Time was, a mom knew who her neighbors were. She brought them pies when they moved into the neighborhood; she invited them for morning coffee and a round-the-kitchen-table chat; her kids played outside with theirs until the sun went down and it was too dark to see anymore.
If you’re a working parent, you might already have a lengthy list of reasons why you’d like to work from home. Perhaps you want more time with your kids before they start school full-time, or maybe you want to escape a demanding 9-5 job so you can have more energy left for your family at the end of the workday. If you don’t have a job outside the home, the thought of an extra income might be enough to start your imagination spinning.
Whatever your reasons for wanting to work from home, here are five more that might convince you it’s time to go for it – and they’re all about your kids.
1. You’ll teach your children self-reliance. Even a very young child can play by themselves for a few minutes while a parent works, and an older child can supervise younger ones. In either case, your child learns to depend on his or her own resources for a time.
2. One ring of your business phone and you transform from Busy Mommy to Business Owner. Your vocabulary switches too – from mommy-speak to that of a well-mannered professional. Kids will learn more etiquette by overhearing your (hopefully) courteous business conversations than from any amount of lecturing you do.
3. Your kids learn the value of doing their best and that hard work is rewarded. Any business - home based or not - will succeed only if you do your best work 100% of the time. When your kids see how hard you work to finish a project, or when they celebrate with you because a satisfied customer gave you a referral, they’re seeing real-life evidence that giving your best effort is always worthwhile.
4. You will forever debunk the myth that money grows on trees or magically comes out of the ATM. Money is one of the rewards of hard work, and one of the reasons why mom or dad can’t go to the park until after lunch.
5. Kids of work-at-home parents learn fundamental lessons about how businesses work. Denise Willms, owner of Willms Business Solutions and member of CalgaryWAHMS.com, tells of hearing her 12-year-old son say, “I have a great idea for a marketing plan for...” Ms. Willms says, “My first reaction was, who’s been teaching him about marketing plans? Then I realized that he had been listening to me!”
Don’t forget the best reason of all to work from home - a better balance of family and work. Working from home is a practical way to show your kids how important to you spending time with them really is.
Britt Raposo helps Calgary moms work from home with her online business club, CalgaryWAHMs.com. She connects Calgary work at home moms with affordable home business resources, ideas and support.
Being home alone with small children and no one else to talk to is enough to challenge the sanity of even the most devoted mother.
Add to that the stresses of loneliness, having nobody who understands what you’re going through, and nowhere to go for advice. Even worse, you’re new in town and you don’t know where anything is.
When you’re a mom with young children living in Calgary, there are a lot of resources to help you connect you with other moms: community groups, church groups, mom and tot play groups, mommy and baby story times. One of the newest – and quickly becoming the most popular – ways for moms to meet is through local online forums.
If you’re new to the world of online (i.e. Internet) communities, they are basically places on the Internet where you hold discussions with others who share your interests. Friendships are often developed and members sometimes meet IRL (in real life). For moms looking for a community to connect with, joining a local online forum is a true sanity-saver.
1. You can chat with other moms about the joys (and not so joyous things) of being a mom. When it’s hard to get out of the house, you can talk to people without having to leave the comfort of your home.
2. Be around other pros and learn from their situations and stories.
3. Meet other moms and have a multitude of people to talk to who can relate to what you are going through as a mom and as a woman. You can vent and the other women will understand what you're talking about.
4. They’re great for moms new to Calgary. When you’re new to the city and don’t know anyone, joining a local forum is an easy way to start to build a new support system.
5. While many moms initially join a forum to find playdates for their children, they usually end up finding good friends of their own. Moms who join meet wonderful ladies from all over the city, not just their own community.
6. Playgroups!!! Moms in the forums set up playgroups and get together regularly for zoo trips, walks and park visits.
7. Forums are a safe place to ask advice on any topic at any time of day.
8. A feeling of belonging. You meet other people who are going through the same things you are. You feel less alone and better able to cope with the tough things when you know that other people have been there too.
9. Get information about where to find things in Calgary. If there is anything you need to find in Calgary or somewhere you need to go, someone on a local forum will likely have been there before and can tell you where it is.
10. Moms Night Outs. The moms in the forums meet regularly without their children to have fun together doing activities like scrapbooking, evenings at Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club and weekend retreats.
Now that you know what an online mom-based forum can do for you and your sanity, how do you find one? Calgary’s largest mom-focused online community is www.calgarymoms.com. Other Canadian mom-based forums can be found at www.canadianmomsonline.com.
About the author: Britt Raposo helps moms and work at home moms (WAHMS) across Canada connect with each other through online forums and podcasts. Visit www.CanadianMomsOnline.com for more information.
This article is available for reprint with author's resource box intact and all links active. Copyright is reserved by author.
Calgarymoms.com, the website devoted to providing Calgary moms with a supportive place to connect with each other, recently launched five provincial websites for Canadian moms. Now moms and moms-to-be across Canada can experience the same friendship, fun and support that have made Calgarymoms.com so popular. The initial response to the new websites indicates that the provincial websites will be as successful as the Calgary website has been.
Moms in Canada are smarter when they multitask. That’s because, thanks to the technology of podcasting, they can learn about their favorite mom-related topics without taking time out of their daily routine. Imagine hearing the latest pregnancy news while going for a walk. Or learning how to start a home based business while you’re washing the dishes. The new weekly podcast, Canadian Moms Talk Radio, allows moms to do just that.