Moms Find Time To Build Businesses From Home
Some moms choose to work full time. Others become full-time moms.
Lately, a category in between is gaining popularity, even inspiring a new term: mompreneur.
Mompreneurs are women who run their own businesses — usually out of their homes — while juggling the duties of motherhood, said Ellen Parlapiano, who trademarked the term and is co-author of several books on the subject.
“The No. 1 reason that they start businesses is for family flexibility — the flexibility to go to the preschool in the middle of the day without having to ask a boss for permission,” she said.
Exact numbers of mompreneurs aren’t available. But millions of women run businesses by themselves and are the sole employee, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Women’s Business Research. The number of such firms grew at twice the rate of all single-person businesses since 1992, the center said.
And with the state of the current economy, Parlapiano is expecting more.
“People are losing their jobs,” she said. “They’re turning to home employment and starting their own ventures.”
Laura Gendron of Clovis, Calif., is a mother of three and the owner of Petite Fleur Designs, an online boutique that sells the hair accessories, hats and children’s clothing she creates. She also supplies 20 other Web sites and local shops with her goods.
Her factory is a small bedroom in the family’s suburban home, and she works when the kids are at preschool, after they go to bed and occasionally while they play quietly at the desk next to her.
She estimated she earns the same amount of money as she did working part-time in pharmaceutical sales, her pre-baby career.
Image from Stock.xchng.
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply