 |
|
| Chicago Sun-Times interview on Bundles of Blossoms May 3, 2005 Home economicsJenny B. Davis is a mom who took what she loved and made a business of it. A Chicago food and restaurant writer, she'd commissioned a graphic design artist in 2003 to make toddler shirts that featured witty foodie-related sayings like "Sippee cup sommelier" or "I'll have the domestic white." Now, for five to six hours a week, she works at her home in a spare bedroom that serves as an office/storage room strewn with T- shirts and onesies, magazines and newspapers. "It's not quite a fire trap. But Martha Stewart would be shocked," she says. But it's there she can reconnect with the world of the gourmand she stepped away from when she became mom to daughters, ages 2 and 9 months. "This lets me feel like I'm involved in the restaurant community. It keeps me in touch and researching," Davis said. "This is time I can spend doing something that I love when I can't devote as much time to it as I used to before I had kids." She's not alone. Prompted by a desire to be with family and enabled by the Internet, moms across the country are launching careers from the place they are most comfortable -- from home. Last year, 2.1 million moms had home businesses, according to government statistics.
"There's been a shift in family values and people want to spend more time with their family," says Lesley Spencer, founder of Home Based Working Moms (www. hbwm.com), which runs Web sites that assist stay-at-home moms in developing businesses. "The technology enables them to work from virtually anywhere." Service-oriented businesses, such as Web site design and the sale of clothing and baby products, are attractive to "mommypreneurs, "Spencer says. So are virtual assistance and administrative work, including answering incoming e-mail, updating Web sites, producing newsletters and life coaching, she said. More important, it's work that can be done early in the morning, for example, by a mother whose kids are still asleep. A difficult pregnancy for Nicole Pugh led her to start her Bundles of Blossoms upscale kiddie boutique catering to celebrities. "You get a new perspective on life and wanting more and giving your family security," said Pugh, 30, who was housebound in 1993 in Stonington, a town of 900 near Decatur. Getting an idea to start a business is one thing -- actually doing it is another. Pugh dusted off an old computer, got acquainted with the Internet and searched for jobs she could do at home while caring for her sons, ages 8, 4 and 2. It didn't look promising at first: The offers to type for physicians or to transcribe for other professionals "bored me to tears," she recalls. She looked at what she was good at: She had a knack for design and a penchant for celeb news shows like "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood." She dove into the family's savings to get started. Eventually she was selling $220 kiddie tea sets and $340 reversible fur and leopard kiddie capes to the celebrities she would see on the red carpet. "It's such a hard market to get into, but once you get into it, you're there to stay." Looks like she's in. At a December star-studded event, she sold to Sharon Lawrence ("NYPD Blue," "Desperate Housewives"), Joe Pantoliano ("The Sopranos") and Richard Schiff ("The West Wing"), among others. Davis, whose work has appeared in the Sun-Times' Weekend section, sat on her idea, too, until her husband gave her a nudge in December, asking her "why don't you ever get serious about that business?" She had a handful of shirts printed, sent them to various publications and ended up with a mention in a January food section of the New York Times. Her customers have included Hollywood producers, a Las Vegas casino owner and prominent chefs, cookbook authors and food writers. "Oh my God! I made like 600 or 700 dollars by the end of the day! It was insane!" the 34-year-old said after the Times story. She now sells the shirts, bibs and onesies through her Web site (www. elliesparty.com). The extra money means she and her husband have more time to spend with their children, and has allowed them to afford a dance class for the girls and the occasional hiring of a baby-sitter. Pugh, too, has found success. She's getting four to five orders a day and this month, she and a childhood friend will launch a new line of children's clothing and accessories they've designed. Going into business at home can be wonderful for moms seeking professional and maternal fulfillment, but there are challenges. Mommypreneurs commonly put in 50-hour work weeks, working on projects as children sleep, while they're in school and on weekends when they're out of the house. Pugh had been working until 3 or 4 in the morning, sleeping a bit and then getting up at 7 to take one of the boys to school. When the other two napped, she'd catch more sleep. More often, though, as business increases, she finds herself working during the day, juggling phone calls to and from Los Angeles and New York. While she's on the phone or at the computer or sketching, her boys are in the kitchen coloring or playing. |
|
