This week I chatted with Carlee Berrington from the blog, Work With Me Mum about KindtoKidz, and what it’s like to be a work at home mum (WAHM), including the good and the bad. You can read the article here.

I talk about how being a WAHM is not always as simple as it seems. It involves a lot of juggling and setting firm boundaries around work and family life. Every WAHM case is different, but in my case, I didn’t get to actually enjoy the fruits of my initial days of labour (I started KindtoKidz with a baby and toddler in tow), until my kids actually started school full-time and I had enough time to put into growing the business.

Carlee also works from home, doing something completely different to what I do. She is an executive assistant and office manager. She started Work With Me Mum on the side “to bring awareness to the need in Australia for more options to be made available to mothers returning to work. Too many women have to give up work all together because they cannot return to the office, either due to affordability, travel or because they want to provide care for their children.” She believes there are many ways around this and hopes to create discussion around the issue.

I think that's a really great thing and much discussion is needed around flexible work arrangements for mums. As Carlee and myself attest to (I started my business with zero experience in the retail industry and Carlee was previously a flight attendant), there are many options for being a WAHM that people may not be aware of that can really work for them. At the very end of this article, I share 10 ideas to bring in income working from home.

Like with many things in life though, there are positives and negatives to working from home, and each family has to weigh up what will work best for them.

One such major consideration to working from home is child-care. Children are like seeds that need as much attention and care as possible to grow into strong and healthy plants. If one chooses to work, even from home, it really helps to have an adequate support network, including some kind of childcare or home help arrangement, just like if mum was in  real job.

As woman we tend to think we can do it all – work from home, look after the kids and run the household by ourselves. This is simply not possible! Running a household with kids is full time in and of itself. Think about laundry, breakfast, lunch and dinner (which needs to have some semblance of being wholesome and healthy), keeping the house clean, appointments, and other commitments. Not to mention the uber important job of being available both mentally and physically for your children.

In my interview with Carlee I also speak about the importance of mums having time to themselves and caring for themselves, which is ultimately caring for the family. When mum is relaxed and calm and is attentive to the children, they will also be much more relaxed, calm and happy. A stressed out mum is the worst thing for the wellbeing of the family as a unit and this I can say from personal experience!

When considering to work from home, one needs to look at the arrangement holistically. As the Stay at Home Mum Network puts it: “Some mums have a great support network of helpful babysitters and home business personal assistants, some don’t! Some have a dad who can be in charge in the evening and on weekends, some don’t. Some mums have kids with greater needs than others. Some families have bigger bills than others. Some families live a long way from cities, some don’t. Some are happy to have clients in their home, some aren’t. Consider the level of flexibility and income your work at home opportunity needs, to be a success for you family .”

When it comes to flexibility and income there are so many different work at home arrangements and options. Many mums don’t realise the full extent of possibilities out there!

For example, I currently have another WAHM working for me – she does mostly computer work (preparing and uploading new products), as well as online marketing. She has set aside three times a week to meet her job requirements and easily fits this around her family. She is a single mum to 3 kids and this work from home arrangement suits her really well, giving her that increased flexibility that she really needs.

Another mum I know who was looking for something to do from home so she could be there for her little kids (not of school age yet), studied holistic nutrition and now works as a nutritionist. She does talks and presentations in the evenings and has built up her business using facebook and Instagram.

Today it’s even easier to work from home because of the internet and social media. The internet essentially allows you to bring your home grown brand or business to millions of people or to work as a virtual assistant from anywhere in the world. Even if one doesn’t have skills in a particular field yet, there are so many free and relatively cheap online resources like courses and detailed articles or videos, that can help you out.

For example, when I first started my business by selling organic baby hampers, I taught myself how to make baby hampers using online tutorials and a book that I purchased. You can see one of my early examples below. We set up a really cheap website (there are so many cheap website options these days) and off we went, launching this business to the world. Over time, KindtoKidz transitioned from selling mainly baby hampers to more play items and baby products, as these were less time consuming to sell and I needed to fit my business around my family, rather than the other way around. Doing lots of online research really helped me to develop this part of the business. 

I also love the story of  Norsu, an interior design shop specialising in Scandinavian design and affordable art prints. This now very successful shop (it initially started out as online only but has now expanded to two storefronts), started out from two mothers, who met at a playgroup whilst on maternity leave from their corporate jobs.

They both shared a strong love for Scandinavian design came up with the idea for Norsu one evening of a glass of wine.

The business enabled them to leave the strictures of the corporate world to the more flexible world of being a WAHM. In an interview on the In Her Words blog , the two Norsu founders talk more about their experiences in detail:

““We met 4 years ago at Mothers Group” Nat explained. “When it was time for us to return to work we were unable to secure appropriate childcare, so we decided to share a Nanny”. In the months that followed Nat and Kristy both struggled with aspects of returning to a corporate environment. The early starts - now made more complex by having to get little people organised, the expectation of full-time duties being carried out in part-time hours and a lack of flexibility, which is so important for new parents returning to the workforce.

So, as many great adventures begin, the idea of Norsu Interiors was born over a casual conversation and a glass of wine. Both women had a love of interiors and each held backgrounds in Marketing and Communications, so they decided that they would combine their shared passion and skills and seek to “bring affordable art to Australia and help customers create amazing looks in their homes without needing to spend a fortune”, Nat explained.”

When looking at work from home opportunities, it also helps to choose something that one is passionate about or in the least that one can tolerate doing on a daily basis with no boss looking over your shoulder. When creating your own business, motivation ends up being a key factor to success and a steady income.

I have collated some great ideas for work at home mums as listed below:

10 Great Ideas for being a Work at Home Mum:

• Freelancer, such as a graphic designer, writer or web developer
• Stylist, photographer, brand rep (think Instagram)
• Mummy blogger or affiliate marketer
• Nutritionist, masseur or life coach
• Direct sales agent, like for Tupperware or Arbonne
• Franchisee; there are some great ones out there geared towards mums
• Marriage celebrant, mystery shopper, tutor
• Virtual assistant, bookkeeper, administration assistant
• Online store owner, hand-made seller
• Professional organiser, cake decorator, home caterer

Being a WAHM has many benefits, but it also has its downsides. Each person has to consider their own situation to see how it can best work for them. And if you’re a mum who really wants to be there for your child’s important milestones and even for their sad moments when they need that magic mummy comfort, yet you need to or want to work as well, dream big and think about how you can find a suitable work from home arrangement.