A work at home parent (WAHP) is someone who conducts

remote work Remote work (also called telecommuting, telework, work from or at home, WFH as an initialism, hybrid work, and other terms) is the practice of work (human activity), working at or from one's home or Third place, another space rather than from ...

from

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...

and integrates

parenting Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and educational development from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biologica ...

into their

working time Working time or laboring time is the period of time that a person spends at paid Wage labour, labor. Unpaid work, Unpaid labor such as personal housework or caring for children or pets is not considered part of the working week. Many countri ...

and workspace. They are sometimes referred to as a WAHM (work at home mom) or a WAHD (work at home dad). People work from home for a variety of reasons, including lower business expenses, personal health limitations, eliminating

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between a place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular o ...

, or to have a more flexible schedule. This flexibility can give workers more options when planning tasks, business and non-business, including parenting duties. While some

ers opt for

childcare Child care, also known as day care, is the care and supervision of one or more children, typically ranging from three months to 18 years old. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), childcare typica ...

outside the home, others integrate child bearing into their

and workspace. The latter are considered work-at-home parents. Many WAHPs start home businesses to care for their children while still creating

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...

. The desire to care for one's own children, the incompatibility of a 9-to-5 work day with school hours or sick days, and the expense of childcare prompt many parents to change or leave their jobs in the

workforce In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed): \text = \text + \text Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...

to be available to their children. Many WAHPs build a business schedule that can be integrated with their parenting duties.

Integrating business and parenting

An integration of parenting and business can take place in one or more of four key ways: combined uses of time, combined uses of space, normalizing children in business, and flexibility. Combining uses of time involves some level of human multitasking, such as taking children on business errands, and the organized scheduling of business activities during child's down times and vice versa. The WAHP combines uses of space by creating a home (or mobile) office that accommodates the child's presence. Normalizing acknowledges the child's presence in the business environment. This can include letting key business partners know that parenting is a priority, establishing routines and rules for children in the office, and even having children help with business when appropriate. Finally, the WAHP can utilize the inherent flexibility of the work-at-home arrangement. This may mean working in smaller increments of time instead of long stretches, looser scheduling of the day's activities to allow for the unexpected, and working at non-traditional times. A business that demands 9-to-5 business hours, a polished office, intense one-on-one time with clients, dangerous materials, or impromptu appointments may not work well for a parent with children at home. Thus, not all professions lend themselves to work-at-home parenting. Without good organization, the WAHP may experience decreased productivity due to added responsibilities and unexpected interruptions. Internet businesses or 'virtual assistants' are well-suited as work-at-home businesses. The Center for Women's Business Research, a non-profit organization, found that

Generation X Generation X (often shortened to Gen X) is the Demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials. Researchers and popular media often use the mid-1960s as its starting birth years and the ...

mothers are the most likely to work from home. The center also reports that between 1997 and 2004, employment at female-owned companies grew by 24.2%, more than twice the rate of the 11.6% logged by all businesses. Types of work that WAHPs may engage in include

, freelancing on project such as articles,

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

consulting A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...

, or working as an

independent contractor Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any oth ...

, running home-party businesses, managing companies from home, and providing business and marketing support.

History

The concept of the WAHP has been around for as long as small businesses have. In

pre-industrial Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time befor ...

societies,

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

s and

artisan An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

s often worked out of or close to their homes. Children typically remained in the care of a parent during the day and were often present while the parents worked. Societal changes in the 1800s, such as

compulsory education Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at home or other places. Compulsory school attendance or compulsory sc ...

and the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

, made working from home with children around less common.

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

saw a resurgence in the 1980s, with more of an emphasis on work-life balance. Among the long-traditional groups of WAHPs are those professionals in private practice with home offices such as physicians, therapists, music teachers and tutors. The term WAHP began gaining popularity in the late 1990s especially as the growth of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

allowed for small business owners and entrepreneurs to have greater options for starting and running their businesses.

Remote work Remote work (also called telecommuting, telework, work from or at home, WFH as an initialism, hybrid work, and other terms) is the practice of work (human activity), working at or from one's home or Third place, another space rather than from ...

opportunities have since increased with advances in technology. In 2008, WAHM Magazine, a digital magazine, was established specifically for work-at-home parents, designed to address the issues of the complete lifestyle of work-at-home parents regardless of field or industry, and has a mission to validate, empower, encourage, educate and support WAHPs in their personal, professional and lifestyle goals. During the

COVID-19 lockdowns During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of Non-pharmaceutical intervention (epidemiology), non-pharmaceutical interventions, particularly lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar socie ...

, many parents have to juggle paid employment and full-time daycare, which is likely to limit their productivity and the anticipated benefits of working from home. However, changes in technology and firm culture have increased the likelihood of working from home arrangements being made available to parents, particularly mothers.

References

External links

Internet moms: Getting the best of both worlds
- 29 May 2007,

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

{{Parenting Business models Entrepreneurship Parenting Small business Working time Telecommuting

Integrating business and parenting

History

See also

References

External links