Community, Member Contributions
By Judith Cassis
Having been self employed for most of my life and at the same time raising my kids I get a lot of questions asking how I managed to work from home without compromising my family. Well, I did it for 25 years, and I’m happy to tell the story. Why? Because I believe that it’s more important than ever for moms to come home.
Our kids are raising themselves and they need us! We blame the economy, inflation or the need for two incomes for taking us away from our children. But if we place our highest value on those little gremlins we bring into the world instead on the lifestyle we want to live, often times we can change course and create/supplement our income while staying at home with our kids.
I’m committed to supporting you, whatever your choice. Work at home part time, full time – whatever! When you decide to take the leap, I’ll be here. I won’t have all the answers, but I promise I’ll help look for them. Please email me privately at successmadesimple.jc@gmail.com and I’ll sign you up for Two Months FREE Membership to my monthly Mama, Come Home! teleclasses.
Judith Cassis,C.Ht. is a Personal Development Consultant with 26 years experience. Known as “The Bounce-Back Coach”, she works with people who are “bouncing back” from failure, loss or tragedy. Judith is co-owner of a small newspaper,Tidbits of Santa Clarita Valley, www.tidbitsscv.com a family business she and her husband, Lee Cadena run with their sons. Through a monthly teleseries, Mama Come Home, Judith supports mothers in staying home or returning home to raise their children.
Ally Loprete, Community
Work-at-home parents become a growing trend
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Chris Loprete, Community, daddysden, Dads, Family
Happy New Year! I haven’t spoken to you since the calendar reset so I can still say that. Don’t you hate when people are still saying Happy New Year in March though? It’s like come on, dude. We’re 1/3 in already. Anyway I hope your year has gotten off to a successful start. You gotta love January. Not so much for the weather but more for the fact that everybody heads into the year with the best intentions. On 1/1 everyone gets a chance for a new beginning and a fresh start. Well let me tell you about a new beginning that we can all get excited about.
Our Milk Money is heading into its 3rd year and I’ve never been more excited about the future of this site. I have watched OMM grow from a germ of an idea in November of ’07 to the full launch in March of ’08 and the movement it’s helped to create since then. And from being on the inside, I can honestly say that there are things in the works that will make OMM members thrilled and make non OMM members join up. Amongst these things are an updated site, a staff of volunteers, and more publicity for your business. Don’t believe me? the site is getting its own Internet radio show for God’s sake. Seriously. Stay tuned for details but it’s coming in February and you’ll probably all be on it at some point as a guest plugging your business. By the way, just cause I was there doesn’t mean I did any work. I didn’t. For those that pay attention you may have noticed that my last name is the same as the owner and founder of this site. Or rather her last name is the same as mine. That’s no coincidence. I am lucky enough to have been married to Ally for the last 7 1/2 years. She on the other hand is probably ready to chew her leg off and get out of this trap, but she grits her teeth and endures the pain. I do not exaggerate one iota when I say I have never seen anyone put as much passion and hard work into a project as I’ve seen Ally put into OMM. Blood, sweat, and tear 24/7 for the last three years. It has not always been easy. In fact let me amend that. It has NEVER been easy. This thing drove her crazy at times. Un…yeeeaaaah. I mean that literally by the way. Ask here where she spent the first weekend of June ’08. She has never strayed from her original vision or purpose and is constantly looking for ways to improve and grow this site as well as your business. She is also a fantastic mother to 2 extremely demanding little boys and a wonderful wife to a grumpy third child. So believe me when I say that you are in good hands and can trust that Ally is determined to grow not only your business, but the stay at home business network until it is its own little community with a working, breathing economy. She talks about it much better than I do by the way. I just write stupid stories about Jedi shows. Anyway this year resolve to do two things. First turn to your spouse and thank them for all the hard work they do whether it’s head to an office for a job or stay at home and raise a family while growing a home business. The 2nd thing? Get excited about OMM 2010. Jump on board and enjoy the ride!
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Ally Loprete, Community, Family
Start by embracing “change” as our only hope to a brighter future, and see the rainbow at the end of the storm.
Written by Ally Loprete
Have you noticed that there is no longer a basic definition of what a typical American Family entails? These days, families are being redefined by what works for them as a means of survival. There are those that oppose the unfamiliar, which is certainly understandable, and those that embrace it, which is what I believe is THE ANSWER.
Nowadays, anything goes. Men are staying at home with the kids while the women go to work. Women are becoming business owners while staying home and running the household. Families are working together to bring in extra revenue with small side businesses. Men are playing bigger roles in their children’s lives, contributing more with what used to be considered the women’s responsibility: cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, grocery shopping, helping with homework, etc. Gay men and women are getting married and having children together. Women are running for office, and winning.
If this isn’t a revolution, I don’t know what is.
Standing ovation and Bravo!
I honestly love all of it! I am so impressed with the way American families are coming together and making it work. I know it’s been a struggle for so many of us, but I think it’s important that we are all aware of how much we have achieved already just by surviving… and all the glorious places we can go to from here. If you are a parent, pat yourself on the back for what you have accomplished and the innovations that are activating a brighter future for all of us, especially for our children.
You don’t see it yet?
Okay, suppose for a moment that you deserve the difficult time that you are living in. It doesn’t matter where you think you went wrong, the truth is, you probably didn’t. We all remember the basic things our parents and teachers told us growing up, and the simple keys to happiness.
Get good grades, stay in school, get a degree, marry the right person, save 10% of your paycheck, work your way up the ladder and earn your increase every year, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Okay, so maybe we deviated from the advice just a tad, but so what? We were promised a pretty secure and stable life with 2 cars, a house, some pets, stuff to play with, family vacations, college for our kids and a pension for early retirement. So what went wrong? Why are so many of us left scratching our heads after doing what we were told?
We’re broken down, beaten up, stressed out, over-weight, over-medicated, under cared for, jobless and hopeless, short-saled, repo-ed, and drowning in debt. We have blamed every president, politician, pushy boss, parent, partner and professor. We are fighting with our spouses, yelling at our kids and blaming ourselves. Sheeeeesh!
Let’s all just stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and decompress.
Did it ever occur to you that this is all just part of our journey? This may not be a punishment. This “challenging” time may very well be an opportunity to rebuild an even better tomorrow for ourselves and for our children. We are living in a radical time of ground-breaking technology, new forms of mass communication, insurgent medical discoveries, and we live in a country where no one can REALLY tell us “no”. Sure, society might discourage us from trying something new or to taking risks, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. We need to re-program our minds to see the benefits of CHANGE, and how we are already in the middle of a spectacular revolution.
In the words of the late, talented and insurrectionary Michael Jackson, “Make that change.” Look in the mirror and start with yourself. Stop fighting with your spouse, your business partner, your boss or your neighbor. Look for the commonalities of what we are all trying to achieve, and realize the power we have in togetherness.
We are a new collaboration of men and women, alike. We are a partnership of moms and dads, of CEOs, COOs, and CFOs in our lives and in all that is important to us. We are united and we celebrate our differences. We are unapologetic for who we are, and accepting of those that have different viewpoints. We are each other’s teachers. We embrace each other’s special qualities, exceptional idiosyncrasies and unique characteristics because it is our only hope to solve this puzzle. We have only just begun to realize that by coming together we may all have a necessary contribution to the answer we have been seeking. This is a very distinctive time for us all, and we have the power to make a difference.
A rainbow cannot exist without first the presence of a storm. We deserve that rainbow.
Community, daddysden, Dads, Family
We’ve been connecting with some great organizations that support stay-at-home dads exclusively.
We say BRAVO to these sites! Please support them with your visits:
Ally Loprete, Community
Written by Ally Loprete
The thought of actually sitting down and scheduling some lazy “do absolutely nothing” time probably seems very stupid as well as a waste of time. Entrepreneurs, especially parents who are constantly on the go between their company and their families, really need to schedule some time to where they just sit back, relax and decompress.
When you are constantly on the go and running all over the place, attempting to work 7 days a week, in between playdates, naps, mealtime, laundry and grocery shopping, not only do you get overly exhausted by the 4th week, you run the risk of beginning to resent your company, the company that you started out loving. You may even begin to resent your children, the ones who you fell so madly in love with, you decided to work from home to be closer to them. Both responsibilites will soon seem like a ball and chain that you can’t get away from. This is not why you decided to work from home.
A written schedule can fix all of your problems. This is something that you should do every day of the week, whether you schedule your down time for the Saturday and Sunday weekend, take Monday off of work, take an extra long weekend, or just cut out of work early on one day a week. Your job as a parent continues all week long, so it’s important to account for ALL of your time.
1. Schedule in Realistic times to work, remaining flexible. For me, I am able to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons when my oldest son is at preschool and my youngest in napping. Every once in awhile my schedule is blown by an early riser, but it’s a time I can count on for the most part. I can also work for a few hours in the evening when my husband comes home, and Sunday nights when the weekend festivities are over and my husband can take over.
2. Make a list of weekly tasks and dedicate a day to each task. Mondays are for blogging and posting, Wednesdays are for social networking, Fridays are for PR. Evenings are for responding to emails and getting organized for the following day.Weekends are for catching up, but never more than 5 hours in a single weekend.
3. Schedule in “Mommy” or “Daddy” time. I had made a promise to myself and both my sons that each morning until lunchtime I would not work at all. I could schedule playtime, take them to a park, arrange a playdate, or even do some mommy chores, but my laptop was to remain closed. I also used this time to do mommy chores such as go grocery shopping or folding laundry. Because I was able to find ways to include them in these mindless tasks, they did not appear to resent this time as it did not seem like “work” to them.
4. Schedule in time for you. Just as the body needs food to stay nourished and sleep to stay refreshed, taking time to relax and clear your mind will work wonders for your health and your productivity.
5. Schedule time with friends and family. Date night with your spouse, with another couple, game night with neighbors, a visit with relatives, or out with your friends for a social gathering. It’s as important to your sanity as a good night’s sleep. Commit to 1-2 nights a month, if that is all you can squeeze in, but make that minimum a priority. It should give you just enough of a break from your work that you can go back with the same appreciation for your company that you started out having.
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