Home working with baby

The other day Diona and Kalliopi of Mammas Work At Home shared a couple of stories of home working mums and dads. Today the subject is combining motherhood with both new and established careers:

Building a professional profile that clients and associates will appreciate is also something that home workers, and especially parents, may have to deal with.

Elisa is an architect and co-owner of Studio Blue Architects, an architectural and technical consult company she runs with her husband. She has recently moved with her family from Athens to London where she now works from her home office.

“If my husband is also in a meeting and cannot babysit and I have scheduled a business appointment too, I take my son along in his stroller! I have always been honest with my clients and this proved to be the best policy. I was clear from the beginning. At first I thought they might be reluctant to work with a work at home mum, but I was wrong. Working hard and building a solid professional profile all these years, gained my clients’ trust.”

What we found out from our contact with home workers is that their decision to work from home is sometimes also combined with their decision for career change. And in many cases, it is the fulfillment of a dream or the making of a business based on a hobby or passion.

Stella is an economics graduate who worked in the corporate business sector for quite a few years before she decided to create a business out of her love for baby wearing. “I started making custom handmade slings when I still had my day job and this was just my hobby, I didn’t have any income out of it. I kept putting even more time and energy to this project that it turned into a home based business before I even knew it. Today, it is my full-time occupation. I still enjoy it so much; I only have the social security forms to remind me this is a registered business and not just my hobby.”

There is this reassuring feeling of community when finding out how others spend their day working from home. From family issues to organizing ideas and invoice software choices, our guess is that home workers enjoy staying in touch and sharing experiences.