BellyitchBlog

If you are like me and other work at home moms out there, you kind of dread Summer a bit because it means you will be responsible for keeping your children busy, entertained and intellectually stimulated so they don’t have too much Summer brain drain. You will have to do all that while managing your work obligations. Oy vey!

Many send their children to summer camps but a lot of camps only operate on a week or two-week increments and they can get very costly. To ease the challenge, it is a good idea to establish a strict schedule that includes work time, play time, and other activities in between. Without a routine, your work or project obligations can suffer and you risk having your kids play video games and watch TV all day.

I’m re-sharing some suggestions of activities I came up with:

Use the morning to institute some reading or math drills time.

If you live near a library, use its facilities and take advantage of their summer reading challenges.

Go to the craft or dollar store and pick up supplies and incorporate an hour on some days for crafts.

Use card or board games for non-electronics hours.

Do outdoor activities close to home like make visits to the local park. My middle kid, who is a nature and animal lover, enjoys heading down to our town creek and exploring the dragonflies and frogs. My eldest likes riding his bike around the block and my youngest enjoys playing make-believe with her My Little Pony toys in the front yard.

Tack on active play time as well. Take a trip to a local tennis or basketball court. Toss the softball in the backyard. We go on a half mile loop in our town and stop periodically to do jumping jacks, burpees, situps and pushups in the evening. It’s a great way to stave off the summer excess weight gain as well.

Plan trips to the beach at least once during the summer.

Incorporate treks to the pool on a twice a week basis if you can.

If the budget allows, family visits to the roller rink, go cart track or cultural museums are other things you can do.

Here is the schedule I created for myself and hope to follow stringently. I’ve tried to allocate enough time in between for transitioning from activity to activity and made sure I put in ample time to work. You are free to use it to specialize your own schedule. Good luck and have fun!

“Many mothers find it difficult to raise a family and try to run a business because both the children and the business take a lot of time all by themselves,” an article on the Top 3 Reasons Mothers don’t Start Up in ParentStartup.com states. Another New York Times piece and another recent article talked about how Venture Capitalist discriminate against mothers.

From that NYT piece:

“[M]uch of the investment world, heavily dominated by men, remains skeptical about a woman’s ability to combine running a fast-growing tech start-up and motherhood, Ms. Gugnani says. She raised $3 million from investors before becoming pregnant.

“All of the women I know who went to raise money did it when they didn’t have kids,” she says. “There is total discrimination in the start-up world against women who are pregnant.”

Making pregnancy and motherhood a focal point of the investment process is an outdated way of thinking, she adds.

Female entrepreneurs are less numerous and raise less money than their male counterparts. Women make up 10 percent of the founders at high-growth tech companies, “and they raise 70 percent less money than men do because of their lack of access to capital,” says Lesa Mitchell of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where she is vice president for initiatives on advancing innovation.”

And so, the “Start-up mom” joins the Mommy Wars.

Background:

The mommy wars is an ongoing battle between mothers disputing and discussing which child rearing method is best: Sleep in Room v Nursery; Bottle-feeding v. Breastfeeding; Baby wearing v. Carrier; Sling v. Bjorn; Cry It Out v. Not; Heavily Scheduled baby v. Let baby control sleep and eating.

Moms are opinionated and each one believes her method or solution is tops. Of course, to each its own but that doesn’t stop those who have hard-fast thoughts on one thing from speaking up and trying to convince others this. They will not be silenced. They may bully others into their perspective.

Another mommy battle is the battle between Stay-at-Home (SAHM) versus Work-at-home (WAHM) versus Working Moms. Working moms often feel SAHM guilt trip them over spending less time with their children. Meanwhile, SAHMs say they feel belittled by Working Moms who assume they do nothing all day but eat bonbons while their kids are at school. Working Moms say SAHMs are privileged enough to not have to work yet judge those harshly who do. Work-at-home moms say they have the best and worst of each scenario.

Now that the Start Up mom has been brought into the picture, as a work-at home Start up mom, I proffer that the Start-up or Entrepreneurial mom has it THE HARDEST.

Why?

While start up moms do have the luxury of being able to chaperon school field trips, attend school meetings and take our kids to the library as I do daily, they also have the challenge of having to clean the home, provide meals, and be a homemaker all while not bringing income but expected to.

Unlike the SAHM who is not expected to bring in external income, the Start-up mom has to contribute to the family expenses.

Unlike the Working Mom or Work-at-home who is working for a company and at least bringing in guaranteed income, the Start-up mom works for no one and has to go out and generate income from independent sources.

The Start-Up Mom has to bring home the bacon by working 50 hour weeks trying to build a company that makes little to no money that may never be successful enough to generate income or funding.

And she has a tough haul raising money to fund her venture, considering that recent Business Insider story revealing how the VC industry discriminates against mothers.

It’s a hard uphill battle to bear along with the other family responsibility on our backs.

Yeah, we have it the hardest!

What do you think?

WAHM

How a WAHM can Run her own ‘Camp Mom’

Mommy Wars: How the Start-Up mom has it THE HARDEST