I heard a British sheep farmer on the radio a few winters
ago. He’d been armpit deep in the snow, digging out his sheep...and consumers were
all down Buy N Large, picking up imported New Zealand lamb while the hard-won British
meat went out of date. He was asking one thing of the listeners: serve up his
lamb for Sunday roast and make his demanding job worthwhile.
I think this is something that work-at-home mums experience too.
I’m a full time mum and a part time freelance copywriter. I
feel the same eye-rolling frustration when a client has
commissioned something, paid me for it but never used it. I charge the going rate for ghost blogging;
that’s because if I charged for what it really takes to deliver some blogs, you
couldn't afford me! Of course, many things I write are quick and easy. But for
every few like that, there’s one that’s been written in spite of everything conspiring
to prevent it. I’m talking about the pieces I've only been able to write
because I've parked an ill, off-school seven-year-old in front of a DVD. The
pieces I've cancelled a school holiday outing to complete.
Now, in some ways, this is Fair Enough. I signed up to
combine motherhood and copywriting – I went into this with my eyes open. I
write what I say I will and (somehow!) I make my deadlines. But if I have
written something for you, and you've liked it, for goodness’ sake USE IT. Post
it to your website, splash it all over social media, send it off to the paper
like you said you were going to. Then – and only then – it will have been worth
what I might have gone through, and the sacrifices I might have asked of my
family. I may not have been up to my armpits in snow but I probably have been
up to my eyes in present-wrapping, Calpol, meetings with teachers and Tooth
Fairy duties...and all while I’m trying to get my work done too. For my work to
sit, ignored (but paid for!) in your inbox, is heartbreaking.
Many parents have turned a hobby into a business to fit in
around their families. Show them the respect they so heartily deserve: if you
buy something from them, whether it’s a blog, a plant pot or a hand-knitted
jumper, please, please use it.
