Jobs for stay-at-home parents
What you need to know about earning cash while staying home with your treasures, plus tips on how to watch out for scams.
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You’re staying at home to care for your children. It’s intense, tiring and rewarding work. Rewarding, that is, unless you’re talking finances. While smiles, hugs and “I love you’s” are priceless, sometimes we all need a bit of money in our pocket.
So, how can you go about earning money if you want to stay home and care for your children? Here are some things to consider when looking for at-home work to fit around your child-minding schedule:
Know your personality
The terms “part-time,” “flexible” and “at home” may sound like a dream come true, but the reality can be quite different. It’s important to take stock of your personality and situation before taking on even more responsibilities than you’re already shouldering.
Laurent Lapierre, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa with a specialty in work-life balance, says working from home, or “telework,” requires the right mix of a good work environment, strong self-discipline and the ability to put aside the enough time to complete your work properly.
If the above aren’t in place, Lapierre warns you could face trouble. “You’re not going to be able to get your work done,” he says, “which means you’re going to make an unfavourable impression — and that is certainly not going to be conducive to a successful career.”
If you’ve thought it through and decided to go ahead, there are a few things you should know.
The jobs are out there
Louis Gagnon, vice president of marketing for Monster Canada, says an emerging labour shortage in Canada is forcing employers to be increasingly flexible, while advances in technology mean home offices are easier to set up than ever.
Telework opportunities
Look for telework opportunities under two main categories:
Work at home
Gagnon says jobs advertised specifically as work from home positions tend to fall under the categories of sales, administrative, clerical, customer service and recruitment. A search on Monster using the key words work+from+home can get you started (the plus signs narrow your search and cut out irrelevant postings).
Part-time
Enter “part-time” into the Monster search engine and more than 1,000 opportunities appear. These opportunities are wide-ranging and include IT, graphic design, e-commerce, copywriting, translation and many more. While working from home may not be written into these job descriptions, Gagnon says employers will make concessions if they’re convinced you’re right for the job.