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Childcare Issues While Working at Home, Part I

© Bonny Albo

Home-based workers who "just happen" to be parents, whether they are business owners, employees, contractors, or anything in between, will need to have quality child care at some point in time. Realize this can be as difficult a journey as finding the actual work to perform at home. Accepting it can be an even more daunting task. Why work at home if one of the main reasons is to to be with your kids more often?

I too believed this for quite some time before I woke up to the reality of the situation. It's great to be able to nurse your only child while typing away at the computer, and even better when you can incorporate her into your work. But, it's not all peaches and cream all of the time. Think about the following situations, and how you would react to them:

• your beautiful little child has decided that what you have been doing for the past two weeks for your first paying client needs a little more color - and adds his or her own interpretation to it with the help of Crayola while you are in the bathroom.
  
• while taking an order over the phone, the musical genius of the house decides to create some wonderful masterpieces - with your pots and pans.
  
• you've been trying to find a new supplier for widget #1598 on the net for hours, and when you finally do, your little munchkin accidentially hits the power button to your computer system while getting excited with you.

Yes, all of these things have happened to me in some variation so far, and I am sure that Danielle, who will be one on the 25th of September, will find many more ways (without truly meaning to) to jeopordize my working at home. However, I have learned so many valuable things from these sometimes heartbreaking experiences that I would not trade them for the world. They have taught me that parenting is, and will forever be, a test of patience, love and inner strength.

But when my patience and inner strength are losing speed faster than I can blink my eyes, I realize that it's time for a break, and look outwards for some child care relief. I am extremely fortunate that my husband is always willing to be with Danielle while I work, study or just regroup whenever he is not working himself. But there have been times where our schedules invariably clash, and quality childcare is definitely needed.