Working from home, as a Mom, is never easy as it’s perceived by many!

Published on Lanka Woman Magazine

Chathurika Jayawardana | Founder | Career Kit

 An HR professional turned work-from-home full-time mom, whose experience in HR practices in multiple organizations and cross-industry recruitment for all levels, love for graphic designing, zest for professional writing and long years of practice in English editing & proofreading, lead to founding ‘Career Kit’, a professional resume writing service aimed to assist all professionals with career progression. 

In a patriarchal society as ours, most often it's the women who are compelled to sacrifice their careers due to family obligations, giving them very less opportunities for professional achievements. Taking care of the kids single-handedly while managing the household, doesn't allow me to accomplish all that I want, at the pace that I want. However, sitting at home with no professional engagement degrades the mind, making it a devil’s workshop, so working from home became the best viable option. It restored my financial freedom and self-satisfaction. It also helped me capitalize on enhancing many skills and attributes that I never knew I had! Time management, multi-tasking, self-motivation and perseverance, to name a few. I’m sure my children too will appreciate this choice later in life.

Work-from-home jobs benefit the client and freelancer equally. There's no daily travel involved, there’s the freedom to work flexible hours and no restriction on the number of hours. Clients like to hire you because they can cut-back on the cost of providing a work-space and physical assets. It’s a win-win situation for both parties. But it’s ironic how most people think that working from home is like a walk in the park. What people don’t realise is that the struggle is real.

Kids are soft-spoken angels, but that's only until a client calls. It's at the same point that they turn into little devils, yelling at the top of the voice. Keeping them quiet during phone calls is the greatest challenge, because you don't want to lose the client by giving them the impression that the work environment isn’t conducive for the expected quality of output. Client retention is constantly at stake.

During the first few years of childhood, it's critical to engage with the kids in their play and you need to talk to them constantly. I chose to stay home to bring them up right. But having said that, responding to my very inquisitive and very talkative 5-year-old's endless questions muddles the head, especially when really trying to concentrate on an idea. Brainstorming goes right out of the window.

Neither does the house clean itself, nor do the laundry/ dishes do themselves. The worst part is, you see the messy corners when you work from home. The more of it you see, greater the frustration. The mess will wait for you for days and multiple with time, making the stress level directly proportional to the mess level (Stress level ∝ Mess level).

No thanks to the picky eaters at home, because of whom a variety of dishes and fancy curries need to be prepared, none of which comes out from an innovative or instant food cooker. When you are home, the responsibility of meal preparation automatically falls on you.

The only peaceful working hours is in the night, when everyone’s gone to bed. No interruptions and productivity level reaches its peak. Often working from 10pm to 6am, till the morning alarm goes off, allows getting the work done and ensures maximum satisfaction. But you need to be prepared for comments about dark circles and eyes bags. Sigh!

What about breaks? There are no breaks!

Kudos to mommies who work full-time jobs out of their homes, manage all the above and still reach greater heights in their professional lives. I haven’t fully comprehended how they do it.

Life has set women many hurdles, hindering professional and financial achievements but what’s important is that we don't give up and strive through the struggles to reach where we want to be, even if the progress is slow.

Money is always hard to earn, but I never really understood the true value of ‘hard-earned money’ until I started to work from home.