I got very excited when I read on Zehlahlam Family that Jamey was look for guest bloggers. "I'd love to!" was my instant comment. She gave a great list of suggestions of what to write about - from alien abduction to funny kid stories. My husband desperately wants to be abducted by aliens, but I keep asking him to leave without me if they come for him. My kid is funny, but I write about that (as well as the not so funny stuff) on my own
blog. So I'm going to take another one of Jamey's suggestions. I'm going to tell you about my decision to become a self employed, work from home mom.
My husband and I brought our first (and only) child home about eighteen months ago. We chose to build our family through straight adoption from the interstate foster care system. She was nine years old when she came to live with us and had over a dozen placements before us.
She came home on a Monday. I returned to work at a nonprofit organization that focuses on early childhood education and family stability for lower income families the very next day. The organization was in the midst of huge changes and growth that I was a key player in planning and implementing. I also started my last semester of graduate school that month. It was a summer semester, which meant it was condensed. I had eight weeks to write my final research paper instead of the sixteen usually allotted. It was a crazy summer. I don't know how I kept my sanity, but I did.
As our daughter settled in, we started to see the impact trauma has had on her. Abuse and neglect leave lasting scars on a child. She wanted to attach to us, but she was terrified. She was terrified to let me out of her sight one minute, then shut herself in the closet and scream for an hour the next. We had a host of trauma and attachment related chaos going including tantrums, defiance, anger, food issues, sleep deprivation and separation anxiety. We quickly found out that our area is terribly lacking in services for our situation. We don't have any therapists who are trained in or understand trauma and attachment issues.
I did my best to balance life as a new mom to a special needs preteen girl with my growing responsibilities at work. I loved my job. I have a master's in education, years of experience in the field and loved helping at risk children and their families succeed. Yet my own family was struggling and in crisis and I was receiving little understanding from my boss.
I was told I should be on "what not to wear" during my annual performance review because my nail polish was chipped. My evenings were spent trying to figure out how to navigate dinner, homework, bath and bedtime with a child who didn't know how to be in a family or trust that it was okay to let herself get comfortable with us. I wasn't sleeping because she had panic attacks all night long. My mornings were spent listening to her scream and stomp her feet because the fear of my leaving her so she could go to school and I could go to work was too great for her to handle.
Nail polish was the last thing on my mind. It blew my mind that someone cared about my nails. It really made it clear that I was living in a different world now.
I was reprimanded for saying I was tired, bringing up my personal life or taking unplanned time off. None of this was excessive. I called in a personal day after my little Princess woke up at 5 AM melting down in panic and fear (which came out in the form of an angry, defiant tantrums) because of a school field trip that day. I wound up calling in to work saying I needed a personal day because I was absolutely exhausted and on the edge of meltdown myself. My boss called me into her office and really laid into me the next day. She stated that I was not allowed to take any further time off, aside from the 2 sick days I had left for the year, without advance permission from her.
This was in February. I only had 2 sick days to get me until December. Sick days go fast when you are using them for both yourself and your child, especially when both of you are living in a state of constant stress. Of course, those sick days were used up by the time school let out for summer. I worked the whole summer with pneumonia because I had no sick time to use. I did have vacation time available and had my request denied when I asked to take a Monday off for a long weekend with my family.
I had been plotting and planning a way to leave my job practically since the day my daughter came home. The atmosphere got progressively worse every week. My boss did not like sharing me with my child. I wasn't as committed of an employee. The job did not come first. It was clearly an issue for her and it was an unpleasant working environment for me.
I felt trapped. I didn't want to just go to another job where I'd face the same sort of issues (if I could even find another position). I knew working from home for myself was the ideal situation. I didn't know if those sort of opportunities really existed. I've seen the commercials with the cartoon fox explaining how the lady floating in the gigantic pool made then thousand dollars a month working from home doing a few hours of work a week. I had never heard of legitimate work at home jobs, though.
I love research and I dug into it. I found several companies that pay freelance writers to create content for websites. I started applying and got accepted at a couple. I wrote articles in my (very few) spare moments to try it out. I saw I could make money writing from home.
Convincing my husband took some doing. I made lots of charts and budgets. I understood that what I was proposing was scary and more than a little crazy.
Things kept getting worse at work. My boss threw more tantrums than my daughter. I used a vacation day at my doctor's orders for a day of bed rest after my second round of antibiotics for pneumonia wasn't clearing up the infection. My boss called me into her office to tell me how unacceptable was the next day.
I gave my resignation. I gave three weeks' notice. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done because I really did love the work I did there.
I woke up the next morning feeling so much lighter, though. I kept it professional and told people that I needed more flexibility for my family. A lot of people asked, "But isn't she in school?" I don't get into all of the details with our situation to everyone, so I understood the confusion.
We had spent a week at home together after I quit my job and then she started the fifth grade. I love being able to leisurely spend the mornings getting ready her ready and then taking our time separating as I drop her off. I have lunch with her once a week. I'm on call if her teachers need help in the classroom. I'm not stressed when I pick her up in the afternoon. The only problems I have to worry about our own.
She's made huge progress in the year and half she's been home. She's attached to us now and her meltdowns are much less frequent and intense. She's still a child with significant special needs due to the trauma she suffered through. Knowing I am home and can drop everything for her if needed is such a comfort to her.
Working from home is hard! Our family depends on my income, so the only way leaving my job was an option was if I was confident I could bring in the same amount of money working for myself. Since I'm just starting out as a freelance writer and am working for what most would consider to be very low prices, that means I have to write a TON to make the money equal out. Staying motivated to do that for hours on end every day is tough. I went from not having a moment to myself, even to take a shower, for a year and a half to being alone all day every day. What a huge change!
I find myself doing a little writing, then I might need a drink or decide to throw in a load of laundry. Then I answer our home phone, which rings way more during the day then I ever knew or check to see if the mail arrived. I'll write a little more and then a cat will walk by, so I'll sing the theme song from "Perfect Strangers" to her.
And that is the real reason I was so very excited to jump at the chance to write a guest blog post. I am too eager to accept distractions. I currently have 8,400 words about Halloween costumes waiting for me to tackle and submit to a client. I'm so sick of Halloween already because of these articles. The actual "working" part of working from home is a challenge I'm still figuring out how to manage. I will make it work, though. This is what's best for my family right now so I will do whatever it takes to make it happen. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to earn a living for my family on my own terms. It was a tough and terrifying decision, but I'm so glad I took the leap. I encourage you to figure out what is best for your family, including yourself, and then find a way to make it happen.
