One of the ways that some home – based professional parents manage to stay at home during the day with their children is working at night. This strategy can also be used by parents who work outside of the home as well. To those who are not in the know, the options for work during the “graveyard shift” may seem to be limited to twenty four hour stores, freelance writing, or working as a nurse or a security guard. There are many more things that get done during the night, though, and expanding your knowledge of what those things are can be very useful.
For example, one of my home – based businesses is freelance writing. It is easy to see how that can get done at any time of day or night. My other home based business is running a small law practice. While some of that work must happen during normal business hours, some things can happen during the evening and even long after most people have gone to bed. Many clients relish the opportunity to meet with me or talk with me on the phone after work, on the weekend, or at other times when they do not have to take time off from work to do so. Lawyers do a lot of emailing, researching, and writing too and those things can happen at any time. Journalists, photographers, computer programmers, customer service professionals, and many others can work at night too if they so choose.
The support of your family plays an essential role in making any home – based work schedule work, and it is especially important in situations where one parent works at night. Couples may have to compromise on some “together time” in order to make a schedule work that will enable them to have other things like additional income and a parent home with the kids. The good news is that couples and families who do pull together to make something like that work may find themselves feeling like they get more of what they want overall instead of less and that they work well as a team when it comes to handling all aspects of family life.
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