You obviously have to have the ability and desire to learn what's needed to succeed as a WAHM doing MT, and it's going to help a great deal if you actually have some liking for and interest in the work beyond the fact that it will let you earn some money from home--otherwise, it's going to be sheer drudgery, and it's going to be really hard to keep the motivation and production up doing sheer drudgery and trying to fit it around your kids' schedules and demands as well. To that extent, I agree with Becky that just having kids you want to be home to look after isn't sufficient reason to pick MT as the way to do it.

But whatever someone's reason for going into MT and whatever the other demands in their life may be, the only interest any employer really has is can they do the work to standard and will they do the work reliably. I sympathize with someone who's between a rock and a hard place in their life and just trying to find a way to keep it all together, but if I end up having to spend my life picking up someone's slack on short notice and scrambling to meet my deadlines while covering multiple crises and time conflicts for them every week, I'm going to be looking for someone else to do the work. I really can't afford to worry why the person in question can't seem to get it done. I have a personal life I'd like to have a little time for myself and bills of my own to pay as well, and my clients don't want to hear a second-hand sob story from me, they just want to go to their computers and find their work has been done. I'm never going to ask if someone has children before I hire them. I'm just going to test them to see if it looks like they can do the work, offer them a job if they seem qualified, and tell them straight out before they accept it what work I need them to do on what kind of schedule. If it turns out they can't deliver the quality or keep the schedule, then they and I both need to look elsewhere for a better fit, and I will certainly do so. Everyone can get hit with a once in a blue moon disaster that blows their work schedule temporarily, and I would certainly try to accommodate a good longstanding employee in that situation as long as it didn't risk the loss of the account/s they were doing. If I can't cover those accounts without hiring someone else, though, then I'm going to have to do that rather than lose my future income. As Janice noted elsewhere, new clients willing to send their transcription to a small business don't grow on trees these days, and if I lose an account I have, I'm not going to have any work to send to that MT anyway. One way or another, failure to get her work done is going to lose her the work in the end, and I don't see how it's really going to help her if I lose my income too out of sympathy.

If someone needs a lot of flexibility, they may still be able to find some MT jobs that will give them what they need. However, they need to be totally honest with themselves as to how much they can do on what kind of schedule and totally up front with any potential employer about that as well. Taking a job in the hopes you can get it to flex as much as you need it to whenever you need it to once you've got it is probably just going to result in two people who are very unhappy with each other's views of the employment contract.

I just have to stop and say that I'm glad we have a new voice here on the forums. It's much more informative and fun when it isn't just the same 6-7 of us rehashing things, although that's fun too.

Welcome Erica and ALL new posters and lurkers!

Thanks Linda. Looking forward to posting more, especially now that I'm seeing the "light at the end of the tunnel" as far as my medical transcription course is concerned. Love being able to network with other more experienced medical transcriptionists.

Erica

I raised two kids while working at home; my husband joined me when they were in grade school, so we actually had both parents working at home. These two kids are both productive well-adjusted members of society who knew they couldn't get away with much by skipping school!

In case anyone reads this thread strictly for tips on accomplishing that, one thing that helped me a lot was a toy area in my office, toys they could only play with when I was working - legos, lincoln logs, connector thingies (can't remember the name of those, becoming a VERY sad refrain for me...).

I remember being very specific about letting them know I was working when I was working, and they had to entertain themselves, which they did amazingly well. I will say that I was lucky to have kids who were both fairly quiet and got along well, which is undoubtedly not the case with all kids.

My advice is that if you are thinking of working at home with children around you should know that it takes discipline on your part and the cooperation of everyone in your family.

K'Nex?

Or TinkerToys?

Some of us have obviously been parents for a LONG time. ROFLMAO

Not tinkertoys and not K'Nex, but those K'Nex are really cute!

What I have looks like so:


and

I can speak only from the perspective of a new MT and will do so for the benefit of anyone reading this and hoping to become an MT.

This has been said already, but please do not go into this field with the idea in mind that you will have your baby in the swing next to you as you transcribe. There is so much variation in this industry and some jobs might could be done well with a child near by. If you do SOAP notes on the same docs over and over again all day long, then maybe you could make it work better than I have been able to. If being home is one of many reasons you want to be an MT, that is different, but I'm not sure it is wise to do this if that is the only reason.

I have been trying to do it all and am failing miserably. I'm not failing my employer, I am failing my child. My youngest is at home with me while I work and the rest join us towards the end of a shift. They are all very young. I had wanted to find a job as an IC so that I could work when my family was occupied and also in shorter increments throughout the day (work 2 hours, go to the park, etc). To my surprise, I was offered my dream job right out of school. I was determined to make it work even though it was an employee position with set hours. I run a very structured home and during my training at an excellent MT school I learned to be very disciplined.

I made this work by setting my timer and recording my productive hours. I played with my toddler in the morning before work started, set her up with activities, and took breaks to spend time with her. When I did that, the timer stopped of course. There were times though when she would ask for something (maybe to go out to the park) and I had to say "not right now, I am working." We all know how much just turning around to say "not right now, I am working" can slow you down.

A few weeks ago a few of my children were playing house together and I heard my youngest, who was playing the role of mama, say "I can't do it right now! I'm working!" That really drove the point home that what I was doing was not working for my family.

I was fortunate to be able to change my hours to a time that does work for my family and I am very thankful for that and much happier. Of course, I may as well be hooked up to a coffee IV at this point as I am burning the candle at both ends. As they say "this too shall pass."

When you're in a situation where you have to make it all work, you can find a way. It is not as easy as simply working and watching a child though. I hope that I have finally found a balance that will work for all of us, but that has happened only through a lot of trial and error.

There is so much variation in the industry and in our children. I never could have worked at home with my oldest in the house. My youngest is as easy as she possibly can be.

Even though my work as an MT has not turned out to be as easy to do with the children around as I thought it would be, I still am very happy with it. When there is a crisis at school, I am right here at home and can call my employer and let them know and I can be at the school in 3 minutes. Of course, I am a very dependable employee and do not ask for time off for every little activity at school. I truly feel like for right now I have the best of everything. To make it work, I do believe that you have to be extremely disciplined and flexible and you might have to look at a lot of employment options to find one that will work for you. Fortunately, I learned discipline and flexibility in MT school just as much as I learned to transcribe.

Where there is a will, there is a way, but don't go into it thinking it is going to be an easy path to follow.

Well, I never transcribed with a small child in the home, but that doesn't mean I don't know I'd have a hard time with it. If my cats were running around making noise while I was trying to transcribe a new doctor or specialty it drove me nuts.