Raisngkids has identified a new kind of family unit, the ‘relay parents’.

Relay parents take turns of working and looking after the kids, working in ‘shifts’. They report that research shows that parents are spending more time with their kids but less time together or as a family unit.

How it works for us…

Over the past six months what was a part time job for me sometimes exceeded twenty-five or thirty hours. My husband works shifts and I slotted my shifts around his, we took turns of looking after our daughter. Occasionally, family stepped in when our shifts overlapped. We are a new breed of ‘relay parents’, we liken it to a conveyor belt that never ends.

The Pros

As the report identified, less money worries, more hours worked equals more money.

Little, or no requirement for costly childcare, meaning you keep more of what you earn.

A feeling that everyone is contributing both to the financial and childcare aspects of the home.

The Cons

After a while you feel your sole purpose is to be at work or assuming the role of primary child-giver.

Less time to spend/enjoy the money you’ve earned.

The requirement to ‘synchronize’ diaries constantly, and then there’s the housework which needs to be slotted in somewhere.

Eventually becoming ‘ships that pass in the night’, also a feeling of constantly ‘going through the motions’ rather than living life.

The Future

As parents and families we are constantly looking for that happy balance of working and earning, and enjoying life and our family. Relay parenting may have been better than both working full time, but what’s better than relay parenting? Multiple income streams, read my article here…

Today I’m wondering if there is a sea of change in the world of work for mums.

A very rudimentary timeline;

Pre-1980′s (?) Mums stayed at home to look after children, whilst father earned the ‘daily bread’.

1980′s – Noughties Mums managed careers and family simultaneously. Supposedly ‘having it all’.

The Future

The landscape is changing, many mums are accepting that they wish to be a stay at home parent, if not in full, then in part. Mums also accept that they a) cannot survive on one wage and b) have ambitions of their own. Mums have realised that they cannot ‘have it all’ without ‘doing it all’. The answer is in work/life balance. Up until now ‘work/life balance’ was office talk for ‘we’ll let you leave at three, if you come in at 6am…’ or ‘you can request work/life balance, but you won’t get it, because the business comes first’.

Mums are starting to look for new ways of working, mumpreneurs are popping up all over the place with businesses that allow them to work and enjoy being a parent. Some mums are franchising to allow them to be self employed. Others are looking for opportunities online to make an income. Even the high-fliers are going freelance.

Multiple Streams of Income

One of the ideas I’ve been considering lately is that of multiple streams of income. I think this may hold the key to the way mums will work in the future and a real work/life balance.

The realisation that doing one job that earns ?1000 is exactly the same as five revenue streams that earn ?200 each, should make us all evaluate what we really want from life and aspire to settle for nothing less.

Example

Erica works as an office clerk. She earns ?1000 per month and works thirty hours a week. She must be at the office 9am-4pm each weekday.

Versus

Erica spends 20 hours (one time) producing an ebook. She sells it online and earns ?200 per month (around 20 sales of a ?10 ebook). She spends two hours a week on admin including promotion and answering emails.

Erica works as a waitress part-time (she enjoys the social aspect of this). She spends seven hours a week working. She makes ?200 per month including tips.

Erica does some freelance writing on Bukisa and a couple other sites. She makes ?200 per month in residual income, she has just over 100 articles on Bukisa. She usually spends around three hours per week building a back catalogue, which will continue to earn and grow.

Erica also has a blog, she has begun selling some advert spots and has been doing reviews for a while. She makes on average around ?200 per month. She spends around five hours per week on the blog writing articles and promoting.

Erica (from not working at the office) saves travelling costs of ?4 per day (bus fare), lunch costs of ?3, monthly collections of ?10, work clothes ?20 (per month), and childcare costs of ?420(12 days x ?35). Erica saves well over ?200. She ditches the ridacard, eats low cost lunch at home, saves ?10 to treat herself/husband/child, wears jeans and a t-shirt which doesn’t need replacing too often and looks after her child herself except for two days a week when her child goes to nursery to socialize whilst she works from home.

Total Earned (and saved) = Over ?1000
Time spent working = 17 hours

Many of these hours can be worked at any time of the day or night. I have left out a zillion other possible income streams (small ebay business, freelancing with a skill you have, childminding, selling crafts on etsy, the list goes on…). The earnings also don’t account for the growth in residual income ie. increased ebook sales, adding Bukisa articles etc…

I believe this is a realistic picture of how many mums will make a living in the future. I plane to prove or disprove this theory. My next post will describe how…

For now, what are your thoughts?