Single Parents Working From Home – Alternatives
Single parents working from home comprise an ongoing event taking place millions of times daily across the U.S., and the world. Mothers and fathers are doing their best to raise a child on their own, and even forsaking the workplace to ensure they can be present to provide knowledge and guidance to their child or children the best way they know how. Where as most of these parents would hardly label themselves as miracle workers, I think far more credit is due here than is often given.
Some will tell you that a miracle is a thing that you would be lucky to witness in a lifetime. Others will tell you that they happen every day, such as the birth of a child. And who could possibly disagree with that? I, on the other hand, submit that when my 16 year old daughter announces that she has finished her geometry homework without my pestering her, and that she’s done it BEFORE jumping onto Facebook… well, let’s just say I think the miracle is in the eye of the beholder.
Many two-parent families have abundant resources, both financially and regarding time, to ensure that one of the parents can remain home with a child, avoiding the monotony of the “daily grind”. Not every mother or father finds them self in such a scenario, though, and the task of doing your best with your child as a single parent while maintaining a full time, away-from-home job can become exponentially more daunting. And this is why, for millions of single parents today, more attention is being given to options based around working from home.
And for good reason. Options for the work-at-home single parent are more today that ever before, and the opportunities continue to grow with the evolution of telecommuting, technology-based jobs and straight forward entrepreneurialism. As employers are learning to adapt to a population’s changing priorities, many are willing to adjust, permitting an employee to work from the home. In turn, this allows a single parent to feel more secure with being able to better accommodate children and, as a result, perform more productively for a company. The employer and the employee both win.
A parent hoping to land a job as a work-from-home employee needs to keep things in perspective, though. While the jobs are out there for people with fitting skill sets, be careful to not assume that the positions are abundant. Remember that on-site employment is still far and away viewed as the more traditional model, and that there are many others out there in the work force trying to take advantage of the same home-based positions. If dead set on landing a “40 hour workweek” job from home for the security of the steady paycheck, there are resources that can quickly match you with employers who readily take on telecommuters such as www.tjobs.com and www.telecommute-jobs.com.
For the more entrepreneurial at heart, today’s work-from-home opportunities are more modern and more lucrative than ever before. Many single parents leaving the work place are bringing home with them in-demand, highly sought-after skills, and in many instances, your income-producing talent need only be an area in which you’re naturally gifted. Consider www.freelancer.com, a site matching up for-hire folks with an entity in need of a particular skill. Creating an account connects the stay-at-home parent with companies and organizations searching for skilled creative and technical writers, sales specialists, web designers, human resource types, engineers and accountants, to name only a few specialties.
Today’s direct sales models have also caught up with the times, with compensation plans, services or products offered and training and support more beneficial to the independent distributor now than in years past. For a single stay-at-home parent, these models can start out as supplemental income, but with the right commitment and diligence, can grow to be a very lucrative primary income. Use foresight when researching this model, though. No company can promise you overnight success, and while some will provide a comprehensive support and training net, others will “cut you loose” to learn the business on your own after inciting starry-eyed visions of easy millions.
Whether searching for the stability of “employee status” or putting your entrepreneurial side to work, the alternatives for single parents working from home are out there. If you want out of the commute, out of the cubicle and to be, instead, home for a child, all you need to do is take that first step in the right direction.
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