The WAHM Balancing Act- Meet Becky Ollar

Hello. My name is Becky and I am a WAHM.
(Work at Home Mom)

There should be a WAHM support group. WAHM’s are in a “club” all their own. We’re not just stay-at-home moms and we don’t leave home to go to work. Instead, we face the challenges of both of these. Sometimes, it seems like I don’t fit into any “mom” group completely because of this.

Balancing work and children is something that takes planning, scheduling, and flexibility all in one.  A WAHM, I have discovered, needs to be able to balance her time so that her children aren’t ignored, but neither is her work. It is something I still struggle with even after almost three years.

My journey as a WAHM started in 2008 when my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. We were both public school teachers at the time (my husband still is) and the more we looked at the numbers, the more sense it made for me to be home with the baby. Daycare expenses would eat up nearly half of my salary, so if I could find a part-time work-at-home job, we would come out about the same budget-wise and we wouldn’t have strangers raising our child five days a week.

That is when I came across the idea of online teaching. I applied to a popular online university. I survived the interview process and completed most of my training before Christopher was born in August. I finished the last part of my training in November and went right to work facilitating writing classes. Because the classes are asynchronous, I can work in my classes anytime I want to. Usually, this ends up being during nap times and after my kids are in bed for the night. It makes for some late nights when grading big assignments.

I almost had the hang of things when it was just Christopher. Having a newborn and a 2-year-old definitely threw a kink into my routine. Here is the problem: my kids rarely nap at the same time. Christopher, who is almost three, and Ben, who is four months,have a bad habit of waking one another up. Most days, this makes it nearly impossible to accomplish any work during the day. Instead, I end up working late into the early morning hours (2 a.m. is my “normal” bedtime). This makes me less alert and crankier when the sun comes up and the kids are ready to play. I don’t like it.

How do you balance work and spending time with your kids?

Related Posts:

• Balancing Response- Guest Poster Erica Martin
• 4 Totally Random Points That Make Me Feel Better About Working at Home
• Working from Home with Kids: Balancing Parenting and Productivity
• Working from Home: 5 Reasons it is Different than You Thought it Would Be
• The Next Best Thing for a WAHM- After Working at Home