For the uninitiated, SAHM stands for Stay At Home Mom, WAHM is Work At Home Mom, which technically is the same thing (for me anyway because staying at home IS work too), although WAHM are really mothers who work AT home. Then there's the WAFHM, Work Away From Home Mom, the bulk of the motherhood community who goes out to work.
Mothers everywhere are battling it out over who is the better mother, those who work away from home or those who stay at home. And with the booming technology and internet connections, another breed of mothers have emerged; those who work at home (or maybe they have always existed? hmm).
Okay, calm down. Don't get all ruffled up people. This is one fight, if not handled delicately, can cause a Civil War to explode.
Personally, staying at home with my boys is a choice I made out of necessity, starting with my first son having problems due to being born premature at 33 weeks gestation. We had to take him to the hospital every 2 weeks for follow-ups after he was released after spending almost a month there. Then there's the constipation problem he started having since he was 4 month old till now, he's 4 years old now btw. All of these complications made me realized that I need to spend more time with him, not send him off to a nursery or to a nanny, plus the fact that after graduating and sending out hundreds of job applications to no avail, so I chose to stay at home with him.
Hubby had also started his own business, so I figured we could kill two birds with one stone. I get to stay at home with my son and help my husband with our family business. Perfect. Except when the great recession hit USA and we got affected by the shoddy economy. People are getting smarter with their money, less spending on expensive items and more on daily staples; food. We barely manage to survive on our meager sales, thankfully my parents helped out. That's when my mom started nagging me about going to work, for the sake of my boys and for my own sake. She didn't want me and the boys to be left high and dry should anything bad happens to hubby.
She right, she's always right, you know. Just 6 months ago, hubby decided to quit the business and get back to working in a day job. The first 3 months after he quit, we lived on my savings (the student loan that I've managed to save during undergrad) alone since he doesn't have one. We didn't have anything else to fall back on, except for my parents, whom as always, will bail me out financially every time we get short. Thankfully, our financial situation is looking better since hubby is getting his groove back, he went back to trucking long distance, a job he quit after Shahrin was born. But I understand now that I myself need to have my own income.
I've started back on the job hunting, resume sending cycle. So far, nobody has gotten back to me and I've failed to be shortlisted in the USM job offer. *sigh* Ok, truthfully, I'm not liking the idea of leaving the boys and having to learn to navigate office politics at my age* heh. When hubby got me this broadband connection, I was eager, even foolishly looking forward to managing my own VA (Virtual Assistant) business. What I found after digging here and there showed me that there's more to being a VA than just having internet connection and some basic management knowledge. I've also advertised my translation, proofreading, editing, composing 'venture' on my Facebook but it has been slow, non-existent even.
I really wish I could join in the WAHM sisterhood and choose to care for my children myself while managing my OWN business. My initiative is to take a part-time English for business course with USM, to start next month, so that I'll have credibility. Other than that, I'll start looking for online secretarial classes, if there are any, so that I can pursue the VA angle. I've also found some local WAHM bloggers who are very vocal about their choice to work at home rather than join the rat race. Maybe I'll learn a thing or two from them.
I'm going to build a new ANIS persona. I'm going to change myself for the better, for the boys' sake as well as my own. INSYA ALLAH.
Hubby had also started his own business, so I figured we could kill two birds with one stone. I get to stay at home with my son and help my husband with our family business. Perfect. Except when the great recession hit USA and we got affected by the shoddy economy. People are getting smarter with their money, less spending on expensive items and more on daily staples; food. We barely manage to survive on our meager sales, thankfully my parents helped out. That's when my mom started nagging me about going to work, for the sake of my boys and for my own sake. She didn't want me and the boys to be left high and dry should anything bad happens to hubby.
She right, she's always right, you know. Just 6 months ago, hubby decided to quit the business and get back to working in a day job. The first 3 months after he quit, we lived on my savings (the student loan that I've managed to save during undergrad) alone since he doesn't have one. We didn't have anything else to fall back on, except for my parents, whom as always, will bail me out financially every time we get short. Thankfully, our financial situation is looking better since hubby is getting his groove back, he went back to trucking long distance, a job he quit after Shahrin was born. But I understand now that I myself need to have my own income.
I've started back on the job hunting, resume sending cycle. So far, nobody has gotten back to me and I've failed to be shortlisted in the USM job offer. *sigh* Ok, truthfully, I'm not liking the idea of leaving the boys and having to learn to navigate office politics at my age* heh. When hubby got me this broadband connection, I was eager, even foolishly looking forward to managing my own VA (Virtual Assistant) business. What I found after digging here and there showed me that there's more to being a VA than just having internet connection and some basic management knowledge. I've also advertised my translation, proofreading, editing, composing 'venture' on my Facebook but it has been slow, non-existent even.
I really wish I could join in the WAHM sisterhood and choose to care for my children myself while managing my OWN business. My initiative is to take a part-time English for business course with USM, to start next month, so that I'll have credibility. Other than that, I'll start looking for online secretarial classes, if there are any, so that I can pursue the VA angle. I've also found some local WAHM bloggers who are very vocal about their choice to work at home rather than join the rat race. Maybe I'll learn a thing or two from them.
I'm going to build a new ANIS persona. I'm going to change myself for the better, for the boys' sake as well as my own. INSYA ALLAH.
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