It might seem cliché, but it’s true that everything changes when you become a parent. Many parents take months of parental leave. That’s months to bond with your baby, and think about the future. You might consider quitting your job, or looking at new options. If you love that bonding experience, and don’t want to leave your child when you go back to work, there are ways to make an income from home and look after your kids. We want to support parents, whether they go back to work or stay at home to raise their kids—or both at the same time. So we created a list of jobs for stay at home mums and dads. We hope you find something to inspire you.
Childminder
As a childminder, you would be running your own business. Childminding keeps you active, and you get to spend time outdoors, with your own child and other children. That really sets it apart from other jobs for stay at home mums and dads. You also need to be responsible, warm, motivated, communicative… and just plain fun.
Interested in becoming a childminder?
Data entry
A great job opportunity for a fast typist with an eye for detail. It could get repetitive, and you would spend most of your time sat down in front of a screen. But if you are already used to desk-work, it could be right for you. Just make sure little hands get nowhere near those keys, or you could have a big oopsie to deal with.
Editor
If you have a flair for the written word, or lay-out and design, there’s a real work opportunity here for mums and dads alike. Most can be done remotely, and hopefully there won’t be too many Zoom meetings for tiny children to photo bomb. You usually need some previous experience, but there are opportunities out there even for newcomers to the field.
Customer support
Plenty of businesses updated how they do things during covid, and let their customer support teams work from home. If you are only answering emails and direct chats, it’s even easier. Phone support isn’t always ideal with little children around. It can be hard to sound professional… Or to even hear the person you are trying to help over your children’s squeals and giggles. So an employer would have be a little understanding to be happy with your situation and offer you this role.
Tutor
If you have previous skills, like a degree in music, language, or maths, you could impart your wisdom to others—for money. This is another job where you generally work as a self-employed freelancer. One of the benefits of this job for stay at home mums and dads is the flexibility it offers. You would only take on new pupils when you wanted to, and only offer times that work around your daily schedule. It could be hard to earn a decent living from this, but as additional income it’s a great option.
Marketing
If you know how to sell frozen water, and understand how humans work and what makes them want something—like frozen water—you probably have what it takes to work in marketing. It does help to have some degrees and qualifications (doesn’t it always?), but it’s not impossible to start from scratch. A great deal of marketing is proving yourself and making the right choices. If you can market yourself to a company and they hire you, that’s always a good start.
Software Engineer
An exciting chance, if you have the mindset to deal with what is essentially a new language. You can excel in this role if you have a solid understanding of logic, and an ability to remember what can sometimes seem like arbitrary rules. Attention to detail is also important here, as a single letter or space can mess up an entire page. But there’s a real future in this line of work, and some companies are willing to hire self-taught software engineers.
Social Media Manager
More and more companies are outsourcing social media management. This job suits stay at home mums and dads that learn fast, and can do their own research. You will need to understand stats, and be willing to try new things. Reading a room—and the near future—are both good skills to have when considering this role. It helps to have a thick skin too, because the internet has no end of lovely people out to make your day just a little worse.
Virtual Assistant
If your organisational skills are your real strength, you might want to help someone else get their life in order. Some people just have too much on their plate, and need someone to take over the admin so they can get down to the ‘doing’. Virtual assistants can be asked to do many different things, but hopefully you won’t be called upon to pick up the dry cleaning. Just make sure your own small child emergencies don’t coincide with the emergencies you’ll have to deal with on your employer’s behalf.
Transcriptionist
Another one for typists with an eye for detail. Transcriptionists almost always work from home, and tend to work only to deadlines. The pay generally isn’t great, but if you are really fast and get plenty of projects, you can just about make a decent living. And don’t forget to buy good headphones if you want to hear the recording you are transcribing above your own kids.
We hope one of these jobs suits you, so you can keep looking after your child whilst earning a living. And if you want to spend more time outdoors, and build a strong bond with your own kids, childminding could be the perfect option.
Interested in becoming a childminder?
