Agreed, Julie did not show up on a web site asking for validation of her choice, she just did what she needed to do. Big difference between that and the people who show up here with "mommy" as part of their screen name. Sorry, moms, I realize you are justly proud, but that is something that just makes me nuts.

Don't get me started on the way "women's work" is undervalued, not valued, and not paid.

The fact remains, women know it's work, and whatever necessity is knocking at your door, doing MT and raising children means knocking yourself out working two jobs; it's not a way to make easy money while refereeing fights and wiping butts and noses.

I've got nothing against someone looking into MT because they're raising children, want to travel but still make some money, or whatever reason initially inspires them to check out the job. My beef is with the constant line about being able to easily make great money working at home with small children underfoot (with no training or just a 6-week quickie course yet). It's like that old saw about you can have it fast, cheap, or good--pick no more than two because you can't have all three at once.

ETA: I think anyone looking at MT these days also has to keep in mind that more and more of the available jobs are with big nationals who are increasingly insisting on employees working straight shifts at scheduled hours on scheduled days with minimum production quotas during those working hours. The flexibility Julie had to sit a kid on her lap and just produce less for a couple of hours or to wait until later to type isn't there in a lot of MT jobs now.

Well, it probably has more to do with the fact that there wasn't an internet when I started, or I probably would have.

We're all in different places, at different times in our lives. I know I'm a lot less judgmental than I used to be. I also know that neither you nor Sheila has any experience with working at home with children underfoot so I'm kind of puzzled as to why you even feel qualified to comment in a thread of that topic.

This is such a great topic! We need to start a new thread for it.

I've always differed with most people. I feel that it's an honorable thing to want to work from home so you can be available for your family in case of emergencies, be there to take elderly parents to medical appointments, be there for a special-needs child, etc., AS LONG AS you are very good at your work. I may have misunderstood the negative posts about working from home. Maybe they weren't saying that to want to work from home is bad, only to want to work from home because you think it's easy and you can work without shoes. Someone start a new thread for this so we can make it long and 'testy' and even controversial. I'll bet lots of us will disagree with each other.

Maybe because a lot of people doing that are planning to work for someone else, and both Gisele and I do have experience with being the someone else they work for, and sometimes don't work for for very long if they haven't got a handle on how hard it can be to produce much in the way of lines with small children on the loose.

As Linda said in her original post, some people are able to make it work and some aren't. That's an aspect of it I, and probably Gisele, do have experience with.

For every instance you or Gisele could give of a WAHM who didn't meet her commitments because of her kids, I can give you a similar instance of someone who didn't meet commitments because (a) they're just a flake; (b) their boyfriend wanted to do something else today; (c) the cat got sick; (d) someone died; (e) the car broke down; (f) the electricity got turned off/the internet connection went down; (g) something is wrong with the computer... you get the idea.

Working at home and/or having children underfoot isn't the issue.

I am commenting just as a working MT, that's all. Never said I had any expertise in the children area. I will now bow out of this discussion.

Well you can work without shoes; that's definitely one of the attractions. I used to do without the shoes even when I worked in an office.

As you suggest, I don't think wanting to work from home is bad or even wanting to work from home to make it easier to handle family responsibilities is bad. It was a blessing to have been working from home when both of my parents were dying of cancer. It was not, however, an easy juggling act, and we all know learning MT is not a snap, and a newbie really needs to be able to transcribe and transcribe, concentrate, and find time to do a lot of learning her first year or two.

I don't dispute that there are a lot of other things that make for an employee headed for a pink slip. However, I do think a lot of people who decide to become MTs just because they will be able to work at home and raise their children at the same time come into it with unrealistic expectations of how hard it can be to do that and what that is going to require of them. (Not surprising, since there are tons of schools out there promoting that unrealistic view in the interests of their own bottom line.)

However, like Gisele, since you've made it clear opinions are not welcome from anyone without a Mommy credential of their own to wave around, I too will bow out of this one (and sorry, Linda, any other discussion on the topic as well).

You're welcome to express your opinions. I just want anyone reading this topic to realize that as far as the topic of this particular thread - how to transcribe with children - is concerned, you don't have any first-hand knowledge.

Everyone's experience is different and everyone's motives are different. As Mojeaux points out, we do what we have to do.