Do you dream of becoming a work-at-home parent? The daily grind of a 9 to 5 job can be tough when you have kids. However, being a work-at-home parent can have it’s hurdles too. I’ve been a work-from-home mom since 2009 and Dave joined me as a work-at-home dad in 2014. Over the years there’s been many rewards but there’s been tough days along the way too.
We are here to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about work-at-home parenting so that you can make the best decision for your family.
On that note, here’s a look at 7 common challenges faced by work-at-home parents.
Childcare
I know in my previous post I said that saving money on childcare was a big positive. However, it can also be a challenge. Depending on the age of your child or children and how independent they are, can play a big factor in whether they are able to entertain themselves while you work or if they are small enough that they still need your constant attention. Working during naps is always an option, but you honestly can’t fit a whole days worth of work into a couple nap times. It’s important to evaluate what your work schedule would look like and whether it’s a fit for your children.
No 9-to-5 Schedule
If you want to be a work-at-home parent most likely you will be saying good-bye to a strict 9-to-5 schedule. You’ll find yourself finishing up a report at 9pm or return a client call during dinner. Work always bleeds over into what you previously would have been consider off hours. But if we are being truly honest here – does anyone ever end their work day at 5pm anymore? I know plenty of parents who work in an office who are replying to emails, Slack messages, and texts and even returning phone calls far past 5pm. So while I’m here to say you will definitely find yourself working past 5pm as a work-at-home parent, you may find yourself working on your phone or laptop along with many other parents at those evening baseball or soccer games.
Lack of Adult Conversation
Once challenge that work-at-home parents face that is important to consider is that there could be a lack of adult conversation compared to working in an office. While it’s amazing being home with your kids, depending on your situation you may find yourself much more distanced from other adults. I’ve worked for myself and for other companies in a remote position. When I as working on my own I spent a lot more time alone which actually doesn’t bother me too much. As a an employee at a fully remote digital agency, I had connections with other people through Zoom and Slack nearly every day. Dave is a much more social person and he really enjoys talking to other people so it was important for him to find a work from home position that allowed him to still chat with other adults. So be sure to take some time to evaluate how important adult conversation is to you. The good news is if you take on a remote job with no conversation and find it frustrating, there are always many more positions out there to try to find a good fit.
Distractions
If you think working in an office is distracting, wait until you work from home. You’ll find yourself starting a project but suddenly one of your kids will need your attention. You try again and now the other kid needs something. You sit down at your computer determined to be focused and get the project started and now the dog is asking to go out. Suddenly it’s lunchtime and everyone is hungry. If your kids aren’t old enough to make lunch on their own, that’s your next task. And on it goes. Aside from just those types of distractions, there’s plenty of others: the kids are watching The Minions and you walk by the tv and suddenly 30 minutes have gone by and you’ve spent it laughing rather than working, you walk into the kitchen to grab an apple and suddenly you are doing dishes, wiping down counters and mopping the floor, you walk by the living room and and your kids have built and incredible marble maze tower that you just have to get a video of…and on it goes. Many of these moments are exactly the reason you decided to become a work-at-home parent, to cherish these times with your kids, but at the same it’s important to make sure you manage the less important distractions so they don’t prevent you from getting your work done.
Time Managment/Procrastination
If you are not good at time management and you tend to procrastinate a lot as it is, becoming a work-at-home parent may be very difficult for you. As mentioned above, there are many, many distractions while working from home and they can lead to the mindset of “this is important now, I’ll get back to work later.” There are many time management and productivity tools out there to help with this and I highly recommend looking into them. When you don’t manage your time appropriately everything ends up having to be done at the last minute and then not only is it incredibly stressful for everyone (you, your family, work) it’s probably not going to be your best work. So make sure to know yourself and be honest about your time management abilities so you know how to handle these situations when they come up as a work-at-home parent.
Guilt
This one might surprise you. As a work-at-home parent you might find that you feel more guilty about having to prioritize work over certain family situations. It happens. While I’d love to say having a flexible schedule allows you to work whenever you want, we all know that’s not entirely true. Clients can only meet within certain hours, your remote boss schedules a weekly conference call at 6pm every Wednesday (right during your son’s soccer games), the report you’ve been working on all week is due on Monday morning and your remote colleagues didn’t hold up their end, so now you are stuck working all weekend to get it finished. These types of things happen and it’s honestly part of work-at-home life. You just have to remember that you do get to spend loads of time with your kids that you wouldn’t get to otherwise and that the times when you have to put work first, is just part of being an employed adult. It happens to everyone, whether you are working from home or in an office.
Increased/Decreased Supervision
This challenge will be job dependent. If you are thinking of becoming a work-at-home parent and are going to be opening up a new business where you are your boss, but you’ve always worked for someone else, you may find it very challenging not having someone tell you what to do all the time. (It’s glorious to me, but some people do struggle with this). Or maybe you are starting a new job with a remote company and they track everything, they have you install time trackers and monitors on your computer and can see your every click and scroll, there are Zoom meetings every day with management who spend hours going over everything you have done and everything they want you to do. Or maybe the remote company is more hands off and you have to schedule out your own day to get things done. Either way it can be a big change. Just make sure you are aware of which situation you are getting into, to know your strengths and weaknesses in these areas, and be prepared to adapt as you go along.
These are 7 challenges you will probably face as a work-at-home parent. While there are many positives to working from home with kids, it’s really important that you are aware of the hurdles too before you jump in. We’ll be sharing more challenges and how to solve them in future posts, as well as a lot more tips, tricks and stories from our experiences to help you take a shortcut to work at home success.