Our Working Home Parent Story and What To Expect on this Podcast

Intro Music  0:00  
Welcome to working home parents helping you find stability between client calls and potty training. Because we're all figuring this out as we go. And now, your hosts, Amanda and Dan Norton.

Amanda Norton  0:16  
Hey, thank you so much for listening to our first episode of working home parents. My name is Amanda. And I'm Dan. And this is exciting. This is a very, we're gonna keep saying this our first episode

Daniel Norton  0:33  
of working home parents. And, you know, I'm just looking forward to this. Me too. Because it's something that we actually need. Yeah. So, this podcast is gonna be for the parents that work from home with little kids, little ones, you know, whether it's a toddler or a newborn. Yeah. It's like there's such a different dynamic when working from home. Definitely because they're two completely different

kinds of things that need your full attention. And now they need your full attention at the same exact time. Oh, yeah, you know, this show is really to help with like finding that stability, you know, between putting your full attention to your job and putting your full attention on your kids. And how do we figure out that dynamic?

Amanda Norton  1:18  
Yeah, and we're going to talk about the challenges of that we're going to talk about the joys of that, you know, because now, many of us with the pandemic going on, we are working from home and we're forced to be home basically 24 seven, so your life doesn't kind of separate, but you have to create those boundaries. So we have to just we have to learn together, you know, all of you parents, all of us that are, you know, working nine to five jobs or whatever, Monday through Friday, but now you're home and it's definitely different. Because especially if your kids are home now, because schools are closed or whatever, you definitely need to have structure you definitely be and that's a struggle, but You definitely need, we need some tips, we need some tips. And we're going to have some professionals, we're going to have some other experienced parents talk about how they created things for their kids and for themselves to have totally focused, meaningful time with their family and with their work life. And those are really important. So we're going to talk about that.

Daniel Norton  2:21  
Yep. And I think this will really be this is for whether you have had kids for a while and you're just starting the working from home thing, or you have now found out you're going to be working home long term, and it's not just a temporary thing. But I think this is also for those who maybe have worked home for a while, but now you have a newborn on the way right or you've just got a newborn now. And there is so much especially in that first four months, that struggle there. It's a huge adjustment that it'll be it'll be doing that for and and both men and I have been working from home now for a while Amanda moreso.

Amanda Norton  2:57  
Yeah, I am a social worker and I'm at Been a telecommuter for three years, they sent me home actually, along with a lot of other care managers that were pregnant at the same time. They sent us home. Two months before we were due, a lot of us were due around the same time and we ended up being a whole team of care managers together. Pregnant care. So, you know, I've been home since before the baby was born. And so I got to experience that what that was like to not have the responsibility of a kid right at five o'clock. I had two months of that. And then my son came and then after that I had to fully adjust with having a child while I'm starting up work full time again, and that was definitely challenging. exciting because then I got to see my son right after work literally like five seconds after, but at the same time, I just missed that. You know, I wanted a little bit of a break before getting home. Before being home and switching on the mommy mode, so you know, but right now, we're really experiencing that full force because even things I wanted to do after the baby was born, like going to the gym and stuff like that after work like the gyms are closed right now. So we still need to figure out ways to, as parents have that free time to relax and you know, unwind before you kick in mommy and daddy mode after work, you know, something? Well, even before

Daniel Norton  4:29  
the pandemic, it was hard because it's hard to turn it off. Yeah, it's hard to turn off like getting done with work, and then you turn and now it's like all the things you can do with your kids. You don't have that break of the commute. But you've been doing that for three years. Yeah. So you have that experience of understanding like this pattern or rhythm of the working from home deal because there's a lot of benefits. There's a ton of pros to being able to work from home, right, including being able to sleep in right until you have to work yes, which is really nice. And for me, I've been working home on a side hustle For a long time for probably the equal amount of times, and that includes our YouTube channel parent pacifier that we started when we became, we became new parents. Yeah. Which is why this podcast makes so much sense because we've already been creating this parenting content to help parents. And we're actually going to be relaunching that as well. But that was something I've been doing on the side along with taking clients, but I was working. I was working for Disney for a long time in sports broadcast industry. And I've recently been able to transition from being in employed to running my own business from home and doing that. So there's this different dynamic that I understand now as being an entrepreneur from home and controlling my hours. But now, I need to do all this work around family time and around Yeah, trying to keep our son quiet while you're working and being in another room or being somewhere else to keep him quiet because obviously he's not in school right now. Yeah. And so that's kind have kind of our story kind of where we're at. I'm sure we'll be talking way more in depth about it. But that at least gives you a little background and who you are. But I'm excited for what's coming. We've already got a number of guests lined up. Yeah. And I think just from our conversation right here, we can tell this, there's going to be a number of topics that we're both going to be able to talk about, because we're gonna have episodes that are just us. No solo episodes, even though there's two of us. Yeah. But we'll have guests come on maybe some special co hosts that could come on with us and, and talk about it and talk with other parents, you know, maybe even you the listeners might even be able to be able to have you come on in and share your stories because i think i think learning through stories is something that's way more powerful than just here's a tip and here's my advice, because we know as parents, especially when you have a newborn all you get is advice. Oh yeah. So I don't I don't anticipate us being super advice heavy. in that space, as in more storytelling and more of here's, here's the things that have happened and how we can deal with it. Right. But there will be some important topics like sleep. Oh, yeah, we got some right. We've got some guests lined up that we are excited to learn from ourselves, we really need that because the struggling right now even our son is three, like trying to figure out a good sleeping pattern and we're home. So it's like, you know, naptime and all of that. How necessary

Amanda Norton  7:24  
that is. So yeah,

Daniel Norton  7:26  
if you can make it happen if you're a happen, you know, or exercising or just general health for yourself as a parent, right? And your kids. Yep. But for us, it's like we we want to get healthy. We want to exercise we want to do that. You know, those are the things we want to talk about, you know, what are some different patterns bring on, you know, people who can help, who specifically help parents do this? Yes. That's why I think it's really important is to have have people who specifically help parents. Yeah, because there are a lot of people and looking forward to some of the guests that we have coming up with that.

Amanda Norton  7:58  
Yeah, definitely. I'm excited about somebody coming on talking about dentistry potentially, yeah. Um, you know, we are parents of a toddler who wants to brush his own teeth. But we know that doesn't get in every spot perfectly. And we're trying to limit the doctor visits, you know, with COVID and everything happening. So I'm excited for that. Yeah, cuz it won't just be productivity about how to get your work done. But actual parenting? Yes. Because that's equally if not more of a struggle than the job. Being from home and making sure that your zoom calls work.

Daniel Norton  8:34  
Yeah, no, yeah. The I think the biggest struggle is the you know, all of the things that go into parenting, so we want to be able to have some real parenting advice and maybe some parenting guests that could come on, that maybe you didn't know exist, that there are some people out there who have offerings or coaching or products or services that can really help parents, even in like that health care space or if you're dealing with kids with disability. abilities, a whole lot of things, and especially dealing with, you know, a sick kid, a sick baby. Whether you know, one of our main videos on our perivascular youtube channel is all about congested babies if you have a congested kid, and that that video alone so many people have have watched it and contacted us about that. You know, I think about not too long ago, a few months ago, probably just before the pandemic happened where son woke up and was throwing up all over the bed. It's three and it's always three in the morning. Oh, wait, isn't it like if you're listening to the parent, isn't it always three in the morning? For some reason that things have to always go with three in the microwave. But that's that's struggling. That's hard. That's things we want to talk about. Whether it's stories from our own, or other parents that can come on and share some of these, really, the the hard struggles Yeah, the main thing we want to leave you with is that you're not alone. Yeah. It's no there is no perfect answer to each one each one of us have been different scenarios is that always the saying is always, each kid is different. Yeah. Well, so as each job, whether you have a business or you're employed, each scenario is different. You've got multiple kids, you got a different kid in each one. And if you have multiple jobs, it's all different. Right? So figuring out that stability in there is where we want to help you.

Amanda Norton  10:21  
Yeah. And we want to help you have some resources. We want to be able to give you stuff to look up and research and find if it's something a good fit for you. You know, that's a big deal that we want to bring you. Yeah, we're excited I am. That's the social work part that I'm really excited about. It's like, I want to leave you resources, I want to help you. And so this is perfect because I'm excited about the community that we're going to build with the with you guys listening. I want to help each we want to help each other and I find that that phrase is so true. It takes a village because there's been so many times where I just felt, I can't just go to YouTube or Google to find the answer. I need my friends. I need my family who have been there, done that, who can tell me from experience, what works, what doesn't work. And I'm excited. So I was very excited about this. This is going to be great.

Daniel Norton  11:14  
Alright, so whether you have a newborn or have multiples, encourage you to hit that subscribe button, and get ready to get a handle on the working home parent lifestyle. So excited for this journey. Yeah, this is just Episode One of many. So let's get started.

Ending Music  11:36  
Thank you for listening to working home parents find show notes links mentioned and more at workinghomeparents.com