All working moms face different individual challenges while trying to balance work and family at the same time. Both work and motherhood responsibilities demand maximum attention and time from the same person, which is often difficult to achieve without help in one way or another.
While every woman has that particular task that they find to be the most difficult to handle, some cut across most women as the most challenging for working moms. These are the ways we can make the live of working moms easier and happier.
Also read about the things that working moms secretly love.
In this post…
A “Family Villages” Organizing App
Extended 6 Months Maternity Leave
Day Care Drop off/Day Care at Work
8 Top Things Working Moms Love Secretly
1. Working Moms Love Weekday off Days
Working moms desperately needs off days on weekdays. However, most employers offer their employees off days on weekends only, making lives of working moms harder. It has become one of the many things that working moms struggle with.
There are many tasks both personal and family-related that a mom needs to personally take care of that need a weekday and not a weekend. They include doctors’ appointments, school appointments, and support groups’ meetings among others. So many appointments such as support groups, postnatal yoga, library storytime, and swim lessons are scheduled during the day on a weekday.
Getting weekdays as free will make working moms happier as they can achieve a work life balance. It would be great for working moms, if weekdays were available as off days.
It would be so beneficial if this schedule was flexible such that one can have a day off one weekday in a certain week and work on the weekend instead. It is one of the things working moms love which can make their lives easier and happier.
Read: How Working Moms can Create Me Time
2. Appointments Organizers
Remembering to make and honor appointments is a very elusive thing for most working moms. Many working moms struggle with remembering appointments, making important calls, and even picking up the important stuff.
Being busy both at work and at home makes it easy to miss out on sometimes the most critical appointments. Also it is difficult keeping track of things that need to be done. It happens so often you will remember something when it’s too late whereby you will have to rush or simply miss it.
How can working moms make their life easier in this area? There are many great organization apps that handles not only reminders but scheduling and automation of some tasks as well such as bill payments among others. Such an option is secretly loved for making the lives of working moms easier.
It assists in scheduling, making appointments such as doctor appointments, and integrating reminders for related tasks such as make calls, pick up/buy items, and scheduling among others.
It is even better if it is friendly shareable organizer app to simply share with other family members what they need to do on these tasks. While you are doing the bulk of the work, there are those tasks under your organization lists that you assign maybe to your partner or nanny.
It is a very good things that many working moms would love.
Read: Time Management Tips for Working Moms
3. Extended Business Hours
The normal business hours that most business follows are inconvenient and inflexible for working moms. Some businesses run on extended hours which allows flexibility into the people needing their services but most don’t.
Running at the same time as your employer means you are not in time to get served. You either report to the office late or leave early just so you are in time for the other engagement. Also, you miss those specific appointments and meetings only held at a certain time on a weekday.
Working moms loves businesses and service providers that run on extended hours across say from 6.am to 9.am. It greatly adds convenience for working moms to handle the matters they need to handle out of the office.
It allows working moms for instance to report at 6.am and leave at 2 pm, which gives them enough time to handle things such as appointments. Flexible extended business hours helps moms handled the rush hour, sick time for doctor appointments, taking kids out of school for appointments among other things.
Read: How to Make and Keep Mom Friends
4. Extended 6 Months Maternity Leave
The issue of maternity leave is very sensitive and different people have different opinions. What is generally agreed on is that mothers indeed need adequate time to recover both physically and emotionally from delivery as well as have enough time for bonding and taking care of the baby.
However, what is still a matter of contention is how much time is enough time. The law has set a minimum of 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, but some companies are gracious enough to offer their employees more than this.
However, most women would gladly appreciate it if they could get at least 6 months of paid leave. It has actually been one of the working moms’ pain points of the inadequacy of the current maternity leave.
This appears selfish and is quite a long shot, especially considering the costs implications for the employer. But a girl can dream! The longer time needed is not so much for the mother but the baby.
A baby at three months is too small for most moms to leave behind, especially at the daycare. Many moms never resume jobs after delivery for this very reason. Not many have the finances to get a nanny or any other in-home care arrangement.
Further, not all moms have the privilege of having family and friends around willing to babysit a 3-month-old baby as the mom returns to work. At 6 months however the baby is older, has started solid food, and can do well and adjust to the daycare arrangement. As such many working moms would secretly love to have an extended 6 months maternity leave option.
Read: How to Spend your Maternity Leave
5. All Working Moms Love In-Home Personal Care Service
One of the ways of coping with being a working mom is a self-care plan. Running a full-time/part-time job or business is draining for women as they need to switch to mother roles back at home. Without doubt self-care is very critical to achieve the right mental and physical health to handle these demands.
Sadly most times women don’t get enough time to take care of themselves. It leaves them strained and fatigue, even affecting their performance and productivity.
But what if you could get an in-home care service at your convenience? Secretly working moms would love a more customized personal care solution that fits into the busy schedule.
An in-home care service is loved and popular among working moms as it helps relieve the pressure of work and motherhood, at their own convenient time and comfort of their home. It includes services such as nails, wax, massage hair care, closet organizer, personal shopper, and other professional caser services among others.
Mindfulness/wellbeing is also critical. Someone to get you to sit down, light a candle, play soft music, help you to clear your mind, meditate, & relax are all things that make the lives of working moms easier.
Read: How to Create a Self-care Plan
7. Time Saving Shortcuts
The one thing that working moms never get enough of is time. Working moms struggle to accomplish so many in so little time. There are so many things to do in one day and so little time to do them. There are so many mundane and complex tasks too that one has to rush to accomplish.
Since much of the day is spent working, the rest of mom and family duties have to scramble for the remainder of the evening before bedtime. It is tougher when you have no help to help with house chores. But even so, there are those tasks that the mom must do herself.
Therefore many working moms love time-saving shortcuts that allow them to have the tasks done and still have time for family and themselves at the end of the day. It is more pleasurable to spend the evening quietly with family and kids than rushing around to finish off tasks before retiring to bed.
Time-saving shortcuts such as meal delivery service, grocery delivery, house cleaner, lawn person, etc. greatly help working moms do the most optimum number of tasks in the least amount of time possible.
Others include automating some tasks, doing some tasks online rather than an actual visit, and solutions that would help a working mom achieve some home tasks while at work.
Read: Time Management Tips
8. Day Care Drop off/Day Care at Work
Daycares help working moms cope with the life of being a mom and an employee. However, it happens that dropping off and picking up kids from daycare takes the longest time for working moms. This means they have lesser and lesser time for other things.
Daycare is the most convenient as well as the most affordable care option for most moms than a live nanny and other arrangements. The the time tradeoff is not pleasant at all and working moms love it when they can get daycare at work.
You simply drop off the child as you enter the office, no time wasted and you pick them up later as you leave. It makes the lives of working moms easier by saving on time and convenience.
What’s even better, you can pop in during breaks and lunch to see how they are faring. This is especially super helpful to moms who are still breastfeeding.
Also working moms love it when daycare centers affordably offered pick up and drop off services . It is done at home or another convenient designated location, say a mall, which even allows the mom to pick the baby up and run other errands as well.
Read: How to Make Daycare Drop off and Pick Up Easy
