Elizabeth Potts Weinstein » wahm

Top 7 Myths About Work At Home Moms

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 19:06:55 +0000

From the comments I get from former co-workers, friends, family, and what I read all over the Internet, the world definitely has an inaccurate view of mompreneurs. What is it actually like to be a work at home mom? Here’s the Top 7 Myths about Work At Home Moms:

We are not "real" business owners. I personally know work at home moms who are making six and even seven figures. I also know work at home moms who just make a few thousand bucks a year — and that’s exactly what they want. How much money you make, and whether your business is in a fancy office, is not determinative upon whether your business is "real."
We all work in our underwear. I’ve never (okay, maybe once or twice) worked in my underwear and rarely work in my PJ’s. Actually, I wear regular casual clothes 1/2 the time (today I am wearing a t-shirt and capri pants), and business casual the rest of the time, with a few fancy outfits for networking events. Now, I do work in the early morning or late night in my PJ’s, but so do employed-office people who take work home.
We all are doing MLM or network marketing. Yes, some of us are, but many of us are also doing service-based businesses, information products, manufactured or home craft products, consulting, or internet businesses.
We all homeschool our kids. Some WAHM’s homeschool, but heck, my 2-year old is in preschool. Not that I don’t admire homeschoolers, but it just does not work for us, and that’s not why I’m staying home.
Our business income is "second-income" to the family and is not as important as our husband’s income. Pleeze. Some moms’ income is the non-essential stuff (toys, family vacations, eating out, etc.), but some are making more than their spouse, and some are single moms — for example, my sister.
You can always tell if a business is a "home business." I doubt it. It’s not too hard to look "real" or "big" — I constantly have clients who think I am in a fancy office building and are very surprised to pull up to my house for a meeting. I also get calls from salespeople who want to know if my marketing budget is over $100,000, and if my annual revenue is over or under $10M. (ha! not quite yet!)
We are going to get a "real job" when our kids are in school, or go off to college. I don’t know about you, but I will never work for someone else again. Once I’ve been an entrepreneur, I can’t go back.

Do you have any myths you would like to share? Leave a comment below and I will address them in an upcoming post.

From Outside the Mommy Wars

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:15:32 +0000

Sad that as moms we are not always united as sisters, but there can be a real division & resentment between the working moms and the stay at home moms. Brought on by secret guilt (even for those moms who don’t believe it’s true) … these working moms feel guilty for not spending as much time with their kids, and these stay at home moms feel guilty for not bringing in money, or for abandoning their careers. So, they accuse each other of being inadequate women/parents.

Of course, not all working moms or stay at home moms feel this way – most don’t, I’m sure. Most of us are perfectly comfortable with each woman making her own choices, and mostly comfortable with our own choices, and we stay out of any nasty fights — and even support each other! But there are a few outspoken women who assume their choices are the only "Right" choices for everyone.

But where do we fit in? The work at home moms? Or even my subset, the work at home moms who opt for part time childcare? Am I in the stay at home camp, because I am at home? Am I in the working camp, because I have a business?

I find that I am in neither. When I tried to find a play date group for me and Gracie, I did not fit in. The stay at home moms didn’t understand why I had part time childcare or why I sometimes had a meeting. The working moms wanted to do everything in the evenings or on the weekends, which I like to save for family time. From both camps I would get a lot of "It Must Be Nice" statements — as if being self-employed just fell into my lap from the WAHM fairy. I always felt weird. Maybe that was just my problem … but I find that I fit in more online with other self-employed moms, than any mom groups around here in the offline world.

Have you all had this problem? Where do you fit — or do you also find that you are in a separate category? Have you ever found a good playdate group?

What is a Mompreneur?

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:07:30 +0000

A Mompreneur is a mother who starts a business — pretty obvious. Ironically, if you search google blogs, you will find some women business owners and women entrepreneurs embracing the title — and some who are offended. The ones who are offended typically argue that it diminishes their business to call them a mom-preneur, as if that means they are selling $10K worth of beauty products, not starting a “real” business. (I argue that the $10K/year of beauty products IS a real business — just run at a small scale)

But, if you search Mompreneur, you will find this term used to describe women who have founded multi-million dollar businesses, some even publically traded. And describing a network of women who are starting small at-home businesses, as well as small-to-start businesses they plan to grow to empires.

The complaints are ridiculous feminist backlash. Acknowledging that we are women, and mothers, is not diminishing our success, or hard work, or legitimacy. It’s creating a community of women with similar challenges, who can network and support each other. It’s not like the big boys are calling us mompreneurs to keep us out of their fancy wood paneled club — we are calling ourselves mompreneurs, and creating our own club. Except ours has big windows overlooking a playground.

I call myself a Mompreneur as a completely conscious branding strategy. I am running my business differently because I am a mom and want to spend time with my daughter — not running it in any lesser way, but infinitely more efficiently, using technology and making choices to create a business where I can make great money, help people, and still have a great life with my family. And, that is part of my shitck. Having toys in my office, a playset in the garden, pictures of my daughter on my About Us page — my clients know I have a daughter, it give us a topic to discuss and bond over, and they buy into ME, not just my services.

Gracie has helped me take my businesses to the next level — now I have more reasons than ever to run my business Smart instead of Hard.