The Self Employed Mom

Mommy Blogs - There are lots of us out there

This is my first post on the The Self-Employed Mom blog which is not a republication of one of my columns. I have been scouring the Internet for other working mom blogs (or just mom blogs, or just working blogs) and well, there are lots.

It’s gratifying to know that I’m not alone, even though it sure as hell feels like it when you’re in the thick of things trying to get the kids ready for school in the morning while your mind’s on the 10 am conference call and/or other impending deadlines that are a fact of working life.

So I wanted to take the time to intoduce my growing list of working mom blog links (or working/mom) blog links. Not everyone has made it to my blog roll because, well, I’m not reading the blogs regularly yet so don’t want to fully endorse them. Still, from what I’ve read, they are worthwhile and I’m happy to have a place for them on The Self Employed Mom site. Get some coffee and spend some time reading these women’s blogs - it’s a great way to start the day.

Spirit of peace inspired first Mother’s Day

By Jacqueline Dooley
“Let [mothers] solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace”
- Julia Ward Howe

For me, Mother’s Day isn’t just about getting to do what I want, and being remembered and honored (translation: showered with gifts) in the process. It’s also about giving my kids what they want, and enjoying them fully without the distraction of work.

I almost wish Mother’s Day did not fall on a Sunday because, as a working mom, the best Mother’s Day gift of all is playing hooky for the day. What could be more deliciously rebellious than taking Tuesday off to drive to the Jersey shore and collect shells with your kids when you’re supposed to be on a conference call?

So it’s not too terribly difficult to pinpoint exactly what I want for Mother’s Day. In fact, I’ve already got the day planned out. I’m going to New Jersey with my family to visit my mother. There’s nothing better than having three generations of mothers and daughters together on Mother’s Day. I can live without the flowers, candy and trinkets. My number one desire is to have that time together.

Still, I’ve often wondered how it all started. Why is Mother’s Day on a Sunday and not in the middle of the week when we could surely use the break? Not surprisingly, the day began with a very hard-working mother and one truly dedicated daughter.

Congress, on May 8, 1914, designated the second Sunday in May each year as Mother’s Day, after Anna Jarvis began lobbying for the day to be set aside, according to a press release from the U.S. Census Bureau. She had organized observances in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908, a year after her mother’s death, and the celebration began to spread.

Meetings in beginning

In fact, the very first Mother’s Day celebrations in America were not celebrations at all. They were meetings organized by Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” “who proposed renaming July 4 as Mother’s Day and a day dedicated to peace,” according to a May 8, 2004, presidential proclamation.

Howe, a poet and writer, was a working mother during a time when women’s involvement in anything but family and the home was frowned upon. She played an active role in the women’s suffrage movement and often spoke at the pulpit of her own Unitarian church. Howe had witnessed firsthand the carnage of Civil War and how it deeply affected not only soldiers, but widows and orphans on both sides of the war.

So the very first Mother’s Day in this country was organized not by a child in honor of their own mother (that comes next), but rather, by a working mother as a way to honor peace in a time of great national upheaval and war.

It’s difficult not to feel humble about what first inspired Mother’s Day in America. So even though I’m glad to honor my own mother this weekend, and be honored myself, this year I will also remember to honor the spirit of peace, which inspired the first Mother’s Day meetings so many years ago.

I also can’t help but feel grateful to both Howe and Jarvis for taking up their causes and working hard to put mothers into the forefront of national consciousness. That surely has helped shape the opportunities afforded to women (mothers or otherwise) over the past 100 years.

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Kid Intolerance (Hey, you used to be one too!)

Raising children and working full-time is tough. Working from home hasn’t been the complete resolution I thought it would be, but it has helped, particularly when I need to temporarily pull away from my desk to be there for my kids’ imminent needs.
 
That can mean things like rushing off to emergency doctor appointments, being available to hold them on my lap indefinitely when they are sick, or ferrying them around to see their friends at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Because I work from home, I am able to do this all without much conflict, but I know that if I worked full-time in an office, leaving my desk for my family would either be impossible or, at the very least, cause resentment.
 
And this lack of empathy for parents and our needs (which are really our children’s needs) extends far outside the work place. It seems like every day I read another alarming story about how someone is denied public transportation because of a child’s tantrum or removed from a public place because they were breastfeeding.
 
Young children have tantrums. Babies need to eat. Families with babies and children need to get from point A to point B just like everybody else. Sometimes children have trouble speaking in hushed tones or holding back tears so, yes, you’re going to hear them cry.

Has our national patience run so thin that we can’t allow some poor family get to where they need to go? What’s next? Will we see “No Children Allowed” signs in every bus station and airport?  And those (hopefully few) souls who love to point out that we  “chose” to have children, and therefore brought all this negativity on ourselves, may want to discuss the decision-making process with their own parents.
 
As a society, we need to remember that children are not just miniature adults. Children are loud. They don’t like being stuffed into an airplane for 7 hours, but more importantly, they don’t understand the social responsibility of stifling their discomfort. But our children have the right to be in this world, no matter how loud or inconvenient they may be. 

Would it be so difficult for us as a society to provide havens for parents to stop, take a break, and care for our children with some relative privacy?  Small allowances, such as green areas or playgrounds at airports would give our kids a chance to run themselves right into a nice long nap.

Are we to be forever relegated to our homes, or “family-friendly” horror shows like Chuckie Cheese and McDonald’s, until the children can behave more like adults?
 
For that matter, why can’t doctors and dentists have evening and weekend hours? When you need to take a school-age child to the doctor at 10 am, it means you miss the morning of work, and they miss nearly an entire day of school.
 
I doubt we’ll start seeing more tolerance or accessibility for working parents until we embrace childhood in our society, with all of its imperfections, unplanned moments, and unrestricted enthusiasm.
 
For me the choice was clear – my daughters’ childhood comes first. They’ll need to retain an innate sense of joy when they remember their early years so they have the strength and motivation to implement child-friendly policies when they become President.  Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long.

Working at home can have stressful moments

By Jacqueline Dooley
Quitting work to stay home with your baby or older child is a hard decision - one that never entered my mind when I got pregnant the first time. I took six weeks off after the birth of my oldest daughter, Ana (now 6) and went right back into the fray of a full-time job even though it broke my heart.

Six whole weeks seemed like a really long time to be off from work. But I wasn’t a mother yet, even though I was about to become one, and I didn’t have the foresight to understand how much my baby would interfere with my feelings about everything, especially my job.

But those first six weeks flew by and it was time to go back to work way before I was mentally ready. But, I still got up that first morning, packed my breast pump and headed to the office.

I worked full time for the first year and a half of Ana’s life, but my enthusiasm for my job was stifled, overshadowed by my love for my baby. I used to wonder if men felt the same heart-wrenching feeling of loss every day when they drove away from their babies.

It was a relief when I got laid off in October 2002, when Ana was about 16 months. For the first time I got to spend entire days with my daughter that included play dates, library story times and trips to the park.

Staying at home full-time was great at first, but it presented challenges that I didn’t expect. I actually missed work, and I longed to have some time to myself. I was also very lonely and missed chatting with my friends from work - something I’d taken for granted when I saw them every day.

Isolating experience

I learned how isolating it is to be home with a young child all day long. I remember taking walks with her and trying to structure the day so neither of us would get bored, which wasn’t always easy, particularly in the winter. I lived for nap times when I could get a break. I never really stopped looking for work during this time because we couldn’t afford it, not really, but unemployment checks enabled me to take my time.

When I started working for myself a few hours a week it was the best of both worlds for me. But as my business grew, my hours also grew and I found I was more stressed out than ever trying to keep up all the household responsibilities while simultaneously focusing on my business.

My father used to tell me, “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”

Since I’ve had my kids, I often think of his words. I was miserable when I worked full-time in an office, and not as blissfully happy as I thought I would be when I was home full-time. Working full-time from home is also not my ideal scenario, although it’s the one I’m living now.

I don’t resent my business. On the contrary, I’m very grateful for it, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely sold on the idea I can’t one day work less hours and spend more time doing mom things. There can be time for both if I create time, but I’ve been a mom and business owner long enough to know that’s easier said than done.

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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 5th, 2007.

Change of scenery can stimulate creativity

By Jacqueline Dooley 

As a self-employed person I am breaking lots of rules by working outside of the normal 9-5 office environment. I can think of a few key things right off the bat that feel deliciously rebellious right now. These include working in jeans, working from home, making personal phone calls and getting started later than 9 a.m.

The flip side of this is I’m completely on my own and require a large amount of self-discipline and direction, which is often challenging. There can also be complications outside the office that creep up unexpectedly and it’s up to me to figure out how to overcome them. For example, yesterday I was feverishly working on two deadlines when I lost my Internet connection at about 1:30 pm.

I had only started working at noon because I’d taken my kids to the dentist, then had to drop them both off at school, which required some sophisticated navigation due to all the flooding-related detours.

Luckily my sister-in-law lives in New Paltz and her house is always empty during the day. They rarely lose power or Internet. So I drove the 10 minutes to get there and was able to complete my work (for the most part). In truth, I surprised myself by my own productivity. Even though I wasn’t working from a “traditional” office, I was able to concentrate without the temptation of multiple distractions.

Office has distractions

I called my sister-in-law to thank her for letting me work at her house and she agreed she gets a lot more accomplished when she works from home. There are lots of distractions at her office so it’s difficult to focus. She’s even going to set up an office in her basement so she can work from home occasionally. I wonder if she will find once the newness of working from home wears off, it can still be difficult to avoid distractions.

To that end, I wonder if taking yourself out of whatever work environment you’re used to can actually help with productivity. I used to think working from home 100 percent of the time was the best way for me to get my work done, but now that I’m living that dream, I’m beginning to yearn for a place to go outside of my house - at least once in a while.

I’ve lived the other extreme for many years and I know working 100 percent outside my home is also not what I want. If I do that, I’ll begin to resent the commute, the time away from my kids and the drudgery of being in the same cubicle day after day.

It all comes down to the fact that rules are made to be broken. Since (for me) a key rule of self-employment is I get to work from home, it stands to reason breaking that rule and going to work somewhere (anywhere) else can actually help me stay focused and break me out of a rut. This was certainly the case yesterday when I found myself working at someone else’s quiet house, on a nice country road where my own home-based distractions and chores couldn’t steal my focus away from work.

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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 21st, 2007.

Kids’ school breaks make work-play juggling harder

By Jacqueline Dooley
I often wish I could take time off more spontaneously in response to events that make it difficult to put in a full week’s worth of work. For example, both my girls were home this week because of spring break. My older daughter is in kindergarten and this is a pretty big schedule shift for her.

My youngest daughter goes to a childcare program at BOCES, which is also closed for spring break. She only goes a few days a week, so staying home all week is really no big deal for her. She’s used to being home with her father while I work upstairs.

The big challenge is having both girls home together all week. The little one is used to having some time to herself and the older one actually misses school. This is the first time she’s been really, truly bored.

They are both getting in each other’s hair while I work upstairs listening to it all and wishing I could do something with them. But there are some weeks I just can’t break away. I’m going to be away all next week at a conference, plus the first week of the month is my busiest time.

I used to think it would be easy to take time off since I work for myself, but it’s often the opposite that’s true.

My husband and I have had many conversations about what we should do when our kids get older in terms of extracurricular activities. We agreed to keep each girl in one extracurricular activity of their choosing and keep their schedules fairly open during vacations and weekends.

When I came to the above conclusion, my older daughter was about three. At that point in time, she was quite content with playing with stuffed animals and contemplating her navel.

Now she doesn’t miss an opportunity to tell me she’s bored and ask me to do something with her. I love that she wants to spend time with me, but I hate the guilt. I’m also realizing that what may be right for one stage of a child’s life isn’t necessarily going to be what’s right for another.

That’s how I found myself scheduling her week, much the way I schedule my own week. A play date on Tuesday, gymnastics camp on Wednesday and Thursday (with her little sister along for the latter), a sleepover at grandma’s from Thursday to Friday and I’m home free (or rather, work free) by Saturday.

Not like the past

When did this happen? Is this a working mom thing or a typical parenting thing? I remember playing outside during school breaks, or coloring or reading. Well, OK, she can’t read yet so I’ll give her that.

This short break is making me realize that I’ll need to plan better for things like summer vacations and holidays. I don’t want to keep missing them. In retrospect, I wish I would’ve scheduled a few days off this week even though I’ll be away next week so I could spend time coloring, playing outside and reading with both my girls.

To this end, I have hired three subcontractors over the past couple of weeks to help me get my work done. I think this is a good way to build a safety net so my business can stand to be without me for a few days (and vice versa). Hopefully, this will ensure that I can enjoy more than a few lazy days of summer with my girls, instead of working through all the fun stuff.

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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 7, 2007.

Adventure Counters Burnout

by Jacqueline Dooley

When I first started freelancing in 2002, the ability to work remotely from my home and on my own terms was extremely exciting.

When you’re starting out with a new business, the excitement of endless opportunity can make each day feel like the first day of summer vacation. It was the first time in my life that I couldn’t wait to get up each day and go to work.

But things don’t stay new forever and (as the saying goes), the honeymoon period only lasts so long before any new beginning can begin to lose its sparkle.

I think that’s what’s happening with me lately. My home business is starting to feel less like I’m striking out on a new frontier and more like an actual job.

Even though it’s mine, and even though I have way more freedom and I’m making way more money than I ever have before, I’m beginning to show signs of burnout and worse - boredom.

I realize it’s not uncommon for people to question their jobs and their careers every so often. Many of my friends and colleagues are doing just that - whether it’s scoping the field for a new and better job or completing their master’s degree, everyone I know is moving in a new direction.

I guess we all love that shiny feeling of endless possibility that comes at the beginning of a new journey.

I’m chalking up my own feelings of boredom and burnout to a long, hard winter of much work and little play. The first day of spring, which came and went this week, has probably fueled my own restlessness.

Before last year, I never really thought much about breathing new life into my business and regaining the momentum and excitement I had for it when I started out. My business was in a constant state of flux as I tried to find my niche, obtain new clients and learn how to manage it all. I also worked part time for the first two years.

Now that I’ve exceeded two years of full-time self-employment, I’ve begun feeling the standard full-time job burnout that I remember from the old days when I was more traditionally employed. However, unlike 2002, when it was nearly impossible to find a full-time position in my field of expertise, (online marketing), the industry is booming.

Good to have choices

That provides me with a lot of different options for shaping my career. On the one hand, I can try to align myself as a full-time contractor with one company or even seek a full-time job as an employee. On the other hand, since I’m not ready to give up the good life, I can put some effort into my professional growth by going to industry events and conferences, taking certification programs that are becoming more readily available as the online marketing industry matures and focusing on developing and refining my service offerings.

In fact, I’m taking my own advice as early as next month, when I’ll be speaking at one of my industry’s most well-known conferences, Search Engine Strategies in New York City.

As a speaker, I not only get to attend the conference for free, I have a unique opportunity to meet some of the top minds in my industry. It has motivated me to do everything from updating my certifications and Web site content to ordering new business cards. I can feel the boredom fading away already.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 24th, 2007.

Home business is like a needy child

by Jacqueline Dooley

Sometimes I love my work. It provides blissful escape to the drudgery of household chores and Disney movies. It is tied to my self worth and is a source of pride. Rarely, my work even seems easy, but those moments are few and far between.

More often than not my business feels like a very needy and high-maintenance third child. It’s difficult and demanding - a source of worry and stress. When work becomes as relentless as parenthood, I’m in trouble.

When that happens, I can get lost in the minutia of day-to-day tasks that force me to work too much, sleep too little and juggle a million things that seem on the brink of crashing down on my head at any moment.

At first, I begin to obsess over little things such as unfolded laundry, messy beds, unreturned phone calls and stacks of bills that need attention. But those little things become monumental - transforming into a nonspecific and ever-present feeling of dread that I’ve forgotten something terribly important, or I’ve made a crucial mistake.

I handle this feeling by multi-tasking, but that only works for so long. I know I’m fighting a losing battle when I find myself helping my 5-year-old with her homework while chatting with a client on the phone and simultaneously checking my e-mail.

It must be what a hamster feels like when it’s running in its little wheel busily moving forward and getting nowhere. But perhaps I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective.

Maybe the hamster is completely content with the experience of running in one place and never getting anywhere. Maybe I can learn from that hamster and just enjoy completing tasks as they come up without ever expecting that I can finish everything. Maybe I should give myself a break.

Ups and downs

I realize these phases of frenzied activity are pretty typical for working parents and that my life is really a combination of extremely busy weeks followed by slower days or - dare I hope - even weeks of down time. Still, that doesn’t make me stop worrying about what balls I’m dropping or who I may let down.

Most working people experience ebbs and flows in their schedules. We get weekends and holidays off. We get to unwind in the evenings and recharge our mental batteries during slow periods at work when we can organize our process and feel energized for what’s coming down the pipeline.

But when you’re a parent, there’s almost no down time at all. And when you’re a working parent, you can forget about down time altogether. I’m lucky if I can even grab a full night’s sleep or finish a meal.

I work twice as hard as a mom as I do as a business owner, but when my business cries out for attention, my kids inevitably begin to protest in ways that tear at my heart. For example, my 2-year-old refuses to leave my side whenever I enter the room and cries inconsolably when it’s time for me to go. My 5-year-old insists I read to her four books in a row - no doubt because it allows her to sit next to me for a long time and focus my full attention on her. But this is working motherhood, and I accept that.

It isn’t always one crazy day after another and I have to admit working late for me means that I don’t get downstairs until 5:30 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m. Still, when you’re stuck in the hamster wheel, it’s hard not to feel like there’s no end in sight.

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This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 3, 2007.

Is Self-Employment a Permanent Solution?

By Jacqueline Dooley 

Every Sunday morning, I get an e-mail newsletter filled with job openings in the media industry. I’ve been receiving this newsletter for at least four years, and each year I’ve used it differently.

During my first year in business, I used the newsletter to actively seek employment. I often sent introductory e-mails offering myself up as a source of interim talent to the companies seeking to hire full-time employees. My feeling was that even part-time, freelance help was better than no help at all.

Even though I no longer need to troll the listings, I continue to receive the newsletter. Now I use it to gauge the health of the industry, and evaluate the types of jobs out there.

One of the things that catches my eye among the listings is the phrase, “permanent position.” I wonder what permanent means these days?

Oh, I’m jaded, I fully admit that. I’ll never be able to trust the permanence of any “permanent” position again based on living through the layoffs that occurred at the agency where I worked from 1997 to 2002. Not only did I witness at least six rounds of layoffs during my tenure with that company, I eventually ended up on the chopping block.

It was hard to believe that’s how the story ended back then. Getting laid off from a position that, in 1997, had unlimited potential for growth was not only shocking, it was a huge eye opener. I think my own naivete was a big reason for my blind faith in the permanence of my job back then. My father has been employed with the same company for more than 30 years, after all. I saw no reason for my own career path to be any different.

Yet I’ve always felt a nagging uncertainty about being dependent on one company for my complete financial security for an indefinite amount of time.

Not sure it can be done

These days I often wonder if it’s possible to be permanently self-employed. How long can I go on running my own business, which is paradoxically dependent on the viability and success of other businesses - and their ongoing need for talent - until the day I fold up my computer and retire to a hammock in the Bahamas?

I’ve asked that question a lot lately, and the answer is always - well, forever. But my husband has pointed out on more than one occasion that we have no safety net like we would if I was an employee for one company.

When you’re self-employed, you are not covered by unemployment. There are no severance packages, or COBRA benefits. The money just stops until you can find a way to start it up again.

Now my financial stability must be independent from job permanence. My business is the path to that reality - I truly believe that - but only if I plan it properly and don’t ignore things like IRA contributions and supplementary long-term disability insurance even though they nibble away at my immediate income.

Planning for contingencies so my family is covered if the money stops coming in is part of what I have to consider to keep this well-oiled machine running. If I don’t take the time to plan ahead now, then I may as well start sending out resumés again.

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This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal under the title, “Job security is just a wish for most self-employers” (a title I hate) on Saturday, February 17, 2007.