Work at Home Mothers

I am a third generation Work at Home Mother. Things have changed tremendously in three generations spanning from the 1920's to 2008 yet some things remain the same for women who work at home to earn an income. We mothers who hold jobs at home to earn an income are wives, mothers, widows and single moms. We work using our talents and skills to contribute to or shoulder the entire burden of the family income. We face twenty four hours a day to nurture, feed, clothe and care for our children, mentally, physically, spiritually encourage the family, keep a relatively clean home and perform our work at home tasks to earn that needed income.

My Grandmother raised 9 children while working at home alongside my grandfather with their truck garden business. She was up at dawn preparing meals for her family and traveling workers who came to work farms with the seasons. A typical breakfast was eggs, oatmeal, bacon, fried potatoes, baked beans, sauces, jam, biscuits with her home made butter from the milk cows. She worked in the gardens. She canned and put up bushels of apples, potatoes and other produce to get the family through a long Maine winter. She and my grandfather sold vegetables to a local cannery and other customers.

Years later my mother and father faced hard times. The vegetable canning company where she worked in the lab burned down. Dad had an auto salvage business at our home. Mom took care of the bookkeeping. They could not make ends meet. Mom signed up to sell Avon. She also worked a few hours a week cleaning houses and did seamstress work. Dad gave up his business and started driving truck. Not only was Mom a work at home mother she was mainly on her own with Dad on the road many nights. A few years later Dad became a law officer for our town and eventually gave up truck driving. We have no police station so Mom was now a dispatcher of sorts. Our home also became a meeting place for Maine State Troopers and Game Wardens. Mom kept we three girls in clothes, personal products and certainly added to the groceries with her Avon sales and cleaning jobs. No one worked harder than my mother. To this day I easily quip that she can work me under the table. By the way, she is going on 40 years as an Avon Lady.

I guess it was a natural thing for me to slide into the work at home industry. All mothers work at home. I just happen to work at my home based business. It matches my all too independent work spirit. I do better on my own schedule. I've always been a night owl. I think and create better in the quiet of the night especially as the only female in a house with a husband, two teen sons and even a male dog. I write. I make and sell my handcrafts and floral arts mainly on eBay right now. I don't expect to get rich. I need my boys to see me as a person who earns an income too. I just want to feel a sense of worth that comes from my creative mind God has gifted me with. I want to earn my way in this world.