Home working mums and dads

Today’s guest post is from Kalliopi and Diona, who run the Greek site Mammasworkathome:

One of us had been working from home for many years before our site came to life, as a translator, and the other, a computer engineer/site developer had more recently made the big change. Both of us though, had already realized that one of the biggest challenges home workers usually face, is isolation and not getting out of the house much!

We decided to host interviews of other home workers, mostly work from home mothers whom we got to know online, in order to talk about what makes us happy or anxious when running a home based business.

Working with small kids around proved the most challenging thing to deal with. Caring for them and giving them the attention they need calls for flexible planning and scheduling. Elina is the creator and co-owner of Sunny Side, an e-shop with organic and fair trade products, and a mother of a very vibrant toddler. “I don’t usually have the luxury to choose my working hours. I wake up around 4am so I can have some time to work without any distractions and when there is a lot of workload, I spend much of the weekend working too…”

Having a working space and a home under the same roof, means inventing special ways of building a professional, as well as a relaxed environment for every member of the household. Almost all our interviewees mentioned how important is the role of their life partner when trying to keep steady office hours or make business phone calls and video meetings.

Konstantinos is a developer who works remotely for Greenpeace International and his wife Stella is co-owner and administrator of a popular recipe portal. They live with their kids in southwest Greece and they both work from home. “We live and work together 24 hours a day. We share everything that needs to be done around the house and we truly respect each other’s working hours.”

And there’s more from Kalliopi and Diona on home working with baby.