Or is it impossible to freelance when you have young children?

[cinemalovers]

I have been up since 4am with my one year old, who gas a virus. Third night in a row. I'm in the middle of a big project that I'm meant to be managing but which is going tits up . Today I have a meeting with the woman who hired me. I feel like saying I just had no idea how difficult this would be with a baby - I can't respond to things quickly, I can't commit to meetings outside normal working hours, I can't function well when ds is ill or not sleeping. Aibu to get a lower paid, 9 to 5 office job for the forseeable? Would I ever make it back into my career? Or should I just accept that you can't have a freelance career and a young child unless you can afford a live in nanny?

[motherinferior]

Stuff the PTA, Mintyy.

[Mintyy]

You can freelance when you have babies and/or children but you need to have childcare in place. Dreams of spending an hour here and there focusing solely on your project whilst baby or toddler gurgles on the playmat/naps to order/quietly watches CBeebies are always going to be shattered.

When the children get to school, you have some predictable-ish hours (in term time only) but then there are all those school trips you should be able to accompany because you work from home and the PTA stuff you get asked to do because you work from home and all the assemblies and meetings at school which you should be able to get to because you work from home.

S'not easy being freelance, but people thing it is for some reason!

[Greengrow]

Lonny, yes it worked for us. I breastfed the twins for a year so there as no point in both of us getting up although when both screamed for 2 hours at 3am sometimes of course we'd both help. Then they still were waking many nights until aged about 4 or 5 so he did every night after that. I think as they were our 4th/5th we both had enough experience of babies and night waking to know that was a reasonable deal. It did not harm I earned 10x what their father did though..... Now they are teenagers sometimes they do not wake until lunch time at weekends so it's very much easier all round.

The person NK knows seems to have a very sexist man who probably think he's God's gift even though his wife is soon to be as qualified as she is.

Also it can depend on your work. Teachers cannot easily abandon their A level class to deal with a child issue whereas their business man husband or wife who may earn a lot more might have more flexiblity over getting themselves free in the day, whereas a female surgeon with operations that day a barrister in the High Court will not. Most couples just sort it out between them depending on who has the most urgent work that day if a child is ill. Mind you having a day nanny at home looking after 3 under 5s as we had means if they are ill with the usual colds, chicken pox etc the nanny just carries on looking after them.

[motherinferior]

I suppose I'm saying: yes, of course you can have a good freelance career and have children. But only if you give your work the attention and priority it needs. For me that's a separate space, a separate phone line and set hours.

[motherinferior]

I disagree that you can always 'pick and choose your projects' - or you can't in all fields anyway (I'm a journalist, I take what comes in!). But you can be available for, say, three or four days a week. Set times when everyone knows you are available.

There are, incidentally, plenty of school things I haven't gone to. I have some greater flexibility than I would in an office job, but I haven't done all assemblies or (shudder) sports days and so forth. I don't see my work as taking a back seat to my parenting responsibilities. On the flip side I have very, very rarely worked till midnight!

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

In fact our deal was I got up in year 1 and he got up with them in years 2 - 4 which was an equal number of nights and hours up just about

Greengrow I actually love that and would never have thought of it. DH and I did nights about after I stopped BF and it meant one of us was always tired, pretty much.

[NK5BM3]

Everyone is right. It's childcare or the lack of that's your problem, not your freelancing. If anything, your freelancing should make life easier since you can choose what projects you want to do, and the deadlines, and of course the lack of commuting.

Someone I know had to come in to a meeting with me a few days ago, and when I went to greet her, she was there, with a baby buggy. Turns out her child was ill and couldn't go into nursery. Her husband interestingly, is also in the same field as her, but 'private sector' and therefore says (haha) that it's difficult/he can't take emergency leave. She is very much behind on her schedule (and her ultimate deadline is in 3 weeks), and she's working so damn hard in her full time job and doing what she does with me, part time.

She is incredibly bitter (her child is only 18 months old)... And says that 'daddy still gets to play his sport 2x a week'... They only pay for nursery 3 days a week and Monday and Fridays she works from home (with baby around)... I don't know how she does it. I feel incredibly cross for her. When she completes what she's doing with me, she will be more qualified that her husband. I wonder if she will ever get equal rights.

[LuvDaMorso]

Why didn't your DH get up in the night for at least one of the 3 nights? Or were you both up?

[LuvDaMorso]

motherinferior's arrangements sound very similar to mine.

We had a nanny for a while. She was lovely but I needed to be in a different location to the DC, esp when toddlers. She was also very inflexible due to working for another family on the days she didn't work for us.

Our childminder is brilliant. She is very flexible. She has a network of childminder friends who my DC know from play dates etc with her, which means that if she can't have them for a bit of random extra time, one of her mates usually can.

It is so much better than 9-5 in an office.

I also choose projects/clients that will fit my availability profile. I have turned down plenty of work. Some of the high pressure stuff would have been brilliant I theory but impossible in practise. I've still had enough interesting well paid work though.

I've worked with lots of part-time freelance project managers in IT.

Choose the right projects, get the right childcare, it all becomes much much easier.

[Greengrow]

I worked for myself when I had the last two children - twins.

1. I was in a non sexist marriage so we each did as much as each other so even if they were up at 4am no way would it always be me. In fact our deal was I got up in year 1 and he got up with them in years 2 - 4 which was an equal number of nights and hours up just about.
   

1. I worked at home but paid a full time daily nanny (not live in) and was earning enough to cover that cost and also remember two parents need childcare so only half the cost is yours. Real men find and hire and deal with nannies. Sexist awful men don't. Avoid the latter type of man like the plague.

[squatcher]

Freelancing at home is much easier than commuting in to the office. Having a local childminder means I can drop DD off in a matter of minutes and get straight to work so it cuts down the hours I have to pay for. There's no way in the world it would work for me without childcare though. I have to book and pay for hours in advance so I was a little nervous at first in case the work didn't come in but that hasn't happened yet.

When I went back to my job after maternity leave it was a nightmare. With a commute, I couldn't work long enough hours to justify the cost of the childcare and it took me ages to get back to DD if she was ill and needed to come home. I got very stressed about it. Also, I had to leave on the dot to get back to pick her up and I felt such a part-timer leaving everyone else working away in the office.

So, in my experience, freelancing is the solution not the problem. You need childcare and support. When I have a deadline to meet and have to work evenings/weekends I rely on DH or family to help out with any extra childcare. You need that separation otherwise you may end up feeling like you're not doing either job (parenting and work) to the best of your ability.

[motherinferior]

[OnlyLovers]

You don't sound brutal at all. Again, would a man blink at your work style? I think not.

[motherinferior]

And working crazy hours so they never stop - they're either working or they're doing childcare?

I know I may sound brutal, but I took my lovely girls to their lovely childminder. (Or their father took them.) Then I came back and worked. Alone. Gloriously alone, able to focus and get things done and earn. Then I went and got them. Occasionally I'd do a bit of work in the evenings, but no more than someone who'd spent the day in an office. On Fridays I didn't work. When the childminder went on holiday, we went on holiday. When DD1 started school, she went to the childminder during half-term and holidays.

It was all actually terribly straightforward.

[OnlyLovers]

Plenty of men are utterly untorn

That's TOTALLY the nub of it, isn't it, mother? totally. It makes me what different standards are still applied to women compared with men and work. Can you imagine 'Dadsnet', full of anguished blokes worrying about childcare and work and is it lazy to have a nanny/cleaner and all?

[elQuintoConyo]

DH works freelance from home. I started work when DS was 1.9. We put DS in playschool (or foreign equivalent) 9-1 everyday, it has saved our bacon. In the afternoon, we juggle.

DS is now 2.9 and about to start full-time nursery-school. I work afternoons 4-9/5-10 so will take.him to school... and kiss his sleeping head when i get home. And that is it But that's life, and we do our best to work around it.

Childcare is your friend. If DH told me 'maybe' he could be a parent (lets face it, it's not 'childcare' !) I'd kick him in the nuts tell him if he wants to be immature, he can go do it at his mum's house!

[happyyonisleepyyoni]

Having an office job doesn't help if your child is sick and you need to stay home.

its is tough being a working parent however you do it but you need proper childcare and your DP to pull his weight.

[tittifilarious]

I'd imagine it'll be hard without sound childcare in place.

I've negotiated this week off work from as it's a really busy time so Its been agreed to technically take leave on the proviso I finished off a project while I was off. No problems I thought. One morning's work I thought. Oh no. Not worked out like that at all. And my kids are school age!

[motherinferior]

You won't necessarily feel torn in all directions. Plenty of men are utterly untorn...

[wobblyweebles]

It's perfectly possible to freelance if you have childcare in place. Some days will be difficult if your child is sick and you can't send them to their childcare, just as those days would be difficult if you had a 9-5 job.

However it is hard to have a high-pressure job (freelance or employed) if you have small children, as you will feel torn in all directions.

[motherinferior]

Whereas if you have childcare you don't have this hassle. You can get on and work. For hours. It's fab.

[whatsagoodusername]

I am freelance. Only a few projects right now, and have months off at a time. But it's hard. I have a 2yo and a 3yo and no childcare at the moment. DS1 attends a term time nursery 5 mornings a week, and DS2 will start 2 mornings in September, but it's closed July-mid September which is when I'm busiest.

I work a lot of evenings (late) and weekends and check emails on my phone constantly. My policy is to respond to emails within 24 hours. My DC have mountains of toys in a desperate attempt to keep them occupied while I work and they watch more CBeebies than I am proud of.

During the day, I sometimes manage to work up to an hour at a time now before I am in demand. Some days I get nothing done. Some day they are great and I get loads done.

If you can find some temporary childcare (emergency nannies maybe?) for when you've got too much to do, it will be worth the expense just to keep yourself going. It might cost more than you make that day, but at least it keeps your career going. And your DP needs to help. There's no reason his freelancing is more important than your freelancing.

[atticusclaw]

I agree with everyone else, your issue isn't the freelancing at all its the fact that you have no childcare in place.

You're trying to be a stay at home mum but also work. You would struggle with that whether you were self employed or employed (although easier if you're self employed of course)

[motherinferior]

Or imagine taking the baby with you to an office. Which is effectively what you're doing at the moment!

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Freelancing isn't your issue, it's lack of childcare and support. You cannot expect to fit a reasonable amount of work round a baby's sleep time and schedule, that's madness and a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on yourself. (And I say 'yourself' because your DH doesn't seem to be that bothered about watching the baby when he's got work to do).

You need to reassess - either get childcare in place, or work out some sort of 'baby-share' arrangement with DP where one of you has sole responsibility for the baby at set times to allow the other person to work.

Freelancing is amazing for parents and does, as pp have said, really come into its own when you have older children who can self-maintain to an extent, but your set-up isn't working.

Imagine employing a nanny and then saying 'by the way, you have to be a project manager too.' Not gonna happen.