Single moms can’t afford to have a job (Or: Why self-employment is the single mom's ticket to sanity)

This weekend I was at a family Halloween event in Brooklyn, New York’s hub of the creative professional, Yuppie parent. While watching my kids get down to some crappy children’s rock band, I distracted myself by eavesdropping on a couple of above-described moms. “Cobbling together a living with freelance projects has been tough – but when I had a fulltime job it was even harder!”

I have long sung the praises of self-employment. Allow me to continue here. When you have a traditional full-time job in which you are required to report to a boss an office, there is little flexibility with how you use your time. Time is humans’ greatest commodity, and single parenthood only highlights that. Swinging work, kids, home, personal time, money management, a relationship and getting that occasional wax requires super-human juggling scheduling when you have to do it by yourself. If you’re tethered to an office and a strict schedule, this can seem impossible. If you only have 12 personal days per year, what happens when your kid wakes up on a Wednesday in pool of his own puke? What about the parent-teacher conference, when your own parent needs your company at a doctor’s appointment. What do you do when you need to get your roots touched up?

But if you have control over your time, you have control over your life. This point is in full effect this week for me. Consider the following single-mom specific challenges my flexible (freelance writing) career has accommodated: daycare closing owing to Hurricane Sandy; a child support court hearing; accompanying a friend to an out-of-town medical appointment, and a Halloween party at said daycare. Yet most days this week I will exercise, and I will also bill around three times what I would earn in a staff job in my profession.

True, this is an unusually hectic week, and it will mean that I work some hours after the kids are in bed and over the weekend. But what would I do if I had to clock into a desk? I would find a way to make it all work, but it would be at the expense of paying a babysitter, and in stress for all three of us. Instead, today while the wind picks up and the rain intensifies, my kids and I are baking pumpkin banana muffins that we will use to bribe our neighbors into joining our afternoon dance party.

One of the most beautiful things about living today is that achieving a work-life balance has never been easier. Companies increasingly allow telecommuting and other alternative work arrangements; freelancing and consulting arrangements are now the norm in many professions, and technology facilitates flexibility in ways we couldn’t have imaged a few years ago. The other thing successful, self-employed people will tell you: if you do it right, you almost always earn way more money than if you are stuck to a salary.

Don’t get me wrong, it is always a struggle to do the single-mom juggle. But if you have a grip on your time, the chaos goes down, your quality of life goes up and your hair has never looked better.

Pumpkin-banana muffins

1 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. butter
3 eggs
1 c. canned pumpkin
2 med. ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla
3 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat together sugar, butter, and eggs. Add pumpkin and mashed bananas, mix by hand (to save some of the banana chunks). Add remaining ingredients.Divide into about 18 greased muffin tins. Bake about 20 minutes or until wooden pick in center comes out clean. Cool in tins 5 minutes. Remove from tins; cool completely.

I was a confident single mom by choice. Then I lost my job. (wealthysinglemommy.com)
10 financial steps to a rich life as a single mom (wealthysinglemommy.com)
Admit it: You’re a married single mom, and you hate it (wealthysinglemommy.com)
Giving back – what can single moms afford? (wealthysinglemommy.com)
Free dinner for single moms? (wealthysinglemommy.com)
Single mom and parttime lover? (wealthysinglemommy.com)
Problems with dicipline? Just get divorced! (wealthysinglemommy.com)

Categories: Career, Money, Parenting, Recipes, Time

Teresa
Reply
10-29-2012
I understand (and fully agree) that it is easier in many ways to be self-employed. But I’d love some ideas on making that happen when your day job doesn’t even pay the bills, let alone allow you to save money.
- Emma
  Reply
  10-29-2012
  Teresa – excellent question. You have to think outside the corporate box. How could you do your current job in a self-employed capacity? Contract work? Freelance? Maybe you can work with your current employer to find telecommuting or job-share options. Check out this article I wrote on the subject: http://goo.gl/URC4p
  
  From there you can build up your own business — but like Lawmom said, you need a plan, and that plan needs to include a ramp-up period. Maybe you build up savings, get a loan or expect to strategically take on credit card debt with an eye towards a better situation in the future.
  
  One key is to connect with other people in your industry who are doing what you would like to do. Ask them how they did it, the challenges, and ask for references and to take on overflow work. You’d be surprised how few people ask for help — and how willing others are to share!
lawmom
Reply
10-29-2012
Sing it! When I realized the chaos that having a second child brought to my biglaw time constraints, I jumped ship and started my own practice. But like the other poster said: you have to have some fall-back to transition. I would say be prepared for at least six months of very little income as you set yourself up. This may mean you have to get a business loan or save as much now for the transition or get creative with how you will ease from day job to freelance…
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