Earning money around having children is a conundrum that parents have been struggling with since the dawn of time. As mothers, we tend to be the primary caregivers to our children and so it’s an issue that does tend to affect us more. You might have grown up hearing that women simply can’t have it all when it comes to kids and career, but it’s not true. What you need is a flexible job that allows you to take care of your children when needed and pick up work around these duties. Here are ways on how you can go about it.
Learn a skill or trade
Having a skill or trade behind you is always going to be useful, especially when it comes to flexible career choices. It could be in the beauty industry, such as a hairdresser, nail technician or makeup artists. It could be in the healthcare industry, such as nursing or vet nursing (which allow you to do bank/ locum work in a flexible way). If being hands on is your thing, it could even be in a traditional trade such as plastering, electrician or bricklaying. All of these would allow you to work for a company to begin with, and then later when you’re experienced and qualified you can branch out and work for yourself. Before having children, you could focus on getting those initial qualifications and gaining all the experience you can by working for an existing company.
Build up customers and clients
Once you have the skills and experience you need, you could start the process of setting up for yourself. It could be either as a freelancer or contractor, or by running your own business. Sign up to an agency where you can select the work as you want it, or begin the process of building up your own customers or clients. If you’re doing it this way, it can take time so it can be worth starting early on, ideally before you have your children. That way, by the time they come along you know you’re able to work when you want to, but as it’s your business, it can all be done in a flexible way. You can set the times and days that you’ll be working and allow people to book in those slots.
Hire the right staff
If you’re going to be running your own business, having staff who can take over from you when needed really allows you to be flexible. You will still need to meet the expectations of your customers, and while you can be flexible, you can’t just go letting people down. Therefore, staffs that can fill in for you when you need them are invaluable. Other ways you can keep your business flexible to you is by outsourcing, hire another company to do the jobs you can’t (or don’t want) to do. From Managed IT services to shipping and fulfillment, accounting and more, you don’t have to do everything yourself.