working mom – Momma Bird Blog

How Stay-at-Home Parents Can Build a Resume

How can I build my resume while I’m a stay-at-home parent?

If you’ve decided to be a stay-at-home parent, you may eventually start to panic about returning to work. Many of us have no intention of forever being a “homebody.” After all, it seems a large number of us stay-at-home parents were climbing career ladders before we decided to take that leap. You know, the one where you knew virtually sever your income so in turn you didn’t have to pay childcare costs.

Some days stay-at-home Mom and Dads really miss their job. For me in particular, prior to motherhood, I had spent a couple years going to school nearly 20 credited hours while working two jobs. I’ve always been a dreamer, ready to take on the world. Then one morning, I woke up with a newborn baby, no place to be for the day, and supporting my husband’s military career. It was such a strange feeling!

As a stay-at-home Mom for 7 years, I feel I’ve lost years of workforce productivity, learning, refining skills, and social skills. I really missed working (even with some of the small jobs I had along the way). So, I picked up a job that I could financially get a little traction, socialize, and feel productive. But that wasn’t all I wanted to do, I wanted to do something a little bigger.

Four years ago, we were raising two toddlers and a little baby. I was super overwhelmed and all of the stress in my life started to drag me under, along with some hormonal issues. I felt like I had no control of my life and was super weepy. A couple years later, I laid everything out in prayer and felt the urge to start blogging. I hopped on WordPress and became the owner of a website! (Which is kind of big for a Mom who focuses all day on her little ones.)

I turned off the TV, stopped scrolling social media and began to learn and set goals. Time was spent wisely learning how to set up a WordPress site, watching Susie Moore’s YouTube channel, taking notes, jotting an entire notebook full of ideas, listening to webinars, reading about blogging and SEO tips, investing in time on social media strategy, creating graphics, taking pictures, creating content, analyzing website statistics, talking to people about motherhood and blogging, etc.

Add all of those things together and you have a whole new set of skills which can be utilized at a future job.

Depending on the areas of focus, bloggers might be able to add these to a resume. (See further below for non-blogging resume building.)

Skills you can add to a resume if you blog:

Branding
Writing
Editing
Networking
Marketing
Social Media Strategy
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Influencing
Digital Photography
Graphic Design
Website Management
Research
Statistic Analysis
Time management
SEO

Tools & Technologies

WordPress
JetPack
Canva
Adobe Photoshop
Mail Chimp

More ways to dive back in to your career

Find free podcasts and webinars to learn from
Be well read and up-to-date on your career field
Continue network growth
Learn about what your clients need
Brainstorm solutions for client needs

Questions I’ve been asked about blogging:

Oh wow! You blog, so you’re famous right?
How do you even make money?
Are you successful?
What do you write about?
What are your favorite blogs?

My answers:

Not yet, but if I became famous, I would be known for helping other Moms through their struggles and that would be more rewarding.
I don’t pay myself./ I can easily do affiliate marketing, which is selling other companies’ products, but I don’t want to dilute my blog. If I would monetize my blog, I would create my own product which would be a useful tool for Moms.
If you count success in the perspective of numbers, I don’t have 10,000 readers yet, but I’ve had over 2,000 people read my blog in one day. I’ve also reached over half a million people on Pinterest in one month with organic reach (using advice from Susie Moore). But, in terms of reaching my own success goals, maybe I am successful. I’ve positively impacted so many people around me and I’ve seen them fired up about life! I just want to continue impacting other people!
Before Momma Bird Blog’s re-brand, I wrote about all parenting lifestyle. At the beginning of 2019, I tweaked my niche to motivating Moms and health/wellness. The most popular articles on MBB are about Mom guilt, Motherhood quotes, and Essential oils.
I have a growing list of favorite blogs/vlogs, but here are my top 10- Military Moms Blog, Scary Mommy, Wellness Mama, Motherly, HuffPost, Her View From Home, That’s Inappropriate, Start a Mom Blog, Kristina Kuzmic, Juggling the Jenkins, and so many more!

Other ideas to earn an income:

Blogging may not be key for you, but there are plenty other options! I’ve researched so many work-at-home jobs over the years that it’s not even funny. So many of the jobs are in analysis, medical coding, and customer service calling. If those don’t work, you could open your home for childcare, take senior pictures, open an Etsy shop, or do various freelance work.

Maybe you just need a part-time job that you can be available for when your spouse is off from work. Open a LinkedIn account and start building your resume. Soon, you’ll start seeing open job opportunities that suite you. Maybe you have something close to home that would interest you.

Over all, one of the best things I did for myself as a stay-at home Mom was to start learning and setting career-type goals. At the time, it didn’t seem like a Mom who was overwhelmed to tears should start a blog. I’m proud of what I’ve worked so hard to learn! Now I feel more prepared to enter back into a career field of my choosing!

What skills do you personally need to have for the career you want?

Comment below with your blog website and goals or various ways that you’ve been able to add to your resume while staying home!

How to Enjoy Mom Life More (While Raising a Young Crew)

Moms with a couple small dependent kids will find significant value in what I’m about to say. This the very stage that you’re in that made me feel like a terrible Mom not long ago. You’re supposed to enjoy all of mom life, right?

You get the notion that you’re always supposed to be filled with joy because you were blessed with awesome little people. We are blessed. We know that without a doubt.

These mini’s are adorable, easy to please, they replicate multitudes of love, and they have such innocent, unique personalities! They give the best hugs and randomly proclaim their love for us. And when they hurt feelings, it’s likely to be accidental and so easy to forgive.

Although toddlers are easy to please, they are likewise just as difficult at times. As your mini grows, he wants to dress himself, buckle himself, and even pour his own drinks. Determined, he’ll dive right in with the intent of flawlessly mirroring your efforts. And when he fails… oh man! His big emotions will show! Sometimes it just feels like they’re intentionally making things harder on us. Doesn’t it?

You might feel seriously overworked and overwhelmed because your kids depend on you so much. Most days you won’t quite receive the help you need. Instead, you’re outnumbered and spend the majority of your waking day multitasking like you’ve never done before.

By the time you can sit in peace for the day, you don’t feel accomplished. You’ve done everything, yet still unable to recall all the details of the day. Chances are you’ll have fed them countless snacks, kissed some boo-boo’s, wiped their tears, held them, had a dance party, corrected them, stuck them in time-out, played a silly game, broke up fights, read a story, cleaned up never-ending messes, made some phone calls, paid some bills, cleaned up potty accidents, washed some laundry, fed your kids, washed the dishes, and bathed your little ones, all while doing little for yourself. Chances are you probably would’ve had some thoughts to yourself, but you fell asleep as soon as the chaos was over.

You might start to feel exhausted all around. You might feel lost. And you might feel that you lost. But here’s what I would’ve told myself then when I felt like a bad mom for not enjoying all of it.

Being a mom is tough. That’s the one thing you won’t hear often enough. Mom life wears you down hardcore in ways you didn’t know possible.

It’s normal to feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and even frustrated. It’s normal to sometimes feel emotional and worried about your family. But just because those things are normal doesn’t mean they’ll go away on their own. It’ll take some time and effort before you begin to enjoy motherhood more.

Motherhood comes with the beautiful, and ugly. Every minute that you enjoy with your kids, you have earned tenfold. These little people with big messes and big emotions aren’t too far off from being big themselves.

You probably feel like your kids will always be small and depend on you. You fear that you’re always going to be so overwhelmed and it makes you feel slightly more crazy just thinking there’s no end. But friend, you are so near the light at the end of the tunnel.

One day your kiddos will tie their shoes, buckle themselves, head off to school, help with more chores, and even show empathy. You’ll finally reap the rewards of their younger years. That day will be oh! so bittersweet because you will wish for a single day of time-travel to hold your baby once more. And yet, you will shed many of the challenges that you’ve waited so long to be free from.

There will come a day in the near future when you’ll see a new mom enjoying her sweet little one, smile, and you imagine that fresh baby smell. You’ll wish you could tell your old self to enjoy more of the little things, to laugh at the imperfections, and soak it all in. Even the parts you thought you didn’t enjoy.

This stage of life may not look very beautiful in your mind. It looks a lot like a national disaster. But this, right now, is your blessing. There will always be one more thing you need to do. Your to-do list will probably grow resembling Jack and the Beanstalk. You’ll likely never see the end of messes and chores with little ones at home, anyways.

Motherhood is a balancing act.

Instead of letting ourselves feel defeated, we should take care of ourselves better and ask for more help. Make friends with moms and dads going through the same stage of parenting. Find ways to make an ordinary day with the kids special. Make some memories and take the pictures or journal about it. And really, just start thinking more positively.

A few years ago when I was really struggling, I would’ve said to myself; “Let go of your idea of this perfect image of motherhood and enjoy what’s yours now. Go get some more sleep, see your doctor until you feel good, tell someone how you feel, go for that drive, cry, get mad, pray about it, and know that this tough, beautiful stage is almost over. And you’re going to really miss it one day.”

To you Moms who are going through this, give whatever ounce of faith you have. God is so good! You’ll get through the struggles with Him like I did.

Motherhood is such a blessing! Let’s enjoy these moments that are ours now before they become a distant memory.

Tag: working mom

How Stay-at-Home Parents Can Build a Resume