Just Stomping on Through

There’s no tactful, gentle way of saying this. You cannot run a photography business from your home and parent your tiny tots simultaneously. I don’t mean as a stage of life, I mean you cannot serve a client while having your screaming two year-old sitting in a chair off to the side.

Not too long ago, Fedex delivered a large portrait order from my lab. Unfortunately, it was for the photographer down the road. Instead of calling Fedex to come back and pick it up, I gave the photographer a call. She answered the phone, but I could not hear what she said over the screaming of a young child. We got disconnected and I called back and the screaming continued. We finally hashed out when she could pick up the misdelivered package and went on with our lives.

Honestly, I was annoyed. And I bet money that her clients get annoyed as well.

It’s all fine and good to find a career that meshes with your family life, but far too many young mothers seem to think that they can run a photography studio while having one or more young children present. If you had an office job, you wouldn’t take your children to work, so for crying out loud, keep them out of the studio. The same goes for your pets.

The minimum requirement here is to have a babysitter, nanny, mother’s helper or grandma come to your home and stay with your children IN ANOTHER PART OF THE HOUSE during the time that you must meet with or photograph clients. Use nap times to make phone calls. Do NOT answer the phone if chaos is ensuing. Let your business calls go to voicemail and return all calls during a calmer period of time.

Yep – I know I’ve offended someone. Send me hate mail if you want, but please change the way you do things.

Some of you may say “This is who I am, I am a mother, I love my children and want to have them near me as much as possible.” You may even have thought that working from home was the perfect answer to the rising cost of childcare (strike a chord with anyone?).

Wake up and smell the coffee – this is not smart business. You don’t get to be half mom/half business owner. That’s not how it works. Oh, you may say that it’s working for you – but I can guarantee it’s in a very dysfunctional manner.

Your clients deserve 100% of your attention during the time that they are paying you to work for them. YOU deserve to have 100% of your attention available for the task at hand.

OK, you can go now. Go pout a little. And then get over it. We’ll chat more later.