Blogging…..With Children
Nov

Since starting this blog in October and spending virtually ALL my free time working on it, I’ve started to wonder exactly how long it’s going to take me to get this site where I want it. I realize that I will probably never be content with it and will continually want to improve it, but I want to have a few things in place at the very least.
Between my 9-5 job, teaching a fitness boot camp, family dinner, time with my girls, and the bedtime routine, my day is pretty much history. At 8:30pm, when everything is done for the day, I have several choices facing me. I can:
- Work on this blog until I can’t stay up any longer. (usually 2 hours)
- Spend some rare quality time with my wife
- Prepare for the next day (i.e. making lunches, getting clothes ready, etc)
- Sit on the couch and actually relax
- Go directly to bed and do not pass Go!
What I’ve found thus far in my blogging journey is that any option other that #1 puts me that much closer to failure. I feel like if I’m not working on this blog then I will never gain the momentum I need to make things happen.
As a new blogger, the list of to-do items is excruciatingly long and there is never enough time. I don’t have any issues with being super busy or working hard, what I do have an issue with is time. There just ain’t enough
The point of all of this is that it got me thinking about my current lifestyle and how blogging, with the intention of building it into a thriving business, fits into it. More specifically, how can a full-time employee with young children make it all work?
I’ve spent my fair share of time discovering high quality websites which teach people how to make money online and I’ve noticed something very interesting. Most of the top “pro” bloggers and Internet marketers do not appear to have children.
Of course many of these bloggers don’t get into personal details about their home life, but plenty of them do. In listening to Podcast interview after Podcast interview, it’s seems evident that many “A” listers are without offspring.
After realizing this, I decided to look into it a bit further and did some research on Quantcast.com, which is a website that breaks down the demographics of other websites. I then looked at several of the top blogs out there and the percentage of visitors to those sites who had children.
I found the following:
- Problogger.net: 78% of their readers do not have children
- IncomeDiary.com: 76% don’t have children
- Copyblogger.com: 77% don’t have children
- Shoemoney.com: 81% don’t have children
- Yoast.com: 81% don’t have children
- Entrepreneurs-Journey.com: 79% don’t have children
Why does this matter? Well, the people who are visiting the above sites are most likely looking to expand their knowledge on how to blog or make money online. The fact that two-thirds or more of them don’t have children tells me that I am at a serious disadvantage.
By disadvantage I mean that someone with no kids has waaaay more free time than I do, and as a blogger, you need time. Lots and lots of time.
Does having small children mean that I am not going to succeed? Of course not (just at look at Leo Babauta from ZenHabits.net, who is an extremely successful blogger and has 6 kids!). Having to sacrifice time with my daughters is not something I want to do because it’s short already, but I simply don’t have time to do everything…
What does all this mean? It means I need to leave my family behind, move to a remote location with WiFi access and make all my blogging dreams a reality. WoooHoooo!!!
Actually, it just means that I have to work that much harder than the guy (or girl) without kids. Kids are awesome and the best thing that could ever happen to a person (except winning the Mega Millions jackpot), but they are a serious time commitment.
My whole goal for this blog is to have it become a profitable business, allow me to quit my job, work from home, and be with my girls. That’s it.
All those bloggers out there who can spend 10 or 12 hours a day working on creating content, marketing, and social networking without having to consider family time can get to their destination a whole lot quicker that I can, but I still wouldn’t trade a minute of my time with my daughters for all of it!

Mumzy
Being a full time working mom and an aspiring blogger…I agree with you that the juggling bit is extremely challenging. At times I have to sacrifice my “me-time” to work on my blog(which i just started”) . But thats the beauty of it all…i think. At least when we are old and grumpy:) we would not have any regrets..right
Steve
Blogging especially in the beginning is soooo time consuming. If we really want to make a concentrated effort to build our blogs, we will have to make sacrifices. I hate the fact that I need to work on my blog on the weekends and miss out on time with my girls, but it’s what I have to do to try to get ahead.
The payoff will come someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, when I will have complete freedom over my time.
Good luck on your blog.
Also, make sure you make use of the CommentLuv feature here for a backlink to your new site…