Staying @ Home - Newport News,VA

Watching another person's child for money.
Newspaper route.
Making inexpensive jewelry at home & selling online.

ETA: Sorry Penny....if my nurse practitioner called me while she was taking care of her kids? I would ask for another nurse. You aren't concentrating on ME and MY situation. Your attention is divided. When it comes to my health or that of my children? I want your undivided attention.
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S.:

Welcome to mamapedia!

here is the tough love....First and foremost? I am NOT going to pay you to work from home so you can be with your kids. I will pay you to WORK!! So if you have children? I would EXPECT you to have a babysitter, nanny or day care for them.

There is this common misconception about "working from home". You are WORKING!! Not playing. Not taking care of the kids - WORKING.

I work from home. I get paid to WORK. I get a salary and commissions. There are times I need help. I will pay someone to help me format resumes and get them ready for a proposal. I expect them to be done in a reasonable time...not after you change diapers, not after you fix lunch for the kids.

If you want to work from home? What's your skill set? What CAN you do? You want to be home with your children - then I would suggest you open a daycare. That way you can get paid to care for your children as well as others.

So please. If you want to be with your kids and make an income? sell on ebay or craigslist...if you want steady income? You will need to have someone care for your children as I know **I** won't pay you to stay home and take care of the kids!

Good luck!

I'm a single mom, and I don't work from home. What I do, is drive a school bus. Most bus companies allow their drivers to bring their kids to work with them. My daughter is 16 so she rides my bus to and from school, but many of our drivers have younger kids that just stay on with them. We have 2 drivers that have 4 kids each, one of them home schools between her morning and afternoon runs. The other drops 2 off at school and the other 2 stay with mom. I get all of my daughters days off, including snow days, and vacations. The companies almost always will train new drivers not only to drive the bus to get the special endorsements they need to drive, and the money isn't bad either. Just something for you to think about.

Search here because this is asked every day.

You can't work from home and watch your kids, so you'll want to have childcare in mind. Work is work and no one will pay you to care for your kids and give half an effort to your job. If you're set on watching your kids at the same time, the only option is to run a childcare. (BTW, not suggesting running a childcare is easy or can be done without the right education and training; it's just an option that lends itself to having children at home.)

ETA: Penny, I am floored that you're doing professional work from home while watching kids at the same time. I'm a college educated freelance writer and could never in a million years produce quality work with my kids here. I don't know a single work-from-home professional who works with kids at home. Most employers require childcare arrangements.

If you work at home, you're working...not spending time with the kids. And you'll have to be able to commit a certain amount of time to that work without any screaming children in the background.

There are degreed professionals out there who are able to telecommute, but even they must have a private office or area away from any kiddo chaos which will allow them to work uninterrupted. It's a pipe dream if you think you're going to be able to get work done with a little kid pulling on your leg. And no employer wants you trying to talk to a customer with kids screeching in the background.

Good luck.

Do the search here on MP.... this question is asked NUMEROUS times.

There are NO jobs that will pay you to stay home and watch your children. If so, NO ONE would be working out in the workforce today because we could all stay home and play with children all day.... Really!!

Your post will trigger all the MLM's and direct sales you hit you up and try to recruit you for the get rich quick schemes.

Working from home is just that.... WORK and if you do WORK from home, you are required to have childcare.

The only at home business that is not a scam for at home moms is daycare. Sell your old things on EBay, Craigslist, etc.

Good luck and please, search this topic on MP because there are tons of requests like this.

I do work from home but it is running our own company and my child is 18 so I don't have to worry about caring for a little one. That said, I could not do my job if I had little ones..... one mistake could cost our company/family thousands of dollars.

I hate to tell you, but I am home with my 3 kids every day, and I have to lock myself in the bathroom to make phone calls. Some days I can't even call to schedule a simple dentist appointment because it is just far too busy with kids. Some days when I need to get something done on the computer my 2 year old will constantly come over to me and take my right hand off the mouse, climb up into my lap, and start mashing the keys. Usually I have to do computer work in 5-10 minute spurts. I was once offered the chance to telecommute for my old job, but I knew it was impossible to pay attention to both my kids and my job.

I do contract work at home for my former full time employer. I am an attorney and need to be to do my legal editor work. Even though my kids are older I work primarily when they are at school and generally don't take projects during the summer. Like the others have said, working from home is truly work and I found it impossible to work when my kids were home. It is very difficult to find legitimate work from home jobs unless you work for a current or former employer, have specialized training or do childcare. To make a decent income doing childcare or opening a daycare also requires training and licensing. Oh, and even with my specialized education, my work from home job doesn't pay the bills. It helps and I pay for the extras and the "little things" like piano lessons, school lunches, my hairdresser, the dogs' grooming, etc., but we primarily rely on my husband's income for our regular expenses.

I worked from home with a large consulting firm for 8 months, I LOVED it. However, my kids were either in school or at day care. I just wasn't pressed to get them out of the house at a certain time, if they wanted to stay home sometimes they could, and I got to do things like take my lunch at 8am to take them to swimming lessons.

What all of that meant, is that I was always working. I'd check emails at 9pm, have conference calls in the middle of dinner, etc. There is not a job that pays you to watch your kids AND work.
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Penny, when I worked from home there were HR people who also worked from home. I would hear dogs barking, kids running, etc. I went to my Program Manager and up the chain. It was SO unprofessionaly and if they were talking to a new candidate, those are the last things you want to hear.

I also have a "friend" who does medical approvals from home. Her youngest is 10. They do stay home during the summers, but they stay away from her office.

I'm not 100% sure what you do, but your response is unrealistic. Hopefully the OP will see that from every other person who has worked from home.

Working from home is just that--WORKING at home. If you're working, you're not taking care of your kids.

I agree, do a home daycare.

I do freelance work, but I have to do it in my spare time and work it around everything else. It's not "decent" money, nor is it steady. It's more like a little something extra now and then.

I can hardly make a 3-minute phone call without my 3-year-old making it nearly impossible so I can hardly imagine it doing it with 3 kids.

As for the computer? Fughettaboutit! She's asleep right now or otherwise this message would be garbled beyond belief.

Unless you are working while they are at school, napping or sleeping--or you park them in front of the tube all day--not recommended, I would find it nearly impossible--UNLESS, you had outside help.

And yes, beware of our MLM/sales friends.

Good luck.

Writing, website design, graphic design, fine arts, PR, IT, Investment Consulting, Marketing, these are some of the jobs my work at home friends do. I work from home and planned my career to be a work from home design business. It's possible, if you have a background to support a position that can be done during flexible hours and mostly via email. I rarely need to get on the phone with clients and it isn't a problem, since most high level businesses welcome the paper trail and records that emails provide. We have used limited childcare since our kids were born. I juggled most of my work when they were little during nap times and bedtime. I had a mother's helper when my children were small for about 3 hours a week (so I could clean house in peace) and a nanny a couple days a week during summer when they were pre-school age. The rest of the time, I worked around their schedule. It works really well for us. I'm not going to say it's easy! It's certainly challenging to manage it all, but I feel grateful to be able to be with them all the time and still earn a living.

Just wanted to add my experience, I currently work from home and care for my kids. It can be done but it does take a lot of patience and flexibility. I am a licensed professional counselor, while I visit with clients out of the home I complete all my reports and paperwork at home as well as phone calls. It can be done you just need to find your calling.

Eeesh... I hate how providing childcare keeps being mentioned for women who want to work at home yet don't have any education or training.