Being a Mumpreneur – Page 10 – Business Plus Baby

July 12, 2011July 12, 2011

The great home-working debate

Being a business mum can be great, but not every mum is suited to this life. Many are pushed into self-employment because of a lack of affordable childcare and flexible employment.

I would love to see the world of employment become more family-friendly, so that starting a business as a parent is a positive choice and not a last resort. That’s why I took part in The Great Homeworking Debate, which is part of the LoveHate Travel campaign, sponsored by Powwownow. Taking part in the debate were:

Shirley Borrett, (SB) Telework.org.uk – Shirley is a strong advocate of flexi-working and works for Telework Association, which was founded in 1992 in order to promote the benefits of Teleworking.
Erica Douglas, (ED) LittleMummy.com – Erica is the author of The Mum Blogger eCourse and A Guide to Successful Blogging and is a Cision Top Ten Parenting Blogger.
Me, Helen Lindop, (HL) BusinessPlusBaby.com – co-author of the book Start a Family Friendly Business: 23 Brilliant Business Ideas for Mums

Here’s what we discussed: Continue reading “The great home-working debate”

June 8, 2011June 8, 2011

Flexible working: your chance to have your say

The Government is looking at the right of parents to request flexible working to help balance their work and family commitments. And it would like your opinion.

The Department for Business Innovations & Skills is right now exploring proposals for the design of a more flexible system of parental leave, including how best to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees.

Speaking at an event on contemporary parenting, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “Right now, most parents simply do not have flexibility they need. Despite the fact fathers can request flexible working, many feel reluctant to do so. There is still a stigma attached.”

According to Business Secretary Vince Cable, the Government will consult fully with small businesses on how best to proceed. “We are conscious of the concerns of some companies, particularly SMEs – but I hope they will embrace our plans,” he said.

In this day and age, flexible working cannot simply mean working from home or the office. For parents especially, the skill of juggling work, childcare and home life is a tough one. Hours wasted commuting to work can leave parents crippled with guilt and rushing out of the office at the first opportunity.

Things are changing, but there’s a long way to go. Third Door, the work hub with integral nursery in Wandsworth, London, has just celebrated its first birthday. Technology means that you can now work from pretty much anywhere you like – home, a work hub or even Starbucks. Yet our roads are still clogged by commuters and the expectation is still that we’ll be in an office from nine to five-thirty every weekday. Or even longer.

It’s time for a change.

Have your say by filling in this short government survey below…

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/83VC8K2

photo credit: [nohide]it’s a foot![/nohide]

May 23, 2011May 23, 2011

Save The Children: No Child Born To Die

In January, Save the Children launched its most ambitious campaign to date, No Child Born to Die. Every year 8 million children under five die from illnesses we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

It’s heart-breaking that children are dying because their parents and communities can’t afford the healthcare that we take for granted here in the UK.

Save The Children is focusing on providing vaccinations and healthcare workers. In June there is a meeting in London hosted by David Cameron and attended by other world leaders. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vaccinations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries. You can help with this by signing the Save the Children petition and then passing it onto your friends by May 29th.

This is what you can do:

Sign the Save the Children petition and then pass it onto your friends

and if you are a blogger

Get your child to either draw or craft a self portrait of themselves now or in the future
Write a blog post about it as soon as possible, including info about Save the Children and the petition. We want as many people linked up AND signed up the petition by Sunday 29th May 2011
Tag 8 fellow blogger friends and link back to Maggie from RedTed Art
And don’t forget to follow all the action in Mozambique on Twitter using the hastag #PassItOn.

I was tagged by Becky at Baby Budgeting and I’m tagging these bloggers:

Nicki at Curly and Candid

Sam and Helen at Mums The Blog

Antonia at Family Friendly Working

Catherine at Baby Genie

My children aren’t keen on drawing self-portraits (maybe they’re still a little too young?) But when it comes to creativity, the thing we enjoy doing together the most is baking fairy cakes. Here’s one of the batch we made this morning:

The colour scheme was chosen by my three-year old little girl – can you tell? 🙂

It’s easy to take our fairy cakes for granted when so many mums around the world don’t have a kitchen or the ingredients to make treats like this. What I value the most is that we’re all together as a family.

So easy to forget when you’re dealing with tantrums and toddler-induced chaos, but so true.

Please sign the petition and help keep more families together…Save the Children petition

April 29, 2011April 27, 2011

Are You a Judger or Perceiver?

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to break out of the norm to create the life they dream of and some don’t?

During World War II Katherine Briggs and Isobel Myers developed a personality test to work out which types of jobs women would be most “comfortable and effective” doing whilst the men were off fighting. There were a number of different personality traits that they used from previous research by psychologist Carl Jung but during their research they developed an additional trait – judger/perceiver.

According to the ladies a perceiver adapts to the world around them whereas a judger adapts their environment to suit themselves.

Does this explain why some women after becoming mums will accept low paid, part-time, temporary work whilst others will either develop new businesses or push for flexible hours? Continue reading “Are You a Judger or Perceiver?”

April 25, 2011April 26, 2011

When WAHMs leave home…

Just because you’re a work at home mum, that doesn’t mean you have to work at home all the time! Today’s guest blogger Sam Title, Dad of two from Toronto, Canada is here to tell us about a great alternative. Over to you Sam…

It’s quite an inspiration seeing mompreneurs sharing tips or “secrets to success” that allow you to juggle your roles as busy moms and business professionals. Many of those secrets may involve time management tricks, multitasking skills, and likely include establishing an important system of support on which you know you can always rely.

Truth is, there’s another secret encompassing a lot of those things I just mentioned – and it’s still unknown to many mompreneurs who already make it part of their day-to-day existence, and ultimately count it as crucial to their incredible achievements.

The secret I’m talking about is an international phenomenon – and represents a community that you may or may not be a member of. It’s a quiet subculture of the mompreneur movement, as well as other specialized groups of professionals. Continue reading “When WAHMs leave home…”