Freelance Parent » parenting

Mommy and Me Quiz

Tamara Berry — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:54:53 +0000

I came across this quiz over at Nice Mommy, Evil Editor and couldn’t resist. I’d love for all our readers to do this with their kids, too (and to link back so I can read them). The answers are hilarious…and a little bit enlightening.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
“No thank you, no thank you, no thank you.”

2. What makes mom happy?
“Snuggling…and night-nighting.”

3. What makes mom sad?
“When I say ’stupid.’”

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
“When you be silly.”

5. What was your mom like as a child?
“You were a nice little girl, and you played and played and played.”

6. How old is your mom?
“Twenty-eight. That’s a lot of years.” (Emphasis hers.)

7. How tall is your mom?
“Very tall. As tall as a mommy.”

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
“Work.”

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
“Get some work done.”

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
“Um.” (She said it about 30 times. I don’t think she understood the question.)

11. What is your mom really good at?
“Working.” (Oh, dear.)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
“Um…climbing trees?” (I don’t believe I’ve ever attempted it in front of her. I’m not that terrible.)

13. What does your mom do for her job?
“You go to your office.”

14. What is your mom’s favorite food?
“Chicken…good chicken.”

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
“Giving me hugs.”

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
“You’re the fairy godmother. I’m Cinderella, and you’re the fairy godmother.”

17. What do you and your mom do together?
“Play Pretty, Pretty Princess. And we read books. And sometimes we go get some candles.”

18. How are you and your mom the same?
“Well, um…you like to eat candy and I like to eat candy.” (Too true, I fear. Too true.)

19. How are you and your mom different?
“Cause you have glasses and I don’t have glasses.”

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
“Hugs. Kisses. Snuggles.”

21. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?
“The mall toys. We both like the mall toys.”

Can a Freelancer Really Go on Vacation?

Tamara Berry — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:27:58 +0000

In our almost two years of freelancing as the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency, neither Lorna nor I ever really thought much about taking bona fide vacations. Sure, we’ve had our moments: Lorna had a baby and stepped away from the business for a few months; I took a month off to write a novel; we both took “vacations” to Seattle last year. But in all those times, we were never fully disconnected from the company. We had Internet. We interacted almost daily. We sneaked in a few hours of work in here and there, and no one was the wiser.

So when my family went to DisneyWorld last week, it was with the full intention that I wouldn’t be completely disconnected from my computer. I tried my hardest to tie up all my loose ends and notify clients that I would be out of town, but I assumed I could always check my email each night before going to bed if some sort of writing emergency came up or in case someone needed to contact me.

Unfortunately, the vacation gods had a different idea. Online access at our resort not only cost $10/day, but it was also very unreliable. I suddenly found myself stranded in a remote location where the weather was gorgeous, Mickey was everywhere, and I was wholly disconnected from my lifeline to my good friend, the Internets.

While I did not enjoy the 100+ messages in my inbox when I finally got home, and I’m in a bit of a panic to catch everything up over the next week and a half, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

The whole purpose of our vacation was to have Mommy-Daddy-Child time that was completely free of interruptions. In our real life, my husband spends 60+ hours per week at work. I’m constantly fighting against my daughter to have alone time at the computer. And she’s the poor soul who suffers, since she rarely sees us both at the same time without one of us running off to get “one last thing done.” DisneyWorld was supposed to put all the focus on her and what she loves best. By disconnecting me from my beloved computer, DisneyWorld forced us to do just that.

If I had had regular access to the Internet, I can guarantee you I would have used it. I would have skipped out on an afternoon at the pool to catch up on my emails. I would have cut our days a little short to write one or two articles. I would have been Twittering instead of dressing my daughter up as Cinderella. I know that sounds awful, but completely turning off the workday is really, really difficult for me.

I’m glad things worked out the way they did, and we plan on enforcing more downtime around my house from now on.

After all, no client or project is worth sacrificing this:

The No-Cry Freelancing Solution

Lorna Doone Brewer — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:09:22 +0000

For Christmas, my daughter got me a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution. Really, her daddy got it for me, but he softened the blow by telling me it was from my eleven-month old. You see, she has some pretty serious trouble falling asleep. She positively hates it, and the result is a lot of late night rocking and nursing on my part. Quite honestly, it doesn’t bother me a whole lot, but it drives my husband batty for some reason.

For me, the alternative is much worse. I will freely admit that I’m just not a “cry it out” mom. Both Tamara and I are pretty sensitive to our babies’ needs and desires. We both also have spines of jelly when it comes to hearing our little ones cry. Tamara’s recently started letting Evil Mommy out to play, but we both prefer to keep our babies’ discomfort to a minimum. In some ways, it may be self preservation, as the piteous cries of the fruit of our loins is enough to drive either one of us to tears ourselves.

I’ve mentioned before that our freelance business is a lot like a child to us. We’ve nurtured it and guided it and watched it grow over the last year and a half. Because of our need to keep our little baby freelance company from suffering any undue discomfort, we’ve been patient and moved pretty slowly. You could say that we’ve been rather cautious moving forward in an effort to protect our toddling company and to minimize our own discomfort as well.

You know what? I think that being so wary and guarded has made a huge difference in what we have been able to achieve. While it may have cost us a few dollars in the short term, I think it has really laid a much more stable foundation on which to build some long-term success. We haven’t raced forward with the business, yet it has been steadily growing since the agency was started in 2007.
They say that slow and steady wins the race, and we’ve found it to be an approach that fits our temperaments.

Some of the choices we’ve made that illustrate this approach include:

During the first year, we raised our rates in accordance with our own self confidence. Rather than coming out of the chute asking for something that we didn’t really feel we deserved (even if we did deserve it), we started with what we could stomach and grew from there. The key, of course, is that we did raise our rates so that we are now able to earn a freelance income that is much more in line with what we probably should have been asking in the first place. Still, we rocked and nursed our business and avoided a lot of the fluttery frightened sensation that would have signaled that we were pushing harder than our baby was ready.

Using Your Natural Evil for Business Good

Tamara Berry — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:00:27 +0000

My daughter recently turned three. And I have a confession to make. Until last week, she still used a binky to go to sleep each night.

Feel free to chastise accordingly (goodness knows I’ve done it), but no matter how many times I tried to extricate the thing from the vice of her determination, I caved. She looked so pathetic with those big crocodile tears and shuddering breaths – all she wanted was a little bit of comfort to help her get through the night. So time and time again, I extended the deadline of its banishment and shouldered a little more mommy guilt.

Then, last week, I was in a bad mood. A. Bad. Mood. Work wasn’t going well, I was feeling deprived of caffeine, my husband was still in the midst of two full-time jobs, and I was just plain crabby. So when my daughter started to cry before bedtime because she couldn’t find her binky, I just told her, “Sorry. We got rid of them. You can’t have one anymore.”

She tried all her usual tactics: crying, begging, telling me she loves me. But I wasn’t budging. (Because in my house, when Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.) So she gave up and went to bed. And slept sounder than she ever has before. Since then, she’s asked for it twice, given a little sigh when told “no,” and moved on.

What? It was that easy?

My husband has decided that Evil Mommy is really good at laying down the law in ways that Normal Mommy is not. Evil Mommy makes her daughter eat what’s served or nothing at all, she turns off the television with nary an apology in sight, and she doesn’t take any crap. She’s hardcore.

So, we’ve decided that, like the Hulk or Niki Sanders, I must learn to channel Evil Mommy when the situation calls for it rather than simply being prey to my emotions.

I like this idea, because I can’t help but think that Evil Mommy would be really good at certain parts of our business. Bill collecting, for example. We currently have about $1,000 in outstanding payments from several clients. Normal Tamara is not good about pushing them. She listens to apologies and takes them at face value, she offers much-too-generous time allowances, and she politely backs off. I get the sensation that Evil Tamara won’t take “no” for an answer. She’ll get her money, no matter who she has to threaten to get it.

She might come in handy at other times, as well. She’d be great at negotiations, hard-headed sales tactics, and responses to mean comments on our blogs. She’d get what she needs from the people she hires without feeling bad about it. I kind of like her.

And now that I’ve discovered her lurking deep inside, I’m excited to get to know her a little better. I think she’ll be a great asset to our team.

I’m Not Ranting, Already!

Lorna Doone Brewer — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:23 +0000

If you read Freelance Parent—or even the blog’s title for that matter—then you realize that it’s not just about how to start and run a freelance business. It’s also about how to combine that with parenting; how to juggle both aspects of your life. Freelancing is an amazing career option, and a big reason for that is because it does allow us to be home where we can parent.

Attending BlogWorld Expo last weekend was sort of an eye-opening experience. While the actual BlogWorld leadership was supportive of the fact that I needed to be in close proximity to my baby for nutritional purposes, the Las Vegas Convention Center was not.

Now, I understand the arguments behind not having a bunch of kids at a professional conference. In my mind, it boils down to responsible parents. Had I actually been allowed to take my baby into sessions, I would have only done so when she was sleeping or quiet, and I would have sat in the back so as to leave quickly should she start to be disruptive. That’s just common courtesy.

The weirdest reaction I received probably came from the “gentleman” who informed me that children should not be allowed in Las Vegas. I got the distinct impression that he thought I sucked as a human being for having Dot there. I stuck up for myself, though:

The best reaction was from one of the BlogHer bigwigs who assures me I should come to their conference where they once had a session delivered by a presenter while she was breastfeeding.

One of my biggest concerns was that she might disturb other people by crying. Fortunately, she did me proud, and if you added up all the time she spent crying all weekend, it might have totaled about four minutes. Trust me, that is way less time than many of the attendees spent whining about how slow the internet connection was. Considering it was free and there were thousands of people using it, I found their fussing to be more inappropriate than hers.

The longer I spend dwelling on the subject, the more bothered I am that people feel that a baby (that they are not even expected to care for) is an inconvenience. Sure, if she’d been crying a lot, I could see how that would be quite frustrating. But for people to be annoyed just because a baby was in the room…that’s really their problem more than mine and Dot’s, isn’t it?

In some ways, breastfeeding is a sacrifice on the mother’s part. In other ways, it is more than its own reward. Still, I think it’s appalling that I should also be expected to sacrifice my career because I need to physically be close to my baby. I find it insulting, as a matter of fact.

In a manner of speaking, I really did feel somewhat discriminated against, and I’m not quick to jump on that bandwagon. It felt to me as if I was expected to choose between being a breastfeeding mother and being a professional woman. How is it possible that in 2008, we still don’t see that it is possible to be both?

Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency, Year One

Lorna Doone Brewer — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:25:26 +0000

I was orginally planning to get all mushy and wax poetic about marking the one-year milestone for our company. Instead, I spent three days making a video about it. Why do I do these things to myself?

As far as home-based businesses go, freelance writing has been a dream come true for us. We’ve had our ups and downs, and the ups have been more than enough to keep us motivated and excited. We definitely think of you all as one of those “ups.” We want to thank you for being a part of our success. We truly believe that we’ve gotten as far as we have because of this blog…because of you!

Does Working from Home have Negative Repercussions for our Kids?

Tamara Berry — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:40:42 +0000

My daughter has always been a very verbal child. Which is a euphemism for saying that when she wants or needs something, she demands it at the top of her lungs. Everything from getting a drink of water to a barrette falling out of her hair is a matter of the utmost urgency. I’ve always attributed this to her diva-like personality and tried to stress politeness and reasonable decibel levels.

Over the weekend, I did a little babysitting for my niece and nephew (aged almost two and four). My house was pretty much a zoo of giggling children. At one point during the day, the kids were being pretty independent, so I took the opportunity to answer some emails and make a few job bids on my laptop. All was going well for awhile until my daughter came running up to me.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” she screamed with her normal, frantic tendency. “Piggy* is stuck. He needs help. Help him! Help him!” I sort of murmured a response, saved the email I was working on, and trailed my eyes to where she was jumping about and continuing her screams.

Lo and behold, there he was. My nephew had worked his way through the dog door and all I could see was his bottom half, his legs flailing about trying to work themselves free.

After I had a quick chuckle (and took a picture), I went to go help the poor little guy. He was calling for assistance, but in a way that I have no framework for understanding. His voice was barely above talking level as he cried, “Aunt Tamara, Aunt Tamara, I need help. I’m stuck.” Don’t get me wrong – he was upset about being stuck – but in a quiet, understated sort of way.

I was suddenly struck with a thought: Why does my nephew make calm demands while my daughter screams every little thing as though it were end of the world? Is it inherent personality that makes them so different, or is my daughter reacting in the only way that gets my attention – by screaming bloody murder?

I’ll be the first to admit that I am really, really good at tuning things out when I’m working. I’ve adapted the way I focus so that nothing but obvious danger can penetrate my productive haze. My daughter is smart. She probably just found her own way of getting my attention no matter what.

By screaming.

I’m curious if other freelancing parents have discovered ways in which their work-at-home status has a negative reflection on their kids. We always talk about the benefits of working form home (spending more time with our kids, saving money on childcare), but we rarely address the potentially negative side effects that surely exist in full force.

Care to share?

* Not his real name. Nor is it in any way a reference to Lord of the Flies.