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Taking Time Off
Maternity Leaves for the Work-at-Home Mom

When your mother tells you about the sacrifices she made for you, she's not kidding. She probably put her career on hold for several years to stay at home with you. All her friends were doing it, and hey, she didn't want to be considered a bad mother.

We modern moms have more options, thanks in part to the Internet and its most popular feature: e-mail. The ‘Net makes it possible for us to work outside the traditional office setting, a door (or a folding screen) away from our children, as telecommuting salaried employees and as self-employed, home-based entrepreneurs.

"Most work-at-home moms have chosen [that path] so they can be home with their children," says Cheryl Demas, editor of WAHM.com, a newsletter and online magazine for work-at-home moms.

But working from home is still working, and every working mom needs a maternity leave after giving birth. Planning that leave can often be more difficult for work-at-home moms than for their time card-punching sisters, but there are some basic guidelines that can smooth the process.

Working MomBe Flexible
Demas points out that working from home affords women a degree of versatility not found in the office environment. "We usually find that our work arrangements allow us to be so flexible that we can fit work back into our daily routines quite soon," she says.

Caroline Hull, co-author of Moneymaking Moms: How Work at Home Can Work for You (Citadel Press, 1998), agrees. She encourages women to take advantage of the flexibility offered by working from home. You have to work eight hours a day, but that doesn't mean you have to work from 9 to 5," she says. "If you plan your day around your baby's schedule, you may even be able to go back to work a little bit earlier than you would in an office job."

Planning the Length of Your Leave
But it's crucial that work-at-home moms don't try to do everything all at once. Taking care of a newborn is no easy task, and Hull warns women not to be misled by the fact that their office dress code may be a robe and slippers. "Most women who work from home underestimate the time they'll need for maternity leave," she says. "They think they can take two weeks off, then get back to their real schedule."

A more realistic approach, Hull says, is for work-at-home moms to establish how much leave they anticipate needing, and, she says, if you can, double it. "Start back just part time, and ease into a routine," she says.

In other words, if you're your own boss, treat yourself the way you would treat any other employee. Would you expect your secretary to return to the office two weeks after giving birth?

Hull and Demas agree that there is no magic formula for determining the proper amount of leave. Each woman needs to assess her own situation: her baby's needs, her family's financial needs and her own recovery and adjustment to her new role. But as a general rule of thumb, "I recommend moms wait at least six weeks," says Demas.

Self-Employment Versus Telecommuters
Realistically, self-employed entrepreneurs or women who run large companies from home may not be able to give themselves any more leave without risking professional success. Again, careful planning can minimize the trauma of returning to work for both Mother and Baby.

Demas suggests that a self-employed mom set up her work before the baby is born so that she has no new projects or a limited amount of work to do during the time she has defined as "leave."

The advantage that salaried telecommuters have over their self-employed sisters is that employees of a company – regardless of whether they work in the office or telecommute – should be eligible for 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA).

"Telecommuting does not change the contractual relationship between the employer and the employee," says June Langhoff, author of The Telecommuter's Advisor (Aegis Publishing Group Ltd., 1999) and editor of Telecommute magazine. "The only thing that changes is where the work is done. Therefore, the laws that cover in-house employees also cover telecommuting employees."

Knowing your legal rights is an important part of becoming a mother. If you are a salaried, telecommuting employee, make sure you speak to your human resources department. If women who work in the office are entitled to an hour off every day (without pay reduction) in order to breastfeed, you should receive those benefits as well.

Planning for Childcare
Whether you telecommute or run your own home-based business, when you go back to work, you're working – and that means for at least part of the day, you're not taking care of your baby. Childcare is a must for women who go back to work, no matter where the workplace is.

You can, of course, hire someone to care for you child in your home. That way, you can still have "power lunches" with your new baby, and you can feel comfortable knowing that you're close by in case of an emergency. And if you can arrange your schedule to do some of your work in the evenings when your spouse is home, you can reduce the cost of full-time childcare.

Taking maternity leave might require a little more planning for moms who work from home, but the extra effort seems to be worth it. "I hear from many, many moms, who have been taken off guard by how sad they are when they return to the traditional workplace after they have children," Demas says. "My baby isn't in outside daycare, and both of my children know that they are the most important people in the world to me."

With careful planning and realistic expectations, you can take a maternity leave that is fulfilling for you and your baby and enables you to return to work knowing you've done what is best for both of you.

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