Think about your typical workday morning routine. Perhaps, it involves fighting for your spot in line to shower, packing lunches amidst ironing clothes, or simply managing to look presentable enough for work while also searching for your child’s missing shoes.
Overwhelming, right? And that’s only before you rush out the door to warm up your car just in time to hit a 30-minute traffic jam, and then walk into an office full of customary greetings and mandatory meetings with people you’d rather not spend your early mornings around.
So when you hear “work from home,” it may sound like a dream, especially for any moms. You can roll out of bed in the morning, make breakfast in your pajamas, send kids to school, and begin work with a steaming cup of coffee.
While this seems like it’d be the preference of every single mother (or anyone, really), working from home is truly not for everyone. Sometimes, it takes working remotely to realize you actually crave the office environment or need your colleagues sitting nearby to feel the motivation to work.
Before searching for remote jobs, you might want to address a primary concern you’re asking: ‘Is working from home suitable for me?’
Here is a list of pros and cons you may want to weigh when thinking about working from home.
Work from Home-Pros
Flexibility
The primary woe of a 9 to 5 job is that it leaves you no room to cater to anything else in your life; a dentist appointment, chaperoning your child’s field trip, picking children up from school, and so on. This is incredibly difficult for mothers.
Work from home allows you that flexibility. You need to get your work done but you can manage your time accordingly.
However, since some employers want their work from home staff to be available during allotted office hours, make sure you are clear about the expectations when applying for a job.
No Commute
Okay, let’s be real. The idea of strolling from bed to your personal desk is tempting! You don’t need to dress up or think of hacks to style unwashed hair (welcome to the world of moms!).
You can be as comfortable as you want and skip the time it takes to reach the office, which is 26.1 minutes for a one-way commute for the average American. This does not mean you spend those 20 minutes snoozing in bed.
Take this time to get a head start at work so you can take a break or be done by the time your kids are home from school.
Fewer Interruptions
In an office setting, by the time you scoot into your desk and begin working, a colleague might drop by to rant about the boss or complain about her babysitter-whatever the topic may be, it wastes precious time.
31% of employees waste around 30 minutes every day, while 10% waste 3-4 hours, highlighting around 15 hours gone down the drain each week!
While this is a significant dent in your company’s productivity, it actually slows you down as well.
When you’re already vying for time, failure to complete the day’s tasks would mean leaving the work for tomorrow. In an attempt to complete yesterday’s work, you will lag behind the allotted work for that day. This vicious cycle continues, hampering your growth at your job.
This may only count as a pro for someone with older children attending school. When you still have younger children, this situation is actually flipped around. There will be more distractions at home versus an office setting in this case. (See cons for more details.)
Saves You Money
Daycare
Daycare expenses can damper anyone’s spirit when paying more than half your hard efforts of working just to pay for each week. For some, daycare can cost the equivalent of an entire week’s earnings, if not more. In this case, what’s the point?
When you work from home, you have the option to watch your own children 24/7, but this is a personal preference depending on what age your children are and each individual needs they have. While it may seem counterproductive when you get pulled away from your computer throughout the day, it’s a balancing act you will definitely need to figure out in order to save money and make it work.
When working from home, you still have the option to pay for daycare or a babysitter outside the house, if needed, but the expense is much less when only needing part-time care. The option to hire a part-time, in-home nanny is also available. This is especially easy to find during the summer hours when teenagers are out of school and looking for a few bucks. The bonus to this option is you are still around when needed and have access to your children right in your own home.
Food
Another huge money-saver when working from home is on food. Unless you are efficient enough to take packed lunches from home to the office (unlikely for busy moms) every day, you’re probably spending a significant chunk of your salary on takeout and expensive lattes.
Studies found that an average employee spends around $3000 on coffee and lunch at work every year!
Working from home allows you to consume healthier and economical food prepared from ingredients available at home, and when you can enjoy it with your children beside you, there is nothing like it!
Keep Your Peace-of-Mind
Let’s face it. Even licensed daycares can be flawed with understaffed and overstressed employees, a nap time that does not suit your child’s schedule or pricey fees if you pick up your child 20 minutes later than expected. And if you have children in school, you may be paying for an afterschool program they are not thrilled about.
When you work from home, you can skip all that nonsense. You’re not paying for someone else to share their attention amongst several other children, or to put it blatantly, to raise your small child during the day. You have full control over their day and much of the “mom guilt” is cleared away knowing you are there for them.
If you have older children who are in school, you are just a quick phone call and hop away from them if they come down with an illness and need to come home. You are able to pick up your child and head back home to tuck them in bed and carry on with a large work project. Or if your 2nd grader has a field trip that you would like to chaperone, you’re able to work a few extra hours the night before to free up that time spending with your child instead.
Avoid Office Illnesses
It’s inevitable that the flu going around the office you work at is bound to get you next. Your cubicle neighbor is coughing to the point that you’ve deemed your cup of coffee unsafe to finish. Unfortunately, these are issues every employee faces each year, whether they’re in an office setting or serving at a restaurant around sick coworkers or customers.
At the time of this being written, March 2020, the world is facing a pandemic of the Coronavirus which has been quickly spreading. To take preventative measures, hundreds of offices have closed their doors and asked their employees to work from home for the time being.
While this is a smart decision, it’s only a temporary situation for most workplaces. But if you are already working from home, you have the advantage of avoiding these illnesses all year round.
Travel Opportunites
Working from home essentially means “work from anywhere.” This can be as far as taking a trip to the nearest coffee shop for a change in atmosphere to a full-blown summer vacation traveling around the world.
Now, while you may still need to scope out places with internet access or find a quiet conference room at the hotel you booked at, you really cannot go wrong with the option to take your work anywhere in the world with you.
There are a few exceptions to this benefit, and typically it’s with companies that require you to use company-provided hardware that can only be used from the safety of your home office.
Fortunately, the majority of the types of remote jobs that moms typically find work that can be taken elsewhere.
Work from Home-Cons
Isolation
Stay-at-home moms often experience feelings of isolation and a loss of identity. A survey of 60,000 women in the US testified that the majority of stay-at-home moms reported feeling depressed and lonely.
The isolation can carry over, and sometimes become worse, when you become a work-from-home mom. Not only are you devoting your every minute to your children, but you are also now fitting in the responsibility of getting your job done each day.
Many remote jobs require you to be part of a team that will require constant communication or weekly zoom meetings with your team members. This can alleviate much of the feelings of isolation and offer a way to socialize with adults, even if it’s on a professional level.
If you are working to enhance your social interactions and take a break from monotonous parental duties, remote work might not be favorable for you, especially if your children are at a younger age or in toddler stages.
Poor Work-Life Balance
It’s easier to limit your work to the office in a traditional work arrangement. You can clock out, walk out the double doors, and leave all work-related stress and tasks in that building. You arrive home and can focus on family, dinnertime, and maybe an hour of homework with your oldest child.
Work from home poses the risk that your work might spill into family time, negating the whole purpose of work from home for moms. Oftentimes, work tasks have to be pushed aside to entertain a 2-year old, pick up the spilled crackers, or cluster-feeding a newborn.
Where will that work fit into the day when your virtual boss has set a deadline for the next morning? Dinnertime, of course. Or after everyone else has gone to bed and you finally find a few moments of peace but at the cost of your own sleeping hours.
If you constantly find yourself pushing work aside during the day, and attempting to complete your tasks at the counter while making dinner, this can lead to burnout. It may start feeling like work and life now intertwine and there is no separation from the two.
Distractions at Home
If you have younger kids, they will likely not understand that you have to ‘work’ from home.
Since there is no accountability apart from your own integrity, you will damage your reputation if it gets too cumbersome to manage work with your kids in the other room.
Be prepared to see kids running to you every hour with some complaint or demand, hampering your work profoundly.
Another distraction is your neighbors, friends, and family members. You may be the one person everyone can rely on when there is an emergency, but it will become detrimental to your job when others take advantage of your flexibility during the day. A friend may even air quote how you “work from home” when they visit you for an unannounced playdate.
Many people in your life may not understand that “working from home” means that you… well, work.
It is of the utmost importance to set boundaries early on and make it clear to some that, while you have the capability to volunteer at the school once a week or take your children out to eat for lunch, it does not mean that you have to compromise your productivity (or paycheck amount) by replacing work hours with favors to others.
Lower Productivity
If you feel you work best under guidance, working from home might actually decrease your productivity. Without a proper office environment, you might feel lazy or unable to complete tasks, especially with the distractions of children, tv, or games.
Companies take into account a number of factors including workplace design, temperature, décor, color, and indoor plants to create an environment that is scientifically proven to be more conducive to employee well-being and productivity.
At home, you might be missing that environment, obstructing your personal drive to work.
Limited Access to Technology
While some companies will provide everything from a headset to a company laptop, in reality, this mostly only happens when you are working between a local office and taking work home some days of the week.
For most of the remote jobs in positions like a transcriptionist, virtual assistance, or account management, you will need access to your own updated computer, fast internet speed, and other technological advances to complete your job duties. This means more money out-of-pocket upfront.
Limited Sick Leave
If you wake up coughing and running a small fever, the first thing you do is contact your boss and let them know you are staying home sick. After all, the last thing anybody needs is to be infected by what you have and then the whole office ends up calling out sick. The big boss would much rather have one person stay home for a few days just to avoid that predicament.
But when you work a remote job, it’s clearly a different situation. Unless you are unable to crawl out of bed or need to be taken to the emergency room, it’s still possible for you to get work done even while dependent on a bag of cough drops. In fact, most remote workers don’t even mention their illness to their boss, unless it’s truly interfering with getting the job done.
Also, because many remote jobs allow so much flexibility, sometimes it’s possible to skip a few days of work, as long as your deadline is met. This might mean putting in a few extra hours some other days of the week or get in a few hours on a Saturday morning, but it’s easy to balance out when needed.
Inconsistent Pay
Working remotely can mean contract work, which means you are paid an hourly rate and, unless that employer promised a certain number of hours each week, you can expect this to fluctuate depending on projects or tasks assigned to you. Many times, this is why remote workers will take on multiple part-time roles.
Don’t let this deter you from wanting to work a remote job. Now that working from home is on the rise, larger companies are hopping on board and are willing to pay a salary every week. This means they will pay you the same each week no matter what. But be prepared to have a full workload on your plate and think realistically about how much work you can take on when working at home with children around.
Is Work from Home Suitable for you?
This choice really depends on your personal motivation and temperament. Think about your current work environment versus what your home office environment would entail. Be honest with yourself if this list of pros and cons will apply to your situation and to what severity.
You will also need to take into account the age of your children, their day-to-day needs, whether they’re in school, and if you plan on working only part-time or full-time hours from home.
While working from home with younger kids feels better suited to you, for other moms, the productivity may not be there if the focus is on children all day. Also, if you believe you need that watchful eye or supervision of others to work, it might not be your cup of tea.
After weighing the pros and cons, and if you have decided working from home is for you, take a look through the range of legit work from home jobs for moms available for you!