The Either/Or Of Motherhood: Working From Home with Kids

What I thought my motherhood would look like pre-motherhood did not align with the reality I found myself in when deep into postpartum with my oldest.

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I was 21, freshly graduated with my Bachelors and throwing out all my plans to intern and travel once we brought our son home.

I had no desire to pursue the career I was so hungry for just months prior. I was so hungry that I hustled to finish my degree before my son arrived, but once he was here, I felt like a completely different person.

I figured my desires would shift once he got a bit older, but instead, my desire to stay at home with him remained, along with wanting to do something with my career. I also needed to do something because we needed to be a two-income household.

Without realizing what would go into joining the working world after being a stay-at-home mom for the last six months, I started looking for local job opportunities. I quickly realized that I did not want to work in an office, and I definitely didn’t want to stop being a SAHM.

But I wanted a career, and I needed to contribute to our household income.

The either/or challenge of motherhood

This decision felt like this either/or ultimatum. Either I sucked it up and got a job outside of the home, putting my son in childcare, or I sacrificed a career and two-person income so I could remain a stay-at-home mom.

I knew that’s how the world worked, I’d seen mothers in my life make the same decisions one way or another.

My own mother was a daycare director for most of my childhood, so I remembered seeing moms in their work attire dropping their kids off early and then picking them up at the end of the day.

That was normal. Right?

But when the time came for me to make that decision, it didn’t feel like it should be normal. I already didn’t want to work in an office or have to put my son in childcare…and I was battling postpartum anxiety, so it made the decision process that much more difficult.

We lived in a city my husband had gone to college in, far enough away from family and friends to not know anyone or have any real comfort there.

I fought with separation anxiety, guilt over missing any moment with my son at all, and intrusive thoughts that kept me from just walking to take the trash out without the overwhelming fear that something horrible would happen while outside of the house.

I certainly wasn’t in a space to start something new while breastfeeding and having to be separated from my son all day.

One mom’s story of pursuing remote work

So I researched remote work. This was 10 years ago, so I didn’t yet realize it was a thing, but I knew I wanted an entry-level role as an assistant of some kind and figured a “remote personal assistant” had to be needed by someone somewhere.

I googled my way into a whole new world I didn’t know existed of online businesses and jobs. I very quickly found a company that hired Virtual Assistants, applied, got excited during the application process, and about two weeks later, started working part-time from home, from my computer, mostly during my son’s nap time.

Even on the first day of training, I was so full of anxiety that this was all too good to be true and the team would realize they made a mistake hiring a mom.

I remember putting my son down for a nap to jump onto the training call, so full of fear that he would wake up during the call and everyone would think I wasn’t capable of working there with them.

I was confident I could do the work that was being asked of me, I could handle working with different clients and managing my time, but I was afraid the moment someone realized I was a work-from-home mom, they would have a totally different perspective of how well I could actually support them.

And a couple of clients did. I had clients who didn’t like that I was a mom with my kid at home.

It was never obvious that I had a kid at home; it wasn’t taking calls with him screaming in the background, but during the intro calls, when I shared that I was a mom to a toddler, they just stated they didn’t think a mom with kids at home would be fit for the “fast-paced environment” they worked in. And that was okay!

I learned that some clients wouldn’t be a good fit, and in the long run, the sooner both parties realized that, the better. The clients that were a fit, though, completely changed my life.

I felt purpose outside of being a mother that I hadn’t felt in so long, I felt pride in my work and my ability to make my clients’ lives easier…better.

It made my life better and, in some ways, pulled me out of the anxieties I had been drowning in.

About six months into working part-time with this company, they asked if I’d be interested in moving to full-time, and I was. It was tougher to juggle a bigger client load while remaining a stay-at-home mom, but it worked for us.

Here are a few tips for working from home with kids

Utilize independent play
Use a mobile workstation
Sprinkle your work

If you’re wondering how in the world you can make working a full-time job with a toddler at home work, I’m sharing some tips I learned through my own journey.

1. Utilize independent play

I wasn’t a get-on-the-floor-and-play mom, to begin with, so this was an easy transition for me. I would make sure my son had an activity, toys, and games accessible to him to be able to play on his own.

As he got older, this grew into also being able to independently grab snacks and even make a sandwich.

Ten years later, my son can use just about everything in the kitchen and is even slowly teaching his three younger sisters how to make eggs and smoothies and clean up after themselves (not always with the most success, but a win is a win).

2. Use a mobile workstation

In my 10 years of working from home with kids, I’ve never really had one room dedicated to being my office.

I’ve worked from the dining room table, the playroom, the kitchen island, a makeshift office that doubles as a workroom for my kids as well…even my car, while my kids play at the park or while I’ve waited in school pick-up lines.

I’ve worked just about everywhere, and the only time I may put myself behind a closed door is for meetings.

3. Sprinkle your work

One thing you have to realize when you work from home is that you won’t get four, sometimes even two focused hours of work in at once. It’s really pockets of 30 minutes to an hour of work sprinkled throughout your day.

Naptimes are great to power through and get as much done as you can, early mornings before the kids are up or evenings once the kids are in bed or the other parent is available to take over.

Not only does working in an office not have to be the norm, but working traditional 9-5 hours doesn’t have to be the norm either. You can make your job work around your life.

The perfect WFH/SAHM combination doesn’t exist, but you can make something work

The important thing is to remember that the perfect work-from-home with-kids situation doesn’t exist. There are going to be days that are hard, that you don’t get any work done, that you feel like a crap mom at the end of the day.

But there will be more days that you get to look back on and be impressed with yourself for navigating the chaos so smoothly, for being productive during it, and for having your kids home with you throughout it all.

It’s really amazing the things we can do as moms.

Since starting my work-from-home journey 10 years ago as a Virtual Assistant for a startup, I’ve gone from managing VAs at that same company to moving on to working as a freelance VA with my own clients, to working with a Digital Marketing company as an Executive Assistant and Project Manager.

I’ve been able to teach hundreds of other women how to start their journey working from home, and what stands out to me over and over again is how impressive women are. How impressive and capable mothers are.

Do you consider yourself comfortable on one side of the either/or…As a work outside of the home mom or as a stay-at-home mom? Or do you dream of your motherhood looking different?

Some advice to find the perfect WFH job as a mom

1. Decide if you want to be a W2 or an I9

This can help you focus your search a bit more by knowing that you want to be an employee on payroll, with benefits, or that you want complete freedom from the traditional route and become an independent contractor/freelancer.

Keep in mind that a W2 employee will still answer to their company’s policies, so you have less control over the hours you work, the type of work you do, etc.

(You can also just find companies that align with your lifestyle, as I personally have, but it’s trial and error to find that fit.)

When you work as an I9 independent contractor, you have total freedom over the hours you work, how much you charge for your work, the people you work with, etc. It’s completely up to you to find and keep the work, but it’s also complete freedom.

2. Start your search

If you’re going with the W2 route, check remote job search sites like:

There are many sites like these out there but the important thing when searching for a remote job is to check for scams! We’ll chat about this in the next point.

If you’re going with the I9 route, you should settle on some sort of niche. Don’t narrow it down too much, but you need to decide on a service you’d like to provide.

You can provide copywriting, graphic design, social media management, virtual assistance (my specialty!), and so much more.

Find a service that you are excited about providing and then get into Facebook groups where business owners hang out and network every day. Reach out to your existing network and share what you’re offering.

Utilize LinkedIn if you have a network there; just go where business owners are. If you need support with this, there are tons of programs out there on freelancing.

3. Be on the lookout for scams

Whichever route you take, you should be aware that there are job listings out there that are scams. Don’t let it scare you into not moving forward because it’s super easy to know when you see one.

If you have to question a job listing, it’s probably a scam, but here are some general red flags to look out for:

Sounds too good to be true: If the listing says they need someone for 40 hours a month at 2k a week or something where the math doesn’t seem to math, it’s probably a scam
You get the job right away: If all you had to do was submit your application and you got the job, it’s probably a scam
The interview is over chat: Unless you are getting work on Fiverr or Upwork, the person hiring or paying for your services will want to meet you either over the phone or on a video call. If the interview is set up over chat, it’s probably a scam.

These are the main tells to look out for, but again, just listen to your instincts and if you still aren’t sure, just keep moving forward in the process with the company until you know for sure it’s a scam.

Most importantly: never give out personal information.

Final thoughts on finding the right path for you

If you do dream of a motherhood different from the one you’re living out now, just know that the possibility of something different is out there. Moms are problem solvers, we are resourceful, proactive, and experts at time management.

We organize our family calendars, plan birthday parties and vacations, budget and meal plan, and keep the household clean and organized.

Moms are more than capable of busting the norm of this either/or myth.