Do You Give WAHMs a Bad Name?
OK, I’ll admit it.
When I first started my Virtual Assistant business, I did NOT identify myself to anyone as a work-at-home-mom. In fact, I didn’t even think of myself in those terms. I was simply a Virtual Assistant – a professional who worked from home.
You know, even when my kids were younger and I ran a daycare in my home, I didn’t consider myself a work-at-home-mom. I was a childcare provider who operated out of her home.
I had this idea that calling myself a WAHM would undermine the image of professional business person that I wanted to create. True, I was a mom of two kids, and I was working at home. So technically the title fit, but I wanted nothing to do with it.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I became comfortable enough with the name to try it out. Now I’m comfortable with it, and identifying myself as a work at home mom makes me part of a community that I’m very honored to know.
This past week I had a meeting with a local businessman. He had heard there are a lot of moms out there looking for work they can do while they’re home with their kids. So, he’d been researching some WAHM job boards in hopes of finding one who could help him.
Unfortunately, after doing his research, he’d come to the conclusion that work-at-home-moms are a bunch of women with kids who want to make a quick buck from home, without doing any real work.
His statement made me feel really sad, mostly for the particular women he had found. Because obviously they wanted to make money from home but were clueless about how to going about it. It also saddened me because that is a poor reflection of the WAHM community I’ve come to know and love.
He was a little bit surprised when I told him I was a work-at-home-mom too. I certainly didn’t come across like other work-at-home-moms he had heard about. I hope I helped change his perspective a little bit.
If you’re starting out as a work-at-home-mom, remember that all the success you want is yours for the taking. The down side: It doesn’t come easy. The plus side: You’re in excellent company. 
~ Denise