Freelance And Family

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Freelance and family! The 21st century with its globalization, informatization, the Internet, electronic money (etc.) has led to the expansion of the list of those professions where remote work at home is possible. Even grandmothers already know the word “freelancer”, proudly telling each other on the bench: “My granddaughters have gone to freelancers … Now, he says, he will earn a lot of money and no owner over him! That's how it is now, you know!"

What does “freelancer” mean for a family? How does teleworking and home-based work affect marriage, for good or bad? So far there are more questions than answers. And there is still not enough specialized literature on this topic, analytical and objective. Therefore, now I will share with you those conclusions and observations that I have formed over the past 15 years.

Pros of freelancing for a family:

1. Pride in the success of a freelancer. The most successful professionals in their field become freelancers. Inexperienced specialists simply cannot earn much by relying on themselves. Therefore, if a man or woman turned out to be able to earn decent money, this makes their family half proud of their partner, value him / her and strive to save the family.

2. Freelancing creates freelance. Successful freelancers try to teach the secrets of mastery to their relationship partner, to involve a husband or wife in their business. Or they motivate a partner to create their own business, including through a freelance scheme. This creates an atmosphere of mutual understanding in the family.

3. Freelancing increases self-discipline. Being a freelancer means being always ready to work. High responsibility reduces the risk of mistakes in behavior: spouses-freelancers are less likely than ordinary office-production spouses to slip into alcoholism, strong conflicts, and fights.

4. Freelancing reduces the risk of cheating. The specifics of the work of most freelancers is the absence of offices with their traditional love affairs, minimal communication with the outside world, or communication mainly with representatives of their own sex. This significantly reduces the risks of cheating.

5. Freelancing allows the couple to travel and have free leisure. If the couple has free money, then the spouses can afford to travel, have a free lifestyle, which can have a beneficial effect on the relationship (especially if there are no children in the couple yet, or it is possible to involve a nanny or grandmothers in caring for them).

Cons of freelancing for a family:

1. Freelancing is often endless work. As my observations show, in self-control, most freelancers work harder and harder than regular workers and employees. This not only negatively affects people's health (including, giving rise to nervous exhaustion, insomnia and depression), but also takes time away from family communication, irritating the "other half."

2. Noticeable differences in the life schedule of the spouses. If one of the spouses is a freelancer, and the other half works in the usual schedule for everyone, this can create problems, since the single space of the common family life is violated. When the couple cannot have breakfast or lunch together, it is elementary to talk about common topics. If the freelance husband, the wife comes home from work in the evening and the husband is busy all the time, it annoys the wife, who is deficient in attention. If a freelance wife is a freelancer, a husband who has already returned from work feels useless. All of this creates tension and conflict.

3. Voluntary abandonment of a large family. Husbands and wives - freelancers often feel insecure about the future, as the market for their services may be undergoing major changes. Hence, they usually settle for one child, abandoning the dream of two or three children. And this can cause tension in the couple.

4. High conflicts from constant neighborhood. One of the main problems of freelancing is the stress of spouses due to everyday issues. If the husband and wife are at home together all the time, the husband actually ends up on the women's economic territory. If the wife begins to actively puzzle him with everyday questions, this can irritate the man and the desire to "run away". If the wife decides all household issues herself, the psychological fatigue from “everyday loneliness in the presence of her husband’s house” begins to accumulate in her.

5. Noticeable differences in income or eternal hoarding. Since freelancing depends on many nuances, most freelancers and their other half have serious difficulties in planning their income and expenses. Hence - either large financial fluctuations, or the desire to constantly tighten oneself in expenses and save for a rainy day. This leads not only to constant tension, curtailment of the cultural program of the family, self-limitation in spending on clothing, food, etc. Not all husbands and wives like this.

These are the most striking aspects of freelancing that I record when working with such families. As you can see, there are about the same number of psychological pluses and minuses.

Progress cannot be stopped, so the number of husbands and wives - freelancers will only increase every year. My task as a psychologist is to help people adapt themselves and their loved ones to new conditions of life and work, to reduce the number of conflicts in families. From here, I give seven simple tips for those families where the husband and / or wife are freelancers:

- it is important to try to clearly distinguish between the conditionally "working day" and leisure, so that the psychological feeling of work and rest is born, fatigue does not accumulate;

- when working at home, family leisure is best spent outside the apartment, so as not to feel like "slaves of the table";

- spending leisure time together, it is advisable to switch the phone to answering machine mode so as not to annoy your half with work conversations with customers and clients;

- It is important for a husband and wife to have a complete understanding of the financial situation of the family so that planning of the income and expenditure side is truly joint;

- for the second half of the freelancer, it is desirable to create a maximum of domestic and psychological comfort for someone who is busy with work and is the main earner of the family. But even the "three-time earner" is still obliged to take an active part in solving the economic and household problems of the family;

- It is advisable to spend holidays and vacations while traveling in order to relieve fatigue from the eternal sitting in the apartment. Moreover, it is best to plan all this in advance, avoiding spontaneity;

- when working as a freelancer, spouses must join their efforts in order to have the prospect of starting their own business with hired employees, or to receive a lucrative offer to go to work in a reputable organization with a good salary. Since life on freelance without "light at the end of the tunnel" is very difficult to withstand for more than 1-15 years: fatigue begins to accumulate in the couple.

I wish you the best in applying these practical tips in your freelancing and family life!

If you wish to reduce conflicts in your family and better understand yourself and your “half”, I will be glad to give professional advice from a family psychologist in personal (in Moscow) or online consultations with the whole world (via Skype, Viber, WhatsApp or phone).