A work at home parent is an entrepreneur who works from home and integrates parenting into his or her business activities. They are sometimes referred to as a WAHM (work at home mom) or a WAHD (work at home dad).
Entrepreneurs choose to run businesses from home for a variety of reasons, including lower business expenses, personal health limitations, eliminating commuting or in order to have a more flexible schedule. This flexibility can give an entrepreneur more options when planning tasks, business and non-business, including parenting duties. While some home-based entrepreneurs opt for childcare outside the home, others integrate child rearing into their work day and workspace. The latter are considered work-at-home parents.
Many WAHPs start home-based businesses in order to care for their children while still creating income. The desire to care for one's own children, the incompatibility of a 9-to-5 work day with school hours or sick days, and the expense of childcare prompt many parents to change or leave their job in the workforce in order to be available to their children. Many WAHPs build a business schedule that can be integrated with their parenting duties.
Read more about Work At Home Parent: Integrating Business and Parenting, History
Famous quotes containing the words work at, work, home and/or parent:
“Nothing is so threatening to conventional values as a man who does not want to work or does not want to work at a challenging job, and most people are disturbed if a man in a well- paying job indicates ambivalence or dislike toward it.”
—Alice S. Rossi (b. 1922)
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“Christopher Cross: You shouldn’t be alone in the street so late at night.
Kitty March: I was coming home from work.
Christopher Cross: You work this late?
Kitty March: Mmm, hmmm.
Christopher Cross: What do you do?
Kitty March: Guess.
Christopher Cross: You’re an actress.
Kitty March: Oh, you are clever!”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“Feeling that you have to be the perfect parent places a tremendous and completely unnecessary burden on you. If we’ve learned anything from the past half-century’s research on child development, it’s that children are remarkably resilient. You can make lots of mistakes and still wind up with great kids.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)