The problem with WAHMing (Being a work from home mom)
– You know that feeling of dragging yourself away from your warm bed to go to the office? Imagine it never going away, for the whole day. You have stuff to do, lots of stuff, but the rain is beating down outside and all the while your bed tries to serenade you with its siren song of awesome comfy-ness.
– People don’t think you are actually busy; “you are home the whole day, so can you do…”, “you don’t , have to go to the office you should be able to…” and my personal favourite, “must be nice”
– Jealousy makes people nasty (not all mind you); “well some of us have to earn a living, and can’t just stay at home you know”…. Excuse me, I didn’t hear you over the sound of my deadlines and rowdy 2-year-old
– People are awkwardly worried about your financial situation…”so you’re doing okay? I mean you are surviving”. Don’t worry (genuinely caring friends), (curious onlookers) and (I hope she falls on her butt-ers). I’m nothing if not responsible and resourceful. I blame my dad, when I was young and wanted extra money the response was always; “sure, there’s a lady at work who needs business cards designed”, “This man needs a CV typed out”… I have a few marketable talents and boy have I been using them…freelance writing, photography, translating (Afrikaans and English, so don’t be too impressed) and so much sewing and crafting. So yes, I’m doing okay.
– You need to be good with your money…see I might be okay with making money, but I am also SUPER okay with spending it and you always have to remember, the big freelance project needs to last you till your next.
– You feel compelled to do house work and having a cleaning lady (even if it’s just twice a week) makes you feel super guilty…oh the awkwardness of sitting in your office while someone else scrubs the breakfast plates
– With WAHMing you get major FOMO… wonder what everyone else is doing, oh jaaaaaa they are in their offices. hmmmm , I know I’ll FB stalk…
Even with all these WAHMing “down falls” I love being able to take my kid to school, take him to the park, step in where I’m needed with friends and family and most importantly CREATE. I always dreamt of having a label of some sort and despite my mom, gran and godmother all being seamstresses it never occurred to me that I would take to a sewing machine like this. I did a short course in fashion history once, because as a fashion reporter I wanted to add value to my articles and not just sit in the front row going, “oooh pretty dress, I like blue” . But here I am doing needlework classes, who would of thunk it.
I’m going through yet another life change though, don’t know what is up with me, I’m too old for a quarter life crisis, too young for a mid-life one and too broke for a crisis of self…
But I’m changing my life again, this time, I’m going back to the office, I’ve been blessed enough to be offered the best of both worlds and I just could not turn it down. I will be going back to “the office” to do layout and design three times a week, so I can wear heels and talk to adult people with opinions on more than Sophia the First and Superheroes then the rest of the week I will be found in my studio sewing and creating and I could not be happier, yes it’s still a pay cut, but it’s bound to be a happiness increase as I’m pretty happy about it already 🙂
