I came across an interesting figure about home-based workers. In England the number of at-home workers went from 2.9 million in 1999 to 3.3 million in 2004. The little news bite also mentioned the many benefits that rural communities in England were realizing from home-based workers such as reducing commuting and all the issues that come from that such as traffic congestion, pollution, and accidents as well as concentrating money into the local economy.
I realized the benefits of being a work-from-home mom but I never really thought about how it might effect my community. For the last 3 weeks I have been wearing my taxi driver hat in order to take my 21 year old son to and from his job, which is a good 25 miles away-one way. The first 10 miles covers the same route I used to take with my last job. Can I say I don't miss the commute one little bit? One less car out there to produce exhaust and add to the road rage seems like a great benefit to my community.
So if I put on my thinking cap I can come up with quite a few ways that little old me has helped my community-without even knowing it.
- I can keep an eye out for my neighbors and potential burglars, car thiefs, and UPS drivers that let dogs out of the back yard! (true story)
- When PMS is in full swing I am not out there driving or interacting with the public at large!
- I am here when my children go to school and when they come home. This is huge! One set of unsupervised twins can cause such havoc in a community.
- I can watch Peoples' Court while eating lunch gaining a legal education that I can share with my neighbors saving oodles of court time and attorney's fees.
- I can warn the postal carrier about the dog next door circumventing the attack Fluffy has been planning all week-saving the taxpayers the cost of expensive rabies shots.
The list could go on and on but you get the point. What can I say? It might take a village to raise a child but it only takes one work-from-home mom to save the village!
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