TOPAZ HORIZON

Many moms envy women like me who can simultaneously earn a living and care for their family 24/7. I know how they feel because I used to work in an office and leaving my baby every morning was heart-wrenching. I wanted to be a work-at-home mom (WAHM). Working from home is indeed a blessing, especially for moms of little ones. However, like all jobs, working from home isn’t all roses. There’s thorns in there, too. So if you’re a mom thinking of earning a living while taking care of your kids, here are five tips my friends, Martine de Luna and Jean Javier, and I came up for you. 

First, an introduction. Jean is the woman behind the lifestyle brand, Simple Mama. She makes scented candles, bath products, skin care lines, and many more lovely things in her own kitchen.

Martine is a brand coach. On her Facebook page, she calls her work as "Transformational Personal Brand Life Coach." What is that? She offers business management services to “women-centric brands as a branding coach, a content strategist and copywriter.” She also conducts personal branding workshops under her Make it Blissful brand. 

I’m a writer for print and online publications, I’m currently a beauty editor for L'Oréal Paris and a contributor to beauty website Calyxta.com. I am also a professional blogger.

Yes, we’re very busy women and so it isn’t true that when you work from home, you’re doing nothing. That’s an annoying misconception that you might run into once you set up shop at home. So here are a few tips to help you in case WAHM despair hits.

Jean featured in Town & Country.

1. See your friends. 

When we find the time, the three of us meet at a café to talk about work, family, and womanly concerns. The first con of being a work-at-home mom is there are hardly any other adults around to chat with. So these catch-ups over coffee are so important for us WAHMs.

Aaaand that’s all the cons my friends admit. Jean and Martine truly enjoy being WAHMs. Jean says, “I am a homebody. I enjoy being at home, I enjoy homeschooling my children, I enjoy tending to my garden and creating with my hands. So it can be said that working from home puts me in my element because it is where I am happiest.” Martine also enjoys the bliss of home and she adds this other benefit: “I like that I can create my work hours.” 

2. Hire household help. 

I have a harder time with working from home mostly because I don’t have household help. My day starts and ends with me being a mommy and homemaker. So I can only truly work when the kids are asleep, which means I hit the pillow at 3am only to wake up again at 6. This isn’t very good for my health! 

“I am now of the belief that ‘I can't afford to do my chores,’” Martine says. “Why? Because trading off work for chores means trading off income-earning hours. So we get our laundry and ironing done outside, so that's two chores off my list. We get a cleaning lady to come in once or twice a week to deep clean. I don't need to do much at home except cook, then I just do general maintenance cleaning every day.”

Jean is also grateful to have help. “I have house help who has been with me since my firstborn was still small and so I delegate the chores, which is a huge load off from time management.”

Martine in her favorite pink.

3. Get your family’s cooperation.

Even with household help, if your family keeps barging in on you, there is no way you can get any work done—something that happens to me all the time! So it’s vital you set boundaries. Designate a special area and a certain time for work, and firmly tell your family that they have to respect that time and place. Martine says, “When I have to work at home, I separate myself from the kids and go to my workspace on the second floor. When they see me at the desk, they know it's DND [do not disturb] time. Of course, my toddler tends to ignore this rule!” 

Jean says it’s also a huge plus if your family supports your work. “My husband does the aspects I cannot, like back-end computer work. He always stops what he's doing when I ask for help, and he definitely spends time with the kids when I have particularly heavy loads of production work to do.”

Martine also has the support of other family members. “Twice a week, my husband and I reserve for our new business, and we leave the kids for the day at either of the grandparents’ houses.” 

4. Work somewhere else.

For me, one of the most difficult things about working from home is that it’s my happy place. There are my books and TV shows, the chocolate and cookies, the always enjoyable chats with my husband, and the cuddle time with my kids. Plus, my bed is always tempting me with a nap! How can anyone work with so many distractions? Well, work somewhere else! Working from home doesn’t mean you literally have to be inside its walls. I like going to the convenience store of a gas station to work—unlike a coffee shop, patrons here don’t linger so there’s never anyone around!

Martine says, “Now that my kids are bigger, I actually don't do a lot of work at home. So during the day—especially if I have meetings—I don't work from home. On days I need to strategize and create for my clients, I work in quiet coffee shops near our home.”

Me, always working on my phone.

5. Remember the reason why you’re working from home.

Working from home isn’t as easy as it looks. Still, there’s a ton of reasons why I love it: I don’t deal with traffic, I don’t need to spend on fancy clothes, I’m the boss, and I get to be with the people I love most in the world! There are days I complain about it but I like how Jean reminds me to focus on the good. She says, “I really believe that it is all about perspective, and this is what I know in my heart I want so nothing about it is displeasing to me. At least I try not to have thoughts like that. Because we can all find something [to whine about] and I choose not to. I am so blessed to be able to do what I do in the set up that I have.”

Martine encourages work-at-home moms to remember their purpose. “Be clear on why you want to work from home, because you will go crazy some days and forget why,” she laughs. “Seriously, though, consider your big ‘why’ for wanting to, and that will keep you going on the challenging days.”

Which brings me to today, a challenging day, typing this article with one hand and caring for my poor baby with the other. I’m worried about deadlines but I’m more worried about my boy. And I realize that even though I’m having a hard time juggling today, I am also incredibly lucky that I can be with my kids when they need me most. And that’s why I work from home.

*This article was published for Juana.com.ph last year and is published as is except for to reflect the current work of Martine and myself, too. Photos from the Facebook pages of Simple Mama and Martine de Luna. Please click the links to shop at Simple Mama and to consult with Martine. Thanks!

Probiotics are live microorganisms that benefit the body when we eat them. We have good bacteria and bad bacteria in our bodies, especially in our gut. When the bad bacteria overwhelm our gut, we get diarrhea, gas, bloating, constipation, acid reflux. How does this happen? Oh, bad diet. When we get sick and we have to take antibiotics which kill all the bacteria in our body—good and bad. Probiotic bacteria like Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactose, and saccharomyces help maintain the healthy environment in our tummy.

Probiotics is good for everyone. That's you and me, mamas! Kids benefit, too, because a healthy gut means it absorbs more nutrients from the food they eat. More nutrients in the body, better growth and development! So aside from preventing gut problems, probiotics can also help our kids grow better. Probiotics also help manage allergies and infections. If your kids are teens, probiotics may also keep skin clear, improve mood, and prevent bad breath!

However, I strongly encourage you to always ask your child's pediatrician before giving probiotic supplements to your kids. 

Where can I get probiotics?

A diet rich in probiotics is always a good thing. They are naturally found in yogurt, fermented food and drinks (pickles, atsara, kimchi, kefir milk, kombucha), miso soup, and soft cheeses (Gouda, mozzarella, cottage cheese). So serve these generously! In fact, probiotics are so beneficial that many food brands have added probiotics in a lot of food like cereal and milk.

If you don't have enough probiotic-rich food in your diet, then do try supplements. My kids only like yogurt, for example, and find pickles and kimchi too sour or spicy. So we have them take one Erceflora ProbiBear a day. It's a soft and creamy vanilla-flavored supplement made of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactose. It's really like candy. Piero LOVES it. He can't understand why he just has to have one piece haha 

Halabos na Suahe with Kelly Sauce

Soft-shell Crab Negra with Alavar Sauce

It's not always no. But the activities I choose to spend time with them are the important stuff—doing homework, eating every meal together, answering life questions, putting them to bed until they're all asleep every night. But if it's fun stuff, I pass. Yes, I know fun is important, too, but I have to do other things. And if anyone dare tell me to quit work and stop doing the chores to spend more time with my kids, well, I would happily do so if they'd take over those jobs!

In the case of Queen Elizabeth, she turned over the mothering almost entirely to her staff resulting to Charles saying his childhood was unhappy and lonely. Of course, she had a country to run so her situation is a lot different from most mothers. Still, how hard is it to cuddle your kids after a long day of governance? How hard is it to hug them and say you love them even for a minute between seeing your subjects? In "The Crown," there are scenes of Elizabeth being polite with her children. Not gushing, embracing, kissing, laughing. Just hello-how-do-you-do. She wasn't cold or cruel. Just distracted, I guess.

Well, it must be hard for some people to be openly emotional. My own mother was also too busy with work and household chores to be more involved with raising us. In fact, the first time Mama said she loved me was when I was 15 years old and only because I told her first. One afternoon, I said, "I love you, Mama." Mama looked shocked then walked out of the room without a word. I shrugged, not surprised at her reaction at all. Three months later, she looked at me and said out of the blue, "I love you, too."

Three months. It took her three whole months to work up the courage to tell me she loved me back. Imagine that! I'm glad that happened because after that, she was more generous with her "I love you's" like she just needed that one catalyst afternoon of me being so verbal about my feelings to open her own floodgates of emotion. I don't resent her for this. She spent her life so focused on providing for us, it had made her emotionally distant. It's a good thing I was never scared to lay bare my emotions, right? Imagine if I waited for her to say she loved me???

In that sense, I don't feel guilty about working. On one hand, yes, I'm sure my kids would love me to play with them more often. On the other hand, they're never confused about my feelings for them and the reasons I can't play with them because I'm always talking to them about work, duties, time. Plus, I actually am with them all of the time so there's nothing to complain about! 

But, yes, I think about this a lot. When I'm enjoying the smell of my freshly washed laundry and imagining how my boys would smell so nice in them, when I'm packing their baon full of food they love, I'm just really happy and proud of myself. Happy that all the things my sons enjoy, I made it possible. My hands cooked their food. My hands prepared their baon. My hands washed their clothes. My hands changed their bedsheets. My hard work bought them everything. I fetch them from school. I help them do their homework. I personally made everything they eat, watch, use, love and enjoy possible. No one else. No yaya, no maid, no driver, no relative. Me. Just me. And their Papa, of course, but since he's at work a lot unlike before when he was a stay-at-home dad, it's mostly me these days. (I miss you, Vince!)

I do wonder if I'd be a more relaxed mother, a more fun one, if a kasambahay did all the chores. But I don't feel guilty at all. I may be a busy mommy but I always always always tell my kids I love them and I smother them with hugs and cover them with kisses in between chores, just before bed, at the start of every day and after every exhausting day. I may not do everything with them but they know I do everything for them! They're my heart and they know it. So they forgive the times I have to say no because I have chores or I have a deadline. In fact, I know they're proud of me for being so hardworking. Their classmates tell me so.

So, fellow working mamas, don't let guilt rob you of the joy of your career. Quantity of time spent with our kids matters, of course, but as long as we never hold back on our affection, as long as we assure them we love them, as long as we make the hours with them special (and it can be as simple as eating ice cream together or laughing at jokes!), the kids will be fine.


"The Crown" is exclusively streaming on Netflix.