The shift is happening at a faster rate than ever before – what shift, you ask? – the shift of women breadwinners in the household. This is great news, as it demonstrates that we are stepping up and taking ownership of who we are and what we can accomplish. But does it come at a cost to families?
According to a new report by Pew Research, moms are out-earning their spouses in a quarter of American families now, and the trend is a fast speeding train that won’t stop. That’s right, working moms are supporting a record number of households – a whopping 40%! That’s up from 11% of homes in 1960. This data includes a large number of never-married moms, who are an increasingly large proportion of the breadwinning moms population.
But here’s the rub. While there is a massive shift in women income earners, what hasn’t changed is that married women still tackle the lion’s share of household responsibilities – and it goes without saying that single moms already carry a heavy weight of responsibilities. This, of course, spawns the great debate about whether or not families are better off with working moms. There is very little grey area here. People feel strongly one way or the other.
This is where entrepreneurial women have the advantage over women in the corporate workplace. Being your own boss comes with the flexibility to juggle work commitments with family commitments. While some corporations are making attempts to provide workplace flexibilities, they can’t hold a candle to what an entrepreneur can do with her own schedule.
Yet, this very flexibility creates a whole new set of issues for the entrepreneurial woman. Whether you are the breadwinner or the aspiring breadwinner, how do you grow a business AND have time for your family?
Women have the freedom to invest their earnings however they choose in order to meet their own child-rearing desires. Whether it’s hiring a full-time nanny, putting money in your kids’ college funds, getting a part-time sitter when kids are out of school, or hiring an assistant or team of VAs for your business – YOU choose how to have more time to spend with your family. Either way, most moms will agree that it’s about Quality Time, not Quantity Time.
There is one overriding theme when reviewing what female “high income earners” do to achieve their massive success while still maintaining a lifestyle and quality time with family – they hire others to do a lot of the administrative work and personal errands, which frees up their time to devote to growing their businesses.
For example, many of these women hire part-time personal errand runners. These runners do grocery shopping, run to the dry cleaner, cart kids around, and all of the little things that can add up to time away from your work and your family. It makes sense that once you can afford to squeeze out even a little bit of money each week for an errand runner, you can double or triple the investment with the added income this time creates within your business.
The closing item I want to leave you with is what all of the successful women entrepreneurs agreed upon 100%: Whether they were moms or single gals, their businesses didn’t catapult until they started reinvesting money into freeing up their time to focus on business AND lifestyle. That meant hiring VAs, having part time sitters in their homes (so they could spend focused time in their home office or nearby office), or having somebody else run their errands.
If you’re going to be the breadwinner, you might as well structure your life to enjoy both your business and your family! Let’s go make some dough ladies!
This article is reprinted with permission by ShowcasingWomen.com , the Premier Resource For 30+ Million Women Entrepreneurs. Visit them for free instant access to their Success Tools.
