Oh, Woe is Me?

With the economy in a recession, more families are scaling back on outsourcing jobs, such as canceling cleaning services, and are eating more at home. A recent Washington Times article relates that this spells out more housework for mom.

The article’s tone is “woe is mom,” with one source quoted as saying: “The list of things that people were outsourcing we're finding are coming back home. And when they do, they tend to fall on the woman.”

Apparently, women still do most of the housework, even those who are married. For me, this wasn’t a big surprise, but to read the article, some scholars think it is big news. That, with more families tightening their financial belts, the first things to go are the things that you can do yourself—and those tend to be jobs that now fall to the woman of the home.

As a stay-at-home wife and mother, I believe it is one of my jobs to run the household. Not that my husband should be a slug-a-bed (he’s not) when it comes to chores, but since I’m in the home a lot more than he is, it makes more sense that I would do more of the daily chores to keep the home functioning.

Now, I don’t particularly like housework. Vacuuming, dusting, laundry, dishes, cooking, and other cleaning isn’t high on my list of things I enjoy. But I do try to take pride in my housework, and to train my children to be cheerful in doing it. Having a clean house, clean clothes and food on the table helps us to be a happier family.

A large part of that equation is my attitude towards housework. If I’m always cranky about the work, what does that teach my children? I might not like washing dishes, but I don’t need to complain about the job.

Also, I don’t think that my doing the majority of the housework in any way negates the importance of my work-from-home job as a freelance writer and editor. But the fact is, I sometimes have to turn down or modify freelance writing assignments if they might get in the way of taking care of my family, which includes taking care of the house.

Every family needs to look at how to make the household jobs work for each member, whether it’s children learning how to do chores, or a husband pitching in because his wife needs time to prepare a presentation for her at-home business.

Until next time,

Sarah

A Virtual Workforce

I came across an interesting article today (“How the Virtual Workforce Is Changing Everything”) about how telecommuting and crowd-sourcing are reinventing the traditional notion of jobs. The story explains what I’ve found in my talks with women who work from home: that freelancers can do just as good—and sometimes better—work than in-house employees.

Nearly any job can be done to some extent out of the traditional office setting. As the article points out, “workers with unique talents ply their trade from home offices and send the products of their work efforts to city-based offices. Often, these work-reception centers are located far beyond acceptable commuting distances. Today’s developing virtual workforce routinely telecommutes to work across the country.”

The story quotes Jack Hughes, founder of TopCoder: “Why go to an office when you can do same thing at home? Moving information around can be done on the Internet. Maintaining stores and spending time, energy and building costs all are part of the paradigm from the Industrial Age. Even management styles are based on that model.”

As you’ve probably guessed, “this shift in work location from physical office to virtual shop is driven by the Internet.” One source in the article points to three factors driving corporations and businesses to have telecommuter workers or freelancers: the need for an expanded pool of employees, the cost factors, and the better work quality.

Read the article in its entirety to find out more about this shift in employment locations. Like I’ve found in my own research, many jobs done in an office can be done in an at-home office.

Until next time,
Sarah