually go to work at 40 hours, but I just don't see the point of working to pay someone I don't know to take care of my kids. I'm not much of a people person and I don't trust other people very easily. Daycare in this area is a couple hundred dollars per week, so the extra money I would make would go directly to the daycare. Why bother paying someone to turn them into brats because you know they wouldn't get as good of care as they get being home. They would also start craving attention and act even worse. Living with intolerable kids doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Not to mention all the sickness that would be brought home. It's bad enough all the sickness my oldest brings home from kindergarten, but at least we get a break in the summer. Double the sickness, year around, I'd be home more than I was at work anyways.
How do you even get to know your kids when you are at work all day and they are at daycare all day? You'd see them for a couple hours at night and weekends. That's a big loss of time when their childhood goes so fast.
The biggest thing to successfully work at home is to set up a schedule and stick to it. If you don't set up a schedule, then before you know it, the day is over and you haven't gotten anything done. When it's time to work, you have to work, no matter what, unless there's an emergency. I work in between breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner. Some people work at night after the kids go to bed, but by then I'm too tired and the last thing I feel like doing is deep thinking. I like to work when I'm fresh and clear. Takes me all day to get 6 hours in, but is much better than sitting in an office staring at a computer for 8 hours straight. I would go nuts.
I work upstairs on the loft, which overlooks the living room, so I can do work and not have kids underfoot, but still see everthing the boys are doing. They don't bug me and I don't bug them. I think that is why they are so independent. They have tons of free play time, so they have learned how to keep themselves occupied. Kids these days, especially teens, seem to have problems keeping themselves busy. The ones I know are always complaining about how bored they are. I provide the boys with a play area with tons of toys and put the tv on educational kids shows. I talk to them all day long too. They don't just sit on the couch watching tv all day either. All day long they keep themselves busy playing, something kids these days have problems doing. Probably because parents are always underfoot and schedule them with activities. When kids do get some alone time, they don't know what to do with themselves.
Both boys are very creative and play independently extremely well. They are also happy, well adjusted boys who love to learn. I credit all of that to being at home.
That's the work at home life we've been doing. I work, they play, we're all good.
Unfortunately, the big company I've been working at for 10 years ran out of work and booted me out the door, so now I've turned into a stay at home mom. Something I thought would be much more fun and easier, no pressure of having to get work done. Now that I'm doing it though, I realized it's not really that great. It's really weird, kinda boring. Luckily I know how to keep myself occupied. If I didn't though, I'd be spending the day cooking, cleaning and bugging my kids. It's pretty relaxing, but definitely not the best way to spend every day for any length of time.
Work at home is the best of both worlds, and you get a paycheck.
More Stay at Home Mom
More Work At Home Mom
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