The fearless freelancing mother
Back in 2000, I hated my job at a university computer help desk so much that I was willing to do just about anything to get out. So I did: I started my own freelance writing business. My birthday present to myself was leaving the workplace. I figured if it didn't pan out, I could always go back to tech support - in a different company. But it did pan out. Within two months, I made my first sale. My first article appeared in October 2001, and the following year I got contracts that carried me through 2002. I felt I'd arrived. You could say I was, in a word, fearless.
That all changed in late 2002, when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. Even though I'd started to freelance with an eye toward staying home with children, reality scared me badly. I got an inkling of what it might be like when I totally lost my brain, when the hormones made me so scattered that I had to wonder if this was what it was like to work around a talkative, active little boy. (It is, only louder, though it is slightly easier to pick up the thread of what I was doing.)
Fortunately, I was working for editors who were also parents - or becoming parents. One was pregnant with her fifth child, due not long before me. The other's wife was due with their first, just a few weeks after me. They were sympathetic and supportive, and they waited for me during my protracted maternity leave.
Pregnant with #2, I found I wasn't quite so fearful. The placenta brain wasn't so bad this time around, and even though Hamlet had dropped his nap the year before, I was able to take on other work that didn't necessitate blocks of quiet time. Fearlessness came once I realized the most crucial aspect of working at home with children: to succeed, I had to find ways to be flexible. To be willing to change the type of work I was willing to do, to change my expectations about my time - and my kids'.
This year sees me blogging for a Disney subsidiary, continuing the work I did for an architectural PR firm, and a few other odds and ends to keep my irons in the public-safety fire. In other words, six years after I first quit my "real" job, I'm still a successful freelancer - and a successful mother, too. That knowledge keeps me fearless that whatever life throws my way, I'll be able to handle it and still survive.
* This post brought to you today by MotherTalk, which is promoting the release of Arianna Huffington's new book, "Becoming Fearless." Thanks to Miriam Peskowitz for inviting me to participate!
That all changed in late 2002, when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. Even though I'd started to freelance with an eye toward staying home with children, reality scared me badly. I got an inkling of what it might be like when I totally lost my brain, when the hormones made me so scattered that I had to wonder if this was what it was like to work around a talkative, active little boy. (It is, only louder, though it is slightly easier to pick up the thread of what I was doing.)
Fortunately, I was working for editors who were also parents - or becoming parents. One was pregnant with her fifth child, due not long before me. The other's wife was due with their first, just a few weeks after me. They were sympathetic and supportive, and they waited for me during my protracted maternity leave.
Pregnant with #2, I found I wasn't quite so fearful. The placenta brain wasn't so bad this time around, and even though Hamlet had dropped his nap the year before, I was able to take on other work that didn't necessitate blocks of quiet time. Fearlessness came once I realized the most crucial aspect of working at home with children: to succeed, I had to find ways to be flexible. To be willing to change the type of work I was willing to do, to change my expectations about my time - and my kids'.
This year sees me blogging for a Disney subsidiary, continuing the work I did for an architectural PR firm, and a few other odds and ends to keep my irons in the public-safety fire. In other words, six years after I first quit my "real" job, I'm still a successful freelancer - and a successful mother, too. That knowledge keeps me fearless that whatever life throws my way, I'll be able to handle it and still survive.
* This post brought to you today by MotherTalk, which is promoting the release of Arianna Huffington's new book, "Becoming Fearless." Thanks to Miriam Peskowitz for inviting me to participate!
Labels: Fearless Friday, MotherTalk
posted by Christa M. Miller at 6:37 AM
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