Successful Virtual Assistant and Homeschool Mom

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Many of the working, homeschooling moms are faced with many challenges when homeschooling and working. Meet Tricia, she has homeschooled for many years and has successfully graduated three of her four children from high school. One of Tricia’s challenges was homeschooling with a chronic illness and holding varying jobs as her seasons changed, from full career to stay at home mom, Tricia has the experience of working outside the home, as well as from home. In this post she shares her dilemmas when quitting her career, homeschooling with chronic illness, and she also points out key questions to ask ourselves as homeschooling mothers, when deciding to work while homeschooling.

Homeschooling, Healing from Chronic Illness, and Working Part-Time

The moment I held my firstborn child in my arms, I knew that I could not go back to working my full-time job. I loved my job and had every intention of continuing to work after my daughter was born. I had planned to enjoy my six weeks of maternity leave and arranged for my sister to care for her full-time, but holding my baby changed my heart and my plans.

From that moment on, I was a full-time, stay-at-home Mom! I believed the most important work I could do was to raise my child with the hopes that I would have more children in the future. I remembered the security I felt growing up with my mom at home, knowing that I could depend on her and that she would always be there.

Like my mom, there were times that I had to help supplement our income. Early on, I welcomed other children into our home and nurtured them right alongside mine, as I ran a small daycare. Before that, I worked a few hours each evening at an office.

When my daughter reached school age I discontinued my daycare but continued to be a stay-at-home mom. One year later, our family chose to homeschool our three children.

Career Changes

Choosing to quit my full-time job was difficult on many levels, though my husband and I felt strongly it was the right thing to do. I had given up a good paycheck, great benefits, nice clothing and even sold my car and went without one for a few years. My husband and I made many sacrifices, like giving up cable, not eating out, sharing a car, and buying used clothing.

After becoming a Christian my desire to stay at home became a conviction that God laid upon my heart. My primary work was to take care of my home and family and it wasn’t always easy but it was important to both my husband and me.

Our family grew and with four children and homeschooling we learned to live on one income and had intentionally set out to live with as little debt as we could. That’s pretty difficult on one income but I know that if I hadn’t had the time to focus on saving money through making homemade meals, shopping the best deals, using coupons, and home educating, we would not have successfully stayed within our budget. My husband always encouraged me in this role and told me that I had the most important job in the world.

My three daughters are now grown and have graduated from our homeschool. During their High School Years, I worked part-time in the evenings in order to help pay for medical bills accrued from our family’s illness with chronic Lyme disease.

I’m now in a new season of life with adult children but also still homeschooling our son who is eleven. Homeschooling one child frees up a bit of time and so this past year I launched a Virtual Assistance business, where I can still be at home to homeschool but also help to supplement our income. I like that I can set my own hours and choose how many clients I take on.

I’ve always felt that being home with my children was the priority for my life and I have the full support of my husband.

Trusting God with Life Impacting Decisions

Whenever the need arose for me to supplement our income, we would always go to the Lord in prayer. We believe He is our provider and that in order to stay within His will for our lives, it was important to seek Him for where, when and how we would supplement the income. Sometimes it meant giving something up and sometimes it meant that I would work.

I have found that this approach to our decision-making has always given us so much peace and our plans always worked well because we paved the way in prayer.

Evaluating whether to work or not

To help with our decision process we asked ourselves some important questions.

What type of work could I do that would not put undue stress on me or the family?
Could I find work that would be close to home in case of an emergency?
How many hours could I afford to be away from home without any serious repercussions?
Could I still maintain our homeschool schedule?
How could I set up our homeschool and home schedule to ensure that the kids will get the attention and help they need?
Would the pay be worth my time away?
If I were to work, what would be sacrificed?
If I were not to work, what would be sacrificed?
Would I need childcare and who would I get to fill that role?

Both working outside the home and as an entrepreneur at home have provided challenges and both have required strategic planning.

When working outside the home, I typically chose work that I could do in the evenings. Because of my skillset, this was a little difficult but God always provided the perfect jobs for me when we needed them. It was important that I be able to focus on homeschooling, driving the kids to co-op classes when we used them and to be able to drive my teens to work.

Scheduling was a necessity so I carefully scheduled our days, chose when I would get groceries, planned out our meals and tried to begin dinner preparations after breakfast or during lunch. Assigning chores to the children and enlisting the help of my husband made a huge difference and helped to spread the load out. When I worked outside the home, my daughters were old enough to watch my son, but I had to be very specific about who was responsible for him and what they needed to do in the few hours between when I left and when their Dad came home.

It was very important that I also balanced my work schedule with the need for my daughters to begin working and gaining their own experience. At times I found it necessary to find someone to care for my son when my daughters could not help.

My daughters are grown now but I still feel that it’s vitally important to be available for my son and give him the same attention and home education as I did for my daughters. I use co-ops for my son to free up some of my time for working and so that he can have the interaction with other children his age.

It’s been much easier having only one homeschooled child. We often finish with lessons in a few hours. I’m finding that it’s also easier to allow him more time to play on the computer than I ever did for my girls and so I need to be intentional about his free time.

Being a working mom requires a balance between work, caring for my home, nurturing relationships and home educating. As moms, we have so many different plates to “hold up in the air” and without the proper support, a good schedule and the right values it could get unbalanced very quickly and we will grow to be overwhelmed and possibly resent the need to work. My biggest piece of advice for any mom, whether working outside the home or not is to always seek the Lord for guidance and direction and you won’t go wrong! He is so faithful to provide.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. Proverbs 16:3

Tricia Soderstrom

I’m a faithful wife & homeschool mom who found myself in the trenches with chronic Lyme Disease. My entire family would become sick with tick-borne illnesses and I often lost hope. God always drew me back and I discovered that it is possible to Abound In HOPE during dark times I learned how my family and I could regain our health using natural medicine and quality food. On my blog, I share valuable information about tick-borne diseases as well as how to homeschool with chronic illness and give encouragement for the journey! https://aboundinginhopewithlyme.com

I pray that you find Tricia’s experience insightful. As always, “We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13), but we can’t do them all at once.