Earlier today, I covered the fact that there is a world of difference between jobs that allow you to stay at home and do them, vs the ones that allow you to work from home, but not at home.
People are usually very interested in courthouse research, until they realize that it isn’t done at home, and then they start to panic. “What am I going to do with my kids?” Since I have no kids, I usually tend to be at a loss for a good answer, but luckily, I have seen other mothers answer this question, and so I’ve decided to cull the best of the answers from them.
First off, I wanted to clear the air about something: Some mothers’ first instincts are to ask if they can take their children with them to the courthouse. Understand that all courthouse research companies (at least the ones I’ve covered in this blog) are hiring you as an independent contractor. Which means they have no say over how you do your job, as long as you do it well and on time. That means technically yes, you can take your children with you to the courthouse.
What may end up happening though is that you may get there with your three young ones in tow, and the secretary at the desk will look at you and all of your children, and tell you to either keep your visit to under five minutes, or to come back later without the kids. In other words, the courthouse research companies aren’t going to stop you from bringing your kids with you (how would they know anyway?) but the courthouse employees may. In every courthouse I have visited (I’ve been to 7 thus far) the public access computers were close enough to the employees that they could hear everything I did, and in many cases, see me too. So when you bring in a gaggle of children, you are basically invading their workspace with your kids. This will not make you popular with the county employees, to say the least.
So my answer to the, “Can I take my kids with me?” question has to be, “Only if they’re old enough to play very quietly on their own for long periods of time (several hours at a time, at least.)” I would say any child younger than 8 is going to struggle mightily with this, and that you shouldn’t even attempt it. For your kids over 8, if they have a super-cool new game on their handheld Nintendo Gameboy, you’ll probably be fine, although if the game has sound, they’ll either have to turn it off or wear headphones. Every courthouse that I have been to has been as quiet as a library, and about as strict on noise as a library too.
Of course, most kids who are 8 or older are in school already, so this doesn’t help the young mothers. My only suggestion for a young mother who wants to do this is to see if she can arrange baby-swapping days with a friend; ie, the mother can watch her friend’s children for a day to let her friend have a break, and then her friend can watch her children while she goes and collects records. If the young mother lives in a county that is small enough, she may only have to arrange this every other week, or perhaps once a month. The income won’t be anything huge if the IC is only going once or twice a month, but every little bit can help, especially if no daycare expenses had to be paid in order to do this. Can your husband come home early from work once a week, letting you get to the courthouse for a couple of hours then? Depending on how big your county is, a few hours here and there may just do the trick.
If you can make it work, courthouse research can be an easy, high-paying job that will help you bring in that extra needed income. Good luck!