A few months back, I had a bit of a meltdown. I was sitting in my daughter’s room feeding her in the middle of the night when a terrible realisation hit me: I have to go back to work. At the time, I’d been on maternity leave for about 9 months. My partner was made redundant last year from a highly technical (and thus hard to replace) job, and our money was running out. I looked down at my gorgeous daughter, beautiful even by nightlight, and burst into tears. I thought, ‘I can’t leave her’. Certainly not to go back to a thankless, day to day office job, working for someone else.
I decided then and there to do whatever it took to be at home with my daughter as much as possible. I’d been self-employed before, a few years ago, so I knew I could do it. And so Your Ad Hoc PA was born - a service providing as needed (and sometimes desperately needed!) help for people, both at home and at work. I love helping people and solving problems, so owning a business that exists for this purpose is perfect!
I’m an avid reader of the Mummy Moo’s Blog, and shortly after I made my decision to start Your Ad Hoc PA, one of her entries really touched me. Joanne was writing about how her daughter Megan will come into her office and colour while she works, and wrote, ‘This quality interaction with my children is what made me work from home. I would much rather work late at night than miss a moment with my babies.’
That is exactly how I feel. As I type this, my 8 month old, Emily is playing on the floor, laughing to herself. It’s a wonderful sight and sound! I know juggling it all will become far more challenging when her dad goes back to work, and then also when she starts crawling and then walking! But for now I manage by having a portable office – my netbook travels round the house with me. This means when Emily is playing or napping in her cot in the morning after breakfast, I am checking emails, networking and working on client projects. When I have to work from a client’s home, I am fortunate to have family near to watch her. When I am providing errand-running services, I can generally take Emily with me.
It can be done, making a living working from home, even on a very short and narrow shoe string! We benefit from it, and our children benefit from seeing more of us. And how proud will they be that we struck out on our own, and made things happen to give our families a better quality of life? Our belief in ourselves will help our children to believe in themselves, too.
