My Story Of How I Started to Work-At-Home

Before my daughter was born, I worked as a retail manager for 10 years and worked wild and crazy hours that usually ended up adding up to 50-80 hours a week. My husband worked two jobs and was only home for a few hours a day with one day off a week from both. We had set ourselves goals to be financially sound in 3 years (had student loans and vehicles to pay off). I was told at 16 that I wouldn’t be able to have children and the doctor’s reconfirmed it at age 21. When we first got married we set a goal of starting the adoption process after 5 years of marriage. Well, 2 years into our marriage we found out that I was expecting our first child. I remember feeling so many emotions at once like being scared, excited, and confused. As my pregnancy went along I developed toxemia. Because of my toxemia I ended up having to deliver her 1 month early. She was in the hospital for 1 month after she was born and it tore me into as a mom to have to leave the hospital to go home while she was still in the NICU. I had plans to be a stay at home mom for the first 6 to 8 months of her life so that I could bond with her before I started back to work. Well, life happened and we ended up splitting up when she was 2 months old. I think he realized being a father was not something that he was ready for, especially a child that was going to require constant attention. I then realized that for me and her to survive that I would have to start to work again to bring in a paycheck. I was so emotional when I went back to work, it seemed like everything would make me miss my daughter. I was lucky enough that my grandmother (who raised me) wanted to take care of her while I was at work, at least then I knew she was well taken care of. I soon had the single working parent life down to a robotic flow. At first when my marriage went south I was so scared that I couldn’t pull it off but I seemed to have done it after all. I still wasn’t happy that I was working as much as I was and was always looking for ways to improve my chance at working less and making the money that we needed to live on. Before she was born my work ruled a large part of my life but after she was born work lost it’s luster for me. All of my friends knew that I was on the edge of a major life change when my daughter was 4. I changed companies that I worked for because they promised that I would only be working 40-45 hours weekly and that would mean that I could be home more. Within 4 months of taking the job I realized that 40-45 hours a week was just a fantasy that I fell for. I went to a “Bunko Party” one night with a friend as an extra and at my table realized that two women that sat across from me were work-at-home moms and one of them was even a single work-at-home mom. I immediately started to ask questions and got an immediate fever in me to find a work-at-home job. Fast forward to 6 months after that party, I was still looking for a legit work-at-home job. I went to a BBQ at a friends and was talking to his wife and told her about my journey to find a work-at-home job and she said “Can you do clerical work?”, I immediately told her yes and she said, “Great your hired.” I didn’t know that they were looking for a replacement clerical worker for their company and when she heard me talk about my need she saw that it would be a perfect fit for them. I have now been working for them as a work-at-home clerical assistant for awhile now and can’t ever imagine going back to an outside of the house job. Even though I took a significant pay cut from what I was used to, it is still the best job I have ever had. It has definitely changed me as a person and mom, ways that would have probably never happened if I had stayed on the path I was on.

Now, why did I tell you this story? I hope that it is inspiration to never give up your search for a work-at-home job. There are plenty of legit opportunities out there. Send out a resume to companies that you would like to work for and explain why a work-at-home employee would be beneficial to them and sell your skills to do so. You might be lucky and get a good response that leads to your work-at-home success. Remember that telecommuting is becoming more and more popular with companies now and some are actually creating positions specifically for us work-at-home moms. Good luck to all of you on your quest.