Longview, TX (1888PressRelease)
April 21, 2008 - The Wiggles show is on TV, and a mother and young son are dancing with The Wiggles as part of their daily exercise routine while little brother giggles and cheers them on from his safety seat. After a brisk session of huffing and puffing and laughter, Mom goes to work, her office a laptop computer, one boy snuggled beside her, the other napping in her arm while her free hand types. She is just one of a growing number of stay-at-home mothers who are also entrepreneurs-- “mompreneur,” if you will.
Mompreneurs (a word coined for entrepreneuring mothers) are a growing segment in American society. There’s nothing new about mothers working from home to earn a little extra money. Our grandmothers used to sell eggs for grocery money. What’s new is that e-commerce now makes it possible for mothers to earn more than just grocery money.
Rachel Lout, a licensed professional counselor with a Master’s degree, loved her work. But she loves her boys even more. And when downsizing struck, she took that as an opportunity to be with them as they grew. To accomplish that financially, she took her love of shopping for them one step further, and became an online retailer, searching for unique and trendy products on the internet that may not be available in every hometown. Her website, named after her boys: www.2sillymonkeysboutique.com, shows the results of her search. It features not only creative and affordable children’s clothing and accessories, but also offers online baby showers for scattered families, and features informative articles for new mothers, with opportunities to blog and share ideas and concerns. As a therapist, she knows how important support groups are.
The freedom and flexibility she gets from running her own online store is worth the hard work it takes. The hardest part (besides typing one-handed!), according to Rachel, is learning to find the perfect balance between work and home. “I can't spend too much time with the kids and neglect taking care of things I need to do for my business,” she explains. “On the other hand, I can't spend all my time working on the business and forget to spend quality time with my kids.”
How does she handle it all? “I end up staying up after they go to bed, working while it's nice and quiet.”
Her late hours are paying off, as 2sillymonkeysboutique.com takes off, featuring such well-known brands as Gifts of Wit, Fortune Tee, and Sugar Swag, among many others. Rachel would like to see 2sillymonkeysboutique.com grow into a major party hub and gift site.
###
