Want To Work At Home? Don't Expect That It Will Be Easy

I know two young mothers who have attempted to work from home part time recently, one as a bookkeeper, one as a medical biller. Both perform these jobs on a computer and both gave up doing them from home in less than a year due to the multitude of distractions and challenges those working from home encounter.

Although the two women described above did get to the point where they decided to just get out of the house for work three days per week, I do know one new mother whose child sleeps or plays quietly while she diligently works on her computer throughout the day. She has also recently started her own internet based business as well.

While all three of these women were disciplined, patient, and motivated, working from home turned out to be right for just a third of them.

My Journey Toward A Work At Home Career

I am a mother to be and have about four years experience working from home part time.

After graduating from college I went to work full time for a pharmaceutical company. When I got married, I made the decision to start my own at home business instead so that I could develop a work from home income. My husband and I had both decided that we wanted jobs that would allow us the flexibility to spend plenty of time with our future children as they arrived.

My husband works in the information technology industry and was able to transition into a full time work from home job a few years ago.

In 2004, a good friend and I set out on our own to create a computer based business that we could operate from our homes.

We set out to develop and sell our own line of products over the internet. I did not know the first thing about developing a web based business at that time, but quickly learned as we could not afford to hire professional help.

After developing our web design, we launched our products over the internet and at local and regional craft shows. I quickly learned the need for a search engine optimized web site and began to write many articles related to our website business in order to draw visitors to our site.
As I gained experience and developed a popular website, a local web designer hired me to perform search engine optimization on his web sites as this was becoming more and more necessary.

Our at home business would go up and then down, never extremely predictable, and I was often required to find part time, flexible work to fill in the gaps self-employment left in my income.

Now faced with the birth of our first child, my husband and I have recently decided to close the current internet business in order to allow me more time for our child. I will still work two days per week away from home as a legal assistant and continue to develop my computer skills as I see these as my best stay at home work option in the future.

I plan to share my experiences with developing new income streams from home with other stay at home parents.