Working from Home

1. As I draw nearer to my due date, I have been researching extensively to address an important pressing question: #ChildCare - who will take care of our new born when he arrives when both of us are out for work? Some of the options we had at hand are as follows: 1. Take turns to baby sit. This would work well given that one of us holds a flexible job. Either one has to quit our full time work and consider part time employment/ home-based business/ full time home maker. 2. Get a baby sitter (Still sitting on this option as my online research hasn't been very fruitful) 3. Hire a maid (minimum contract of 2 years for keeping a maid). Honestly i'm not too comfortable having a stranger in our midst, leave alone to entrust our newborn to that person. This option can be made sweeter if one of our family members are with the maid as well full time. So say for example, one of the mother's stay in to monitor the maid and baby. 4. Take baby to work. Nah, although #flexible work arrangements are a hit now, this is not very common in Malaysia as yet. There's still a wide area for growth in welcoming returning mothers to the workforce 5. Send to a child-care (Not too sure about this, major concern being leaving baby in the hands of strangers) 6. Send to our parent homes. Not too keen with this option either, both parents are in their time of rest. And we do not wish to impose our child upon. Given the current situation and times, there is a need to continue dual income earning in a family. Zooming into each option, I explored #1 extensively and in my research i came across this link: http://www.ehomemakers.net/en/index.php which is a portal for e-home makers in Malaysia. Plenty of how-to articles, a business directory with selected businesses listed. My favourite link is on the right side bar which lists out business of the month and other advertising solutions. There are just too many business opportunities out there to be explored! The commonly done jobs at home are as follows: 1. Sewing 2. Virtual Office Assistance: Consisting tele-marketing, customer support, administrative work 3. Website design 4. e-Commerce 5. Writers, editors, transcribers 6. Baking 7. Home tutor/ tuition The non-conventional jobs include the following: 1. Consultancy - providing e-advice areas of expertise. Mainly for support functions such as Human Resources, Legal, IT 2. Making specialised artsy gifts such as beading and creative arts (for kids mainly) Whichever path is chosen, the most important consideration has to be a genuine interest in the work undertaken. Working alone from home takes a lot more toll on a person that working for someone. It's definitely not an easy task but it's totally do-able. You can prepare yourself to work from home by reading up (books and people who have done it) and by networking. Meet people who are currently in the same industry of home makers and find out how they do it. If you see yourself doing it in the long run, it helps to prepare yourself, skill-wise and resource-wise to embark on this journey.