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At-Home Moms Are an Effective Workforce
May 01, 2008 10:26 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Stay-at-home moms are becoming successful members of the workforce, and providing well-qualified labor to employers who need help fast.
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“SWAT” moms, “smart women with available time,” are a growing trend in the workforce. They offer a ready supply of work to bosses who need qualified temporary help.
While making a little money for their work, mothers can keep their job skills fresh and still spend quality time with their children.
Also taking advantage of the type of flexibility that motherhood affords are “mompreneurs.” According to the Cape Cod Times, “There's nothing new about mothers finding ingenious ways to earn money from home while raising their kids. But today, e-commerce makes it possible for such ventures to earn more than grocery money. Sometimes lots more.”
But although the number of at-home moms taking on a dual-role is growing, their task can still be difficult.
Working mothers are “the most overloaded people on the planet,” says Parenting.com. And if that’s not enough, it turns out multitasking can be dangerous for the multitasker and for those around them.
While making a little money for their work, mothers can keep their job skills fresh and still spend quality time with their children.
Also taking advantage of the type of flexibility that motherhood affords are “mompreneurs.” According to the Cape Cod Times, “There's nothing new about mothers finding ingenious ways to earn money from home while raising their kids. But today, e-commerce makes it possible for such ventures to earn more than grocery money. Sometimes lots more.”
But although the number of at-home moms taking on a dual-role is growing, their task can still be difficult.
Working mothers are “the most overloaded people on the planet,” says Parenting.com. And if that’s not enough, it turns out multitasking can be dangerous for the multitasker and for those around them.
Headline Link: At-Home Moms in the Work Force
Women’s networks are helping stay-at-home moms maintain a viable spot in the work force, writes the Wall Street Journal. Organizations like MomCorps, a staffing firm in Atlanta, are helping women develop the contacts they need. “Using the brain cells, making the contacts, feeling productive and useful” helps work feel worthwhile, one woman explained.
Source: Yahoo Finance
“Mompreneurs,” women who run their own businesses from home, are taken more seriously now than they once were, according to the Cape Cod Times. “The growth of home-based businesses in general has meant that mothers who are home-based entrepreneurs…are taken seriously.”
Source: Cape Cod Times
Background: Leaving the office
Telecommuting has been a growing, yet relatively unpublicized, trend among men and women in recent years. In 2007, one analyst called it a “quiet revolution” that would slowly become more of a norm in the workplace as workers sought more autonomy. At the time, estimates indicated that 14 million workers would telecommute by 2009.
Source: MSNBC
Reactions: Moms weigh in
One work-at-home mother describes her days as start-and-stop ventures. “My workday is chopped up into tiny slivers,” she explains, “into which I try to squeeze maximum productivity, which leaves my brain overheated from sprinting and stopping, sprinting and stopping.”
Source: CNN
In 2006, an anthology, “Mommy Wars,” was published by 27 moms who discussed their decisions to stay at home with kids or go to work. The mothers wrote about “profound ambivalence” regarding their choices. Deciding whether to stay at home, “Mommy Wars” editor Leslie Morgan Steiner said, “is the issue that defines the lives of most mothers.”
Source: Newsweek
“Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families,” is available for purchase in the Dulcinea Media Store.
Source: Dulcinea Media Store
Related: (Dis)advantages of technology
Parenting.com examines how technology can both help and hinder the lives of mothers who work anywhere. The technology may keep them in closer contact with their work, but these moms “are still the most overloaded people on the planet, and the increased-availability factor may now be compounding the problem for many women,” the article explains.
Source: Parenting
Reference: Multitasking, telecommuting
According to The Baltimore Sun, multitasking doesn’t just decrease workers’ productivity: it can cause dangerous accidents. “In addition to contributing to communications lapses, rudeness and employee stress, multitasking is considered a factor in more serious workplace mishaps—from medication and treatment errors in hospitals to near misses in the skies.” An abstract of the article is available for free, but the full text can only be accessed with a subscription or a $3.95 purchase.
Source: The Baltimore Sun
In a Netcetera feature, findingDulcinea examines multitasking and whether it actually helps a person accomplish more.
Source: findingDulcinea
FindingDulcinea offers a guide to telecommuting, which recommends the best Web sites for understanding the basics of telecommuting, finding a telecommuting job and making sure you have the right resources to telecommute.
Source: findingDulcinea
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