I am a daughter. I am sister. I am a niece. I am an aunt. I am a dog mom. I am a wife. I am a daughter in law. I am a sister in law. I am a friend to many people. I am a former teacher. I am Godmother. I am a work from home business owner. I am not a mom.
This is my diary.
You see I am very proud of all that I am. I am not ashamed of what I am not.
However those last two things that I mentioned though, "I am a work from home business owner. I am not a mom." those two things seem to generate quite a few misunderstandings among the people in my life.
misunderstanding number 1
You used to be a teacher but you are not anymore, you obviously love kids and MUST miss working with them and since you work at home AND you don't have any children of your own your hours are flexible and you are available to come babysit my kids anytime I want to run to town, hang out with my other lady friends (because after all I know how much you miss being with kids and know how much you would rather hang out with my kids instead of being invited to hang out with the lady friends), want to have a lunch date or dinner date with my husband, etc. etc. etc. oh and you wouldn't mind doing it for free would you, because after all, I trust you with my kids because you were a teacher after all, and my kids adore you, and you must miss being around kids because you love them so much.
Yes, I love children, I even love your children dearly, I really, really do, but friends my babysitting days were behind me looooooooooooooooooooong ago. Listen, I don't mind helping out a friend in a pinch, an emergency arises, you gotta take one of the other littles or the hubby or yourself to the ER, CALL ME, I can be flexible for emergencies.
Otherwise, the truth is no, I really don't want to baby sit your kids. The real truth is I am offended that you think that just because I work from home and don't have any children that I should be able to just drop everything, take time away from doing whatever I could be doing to build my business, spending time with my family, (oh I will rant more about that later)caring for my home......for free
Every once in a while I will look at you, my friend with kids and I will say, "You look like you could you a night out with your hubby, let's plan that"...or "I don't mind hanging out with them while you go to the grocery store child free".when I say that you should take me up on it and not take advantage of it (please note anything longer than 5 hours for a date and 1.5 hours for a grocery trip is taking advantage) other than that, you shouldn't ask....I am not the local teenager and I am not a fellow mom that you can trade babysitting services with, I am your friend, your childless friend.
misunderstanding number 2
You work for yourself you can take time off whenever you want.
No & Yes & No
What I do is somewhat seasonal. In my off season, it is true I am bit more flexible in how much time I can take off and how much notice I need. It's true that you might see more of me on line and out in public in my off season. This does not mean that I am not working. It means that the nature of my work is different. It means that I am planning for my busy season, it means that I am working on continuing education, marketing, and more. When my busy season hits I have clients. Clients who expect me to show up at certain places on time and ready to work and work hard, so no I can not just take off whenever I feel like it sorry.
misunderstanding number 3
You don't have kids so you can just get up and go wherever, whenever. Also known as, I don't see any reason why when I am offering you a way to get here you can't come 400 miles to another state in less than 5 days to come see me. Here's the thing friend. It's not that I don't want to come see you. I do, I really, really do. But you need to understand that just because I don't have children I do have a family. I have 2 dogs (yes they are my family) that you know we don't send to kennels and my husband is weird about getting other people to watch so there is the logistics about figuring out when he will be home and when he won't to be able to care for them. I have an elderly mother in law that we have to make sure doesn't have any appts that she needs to have me take her to ( because that is the one nice thing about the flexibility of my work that the inflexibility of my husband's work does not allow) My own parent's are starting to age as well and every once in a while have asked me to attend appointments with them.
So you see friends, while I don't have children, I DO have a family. I even have a husband who enjoys my company from time to time as well.
You see what I am saying here people. Just because I work from home and I am not a mom does not make me any less busy than any of you. My busy is just a different kind of busy.
