The Book Analyst writes – a freelance work-at-home career and children – so how is that working for you then?
Cressida Downing guest post for us about being a mother in business, working from home and being a mum. Her website is www.thebookanalyst.co.uk
I am a freelance se
lf-employed editorial consultant which I started before my daughter was born, over ten years ago now. I read manuscripts for publishers and agents, and write reports on whether I think they’re suitable to be published. I also read for aspiring writers, and give them a professional report on how close they are to possible publication, and how they can improve their writing.
I’ve just started a new service ‘Is there a Book in my Blog?’ aimed at bloggers, to see if their blogging voice translates into print, which is proving very interesting, and opening up my work sphere into new areas.
As I work largely from home, it did occur to me when planning my family that this would be a convenient way to work, but some of the pros and cons I imagined turned out quite differently to how I was expecting them!
For most of my first pregnancy, I was completely pole-axed by ‘morning’ sickness, and it was hugely advantageous not to have to regularly get into a place of work, or even have to be upright or visible to clients, most of whom didn’t know I was pregnant until I was about six months along.
Early baby days were easy too – she fed and fed and fed – and until she got too long and too kicky, I could easily read a manuscript at the same time. When she did get too long and too kicky, I cursed those authors who don’t number their pages, when trying to rescue a pile of random pages back into some sort of order…
It was soon clear though, that I needed formal childcare, and I needed her to be out of the house. If I was about – she knew I was there and wanted me. Having a ‘work day’ was a great way of focusing on what I needed to get done, and also meant I was available for work outside the house on a regular basis.
Another child down the line, and I still have a ‘work day’, despite them both being at school, which again gives me the chance to organise meetings and workshops without the 3pm deadline.
As the kids get older, they are superficially easier to fit in around work, but it’s easy to forget that they do still need your attention. I’m not a great one for ‘Mummy Guilt’, I am delighted to be doing a job I enjoy, and I truly believe it makes me a better parent and a good role model to them. Having said that, it is important to give them a sense of when ‘work’ (that grey anonymous word for them) will be over – and play can begin.
I find that the very ease with which my work fits into my home life is also its danger. I don’t want my children to grow up thinking that work happens at home, all the time. I have a study and one day my work will happen in there and be closed off at the end of the day.. one day!
My children accept my work, my partner values and accepts my work, but the wider community view ‘working at home’ as ‘sitting at home with a cup of coffee and Jeremy Kyle’. I’m often the first to be called upon from school amongst the ‘working mums’ as they know I’m a sitting target – there at home, and it’s assumed my time is infinitely elastic.
My advice to anyone who is considering working from home with children is to lay the ground rules and geography out while they are small and malleable. They soon won’t be! So get yourself a work area – preferably a study – and make it ever so slightly inaccessible from the rest of the house. And look into regular childcare, it’s worth every penny.
