Bring Your Sons & Daughters To Work Day…April 24
When I was growing up on a dairy farm, the sons and daughters learned about their parents’ work from an early age. We became involved as soon as we could do some chores and were expected to help with the family enterprise.
When my mom began operating a small country grocery store when I was in my teens, she expected my sister and me to help her. Families worked together, pulled together, shared joys and challenges.
If a parent works outside the home, it’s more difficult for youngsters to know what Mom and Dad do. Thus a national day for bringing your children to work has been instituted so youngsters can learn more about their parent(s)’ work and workplace.
Home Business Parents Share With Youngsters
However, when you work at home, your children don’t need a special day to find out what Mom and Dad do. You often can include them in your work. Perhaps they will become business partners as they grow older, start their own home based businesses, or simply have the entrepreneurial spirit instilled.
When you’re working from home and juggling schedules with children, parents learn to be creative. From the very beginning, when our daughter was small, she was around my work, which started with dressmaking and freelance writing. In fact, I did the dressmaking (later evolving into quiltmaking) because I could be a stay-at-home-mom.
“Me sew,” 3-year old Beth would say. So I’d lay fabric scraps on a TV tray for her. She sat and pretended to sew, too. Later she became involved in my quiltmaking and is a superb quilter and fabric artist today. (See her Meandering Threads blog.)
My husband and his brother owned a business, and Jim often took Beth with him when he delivered machinery. One day, when Beth was an adult, he remarked he regretted he hadn’t had more time to spend with her when she was a child.
“But, Dad,” she remarked, “you took me with you in the truck. I thought that was so much fun. Other kids didn’t get to do that.”
When I was a travel writer, Beth often accompanied me on assignments and took the photos. She traveled to England as an exchange student, took notes and photos, and we wrote the stories when she returned.
So incorporating your youngsters in the day-to-day activities of your home business develops a bond, teaches them skills, and creates memories.
Share with us how you “take your children to work” at your home business!
(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen
Tags: children and work, families, families working, farm families, farming, farms, grocery-store, home business and children, home-business, memories, quiltmaking, sewingShare This
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POSTED IN: Family, Kids & Business, Work At Home Moms
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