Garry Conn has been blogging for money for the past four years and he’s a work-at-home-dad. The difference is he, like many dads at home, LOVES his job. In fact, I don’t even think he calls it his job because it is more of a hobby that pays him. He’s doing what he loves and having a ton of fun with it. Garry is the father of four kids, the youngest was born near the end of last year so it shows you can be the father and earn a living at home.  All in the same house with a newborn.

What is it you blog about and why did you start?

I have many blogs that range in subject. My most popular blog is my personal blog at www.GarryConn.com. I originally started blogging because of how different the environment was compared to building web sites. With blogs, you interact with your visitors. With web sites, there isn’t much interaction and I feel that having a connection with the people who visit your site is very important. 

How long have you blogged?  How long have you been a work at home dad?

I started blogging around the middle of 2005. I have been self-employed since around 2004.

How old are your children?

I have four kids. 16 year old daughter, 11 year old son, 3 year old daughter and a infant son.

Can you share with us a daily routine you have with your children included?  (Do you have diaper duty? Feeding the baby? etc)

Well our family all operate as one unit. We equally focus attention on things that need to be attended to. My children are very responsible and extremely mature and devoted towards helping and keeping our family operating soundly as a whole unit. 

What is the best thing about being home with your baby? Are there moments you wish you weren’t at home?

The best thing about being home is simply that. We are all home together and all work together as one towards growing and developing our entire family. We do everything together. There is never a moment I wish I was not at home. Home is our world which is protected from many of the harms of the outside world. While the country seems to have terrible times in the economy, in our world we don’t suffer from these elements. 

What advice would you give other work at home dads? What advice would you give a father deciding to quit his job to become a work-at-home-dad?

Do NOT quit your job and cut your lifestream (money) until you are in a position to do so. If you lose your job, you better go find another. I understand that you want to make money online and I understand that you want to be home. However, this can not happen over night. You need to work two jobs in order for this to happen. You work you day job and you spend many sleepless nights building up your other job from home. 

Do you think there is a difference between wahm and wahd? Why? Or Why not?

There is no difference other than men and women are obviously two complete different people. Women are much more detail minded and in my case, my wife and especially my oldest daughter are the glue who keep our family unit operating at 110%. If you are a wahm or wahd, the whole family is wah. Without the support and backing from your family, you will fail.

What do you do when your child is sick? (since you can’t call it a sick day)

My business isn’t demanding of my time. My business operates itself. My job is to scale my business and monitor it. If one of my children becomes sick, or has sporting events, etc… that is the beauty of what we do for a living. We are able to always place family before business while not causing any ill effects on profits. 

How do you divide your work time with your family time? What are some family time things you all do together?

We do everything together. You have to understand that all the duties and tasks within our family account for a small part to how our family operate. Even simple things such as taking out the garbage contribute to the big picture of our success. 

Do you find it hard to juggle working from home now that you have two children? How do you remedy a situation that may take too much time?

We have four kids and not we have no trouble balancing our time. In a situation where much time is needed towards completing a task, we would rather complete 15 smaller tasks and then if we have time, we’ll tackle the task that requires more time invested. In this world you have to think volume. What is the most tasks you can complete in the hour rather than how much time you should devote to each pending element.

Many people say you leave work at the door, now as a blogger you tend to already live in the house, can you leave it at the door? Got any suggestions for those other fathers out there?

For over two years I did most of my work directly in the home. This isn’t an environment conducive towards productivity. We are in the process of converting our two garage into a home office suite which will enable my in particular to perform at a much more effective and productive pace with a minimal amount of time invested.

Can a work-at-home dad be successful and share in all those beautiful moments with his family?

For sure, isn’t that the point of being a stay at home and working parent. If this isn’t happening, you might as well work for a company. Working at home has risks, but these risks are worth taking because of the amount of time you can be at home developing your children.

What if anything, would you like to say?

You only live once. God gives you life to live it to its fullest. If you spend any moment of your life doing something you don’t want to do, then you’re not fulfilling life to its fullest. If you want to become a pilot, become a pilot. If you want to become a lawyer, become a lawyer. If you want to make decent money from home so that you can take your kids to baseball games and the park, then make decent money from home and take your kids to baseball games and to the park. My point is this. No element or no person is preventing you from doing what you want to do in life. You are the only person who can think of excuses as to why you can’t live the life you want.

Post from: Babylune

1.  What is it you blog about and why did you start?

I have a few blogs – let me quickly answer the question for each:

Digital Photography School (www.digital-photography-school.com) – this is a blog for those wanting to get the most from their cameras (particularly those who rarely venture out of automatic mode. It is around two and a half years old and I started it because I love photography and wanted to share what I was learning about it.

ProBlogger – (www.problogger.net) – this is a blog about how to blog better and even make a living from blogging. I started it over 4 years ago because I was beginning to make money blogging but there were no sites on how to do it – so I started the blog I wanted to read. (My favorite)

TwiTip – (www.twitip.com) – this blog is only a few months old and is a blog for those wanting to learn how to use Twitter (a great social messaging tool). Again, I started it to record what I was learning about using Twitter and to learn from others.

2. How long have you been blogging?  How long have you been a work at home dad?

I’ve been blogging for around 6 years. It started as a hobby but progressed into a part time job and then a full time job. I have been working at home for around the last 4 years, but didn’t become a dad until 2 and a half years ago.

3. How old are your children?

My kids are two and a half and 7 months – they’re both boys.

4.  Can you share with us a daily routine you have with your children
included?  (Do you have diaper duty? Feeding the baby? etc)

At the moment my routine goes something like this:

Wake up around 6.30-7.30am (depending when our boys decide to wake up. I am then on ‘dad duty’ and get our eldest his breakfast, get him dressed/changed etc while my wife ‘V’ feeds our youngest.

V and I then tag team having showers and getting ourselves ready while the other one looks after the boys.

I usually start working between 8.30-9am and generally work through until 5pm. In that time I usually see the boys at least a couple of times whether it be for lunch, a walk to the park, getting them up from naps etc. My wife is primary care giver and does most of the work with the kids during the day.

At 5pm I hit the kitchen for the crazy hour/s. The next hour and a half includes getting dinner ready, feeding, cleaning up and bathing the boys and then giving our youngest a bottle feed just before bed. I don’t do all of that – but we share it.

I like to take our boys to bed (between 7 and 7.30pm) and that usually includes story time in bed (highlight of the day).

Once the boys are in bed I usually work again until 10.30 (in front of TV) and then I give our youngest his last feed before hitting the sack around 11pm.

5.  What is the best thing about being home with your baby? Are there
moments you wish you weren’t at home?

I just think it’s a privilege to see them during the day and to watch them do all the things that I’d miss if I were in an office somewhere. I love the flexibility that it brings and while it is challenging at times I love that I’m involved in their lives so much.

I do wish I were not at home at times and in fact try to get out of the house at least 1-2 mornings a week. I’ll usually take my laptop and work in a cafe on this mornings (I’m usually a lot more productive these days).

6.  What advice would you give other work at home dads? What advice
would you give a father deciding to quit his job to become a
work-at-home-dad?

I think the key for me is about establishing boundaries and communicating them. While family and work life do merge quite a bit I also try to set aside time for both. The key is to communicate what you’re doing and to send strong signals as to what time it is. For example I close my office door when I am in ‘work mode’ which is a signal to family that Dad’s doing something important and can’t be present.

When I’m working on less important things the door is open and when it’s family time the door is shut – not to keep the kids out but to keep ME out.

7.  Do you think there is a difference between wahm and wahd? Why? Or Why not?

I’ve not really thought about that one, mainly because I’ve not seen it. My wife has taken a year off from her employment after each of our boys were born to care for the kids and when she has worked it’s been outside the home so I’m not sure how it’d go with her working at home.

8.  What do you do when your child is sick? (since you can’t call it a sick day)

I try to have a few contingency plans in place for those times when family just has to take priority over work. For me it is about having blog posts ready to go in case of emergency and being able to see myself through at least one unscheduled day off. Luckily I’m in a job which I can do this relatively easily and between my wife and I (and grandparents if we need them) we usually work it out.

9.  How do you divide your work time with your family time? What are
some family time things you all do together?

Meals are a big one. We try to have breakfast and dinner together and sometimes lunches. Weekends are also almost completely about family (I used to work a lot more on weekends but have cut back). On weekends we try to get out of the house to parks, zoos, church, family and friends. I find getting out of the house particularly good at helping to separate myself from work as it is always tempting to fill up ‘down time’ with work when it is just in the next room.

10.  Do you find it hard to juggle working from home now that you have
two children? How do you remedy a situation that may take too much
time?

Having two instead of one has certainly increased the admin and logistics of our life – but I think we’ve adapted pretty well. Probably the main change I’ve made in the last year is to really cut back on working on weekends to enable more time for relaxing, giving my wife more downtime and spending time together.

11.  Many people say you leave work at the door, now as a blogger you
tend to already live in the house, can you leave it at the door? Got
any suggestions for those other fathers out there?

It can be hard – particularly when you have an iPhone and work is always a click of a button away. For me the main tip I’d give is to have a place in the house that is reserved just for work and to ‘leave it at the door’ (to that room). While I do bring work into our livingroom in the evenings – its after the kids are in bed. I try to be strict around those boundaries.

I think also having designated work hours can help. My wife and I have an understanding that 5pm is when I stop working – we both know this and work towards it. It is just another boundary that we’ve worked out to help us all function well.

12.  Can a work-at-home dad be successful and share in all those
beautiful moments with his family?

I think so. It’s certainly a juggling act but if you work at it and give those around you permission to keep you to the goals and boundaries that you set then I think it is achievable.

13.  What if anything, would you like to say?

I guess for me it comes down to priorities. I could probably work more hours, travel more, take on more projects – but family is more important to me than the extra money I could be earning. I want to not only invest into building an income for my family – I want to invest into my family itself – emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Building these foundations take time time but I believe that someday I’ll look back on my life and be more grateful for the time I had with people rather than the time I had with my computer

Darren Rowse
Work-at-Home-Dad

Thank you Darren.  I hope this shows all those future work-at-home-dads that it is possible and a very rewarding job. As Darren states, it doesn’t have to be something you are stuck at all day. He even talks about playing with his kids, feeding them, changing them and of course the people…not just the computer. What do you think? Got anything to add or would like to ask Darren? Comment below.

Post from: Babylune

Coming up next week, we will have interviews for the next following weeks with some very successful daddy bloggers that even have babies in the house. I know it isn’t very often that I just sit and chat about dads, work at home dads or single dads so I thought I’d take this time and interview a few just for you all.

What are some questions you’d ask them? Got any successful blogger daddies out there that you’d like to see interviewed? Let me know who and see if I can’t rope them into this as well. I’m not going to let you know who is coming up just yet, but I’ll give you a clue.

Clue #1 He’s a Pro Blogger.

Post from: Babylune

Darren is also a blogger for b5media so it adds even more to this post as I just wanted to point out his special blessing and congratulate him. Darren and his wife V already have one little boy and will be bringing home their new little boy, Henri, in a few days.

The special event took place around 2 a.m. this morning, which means his little man was born on FATHER’S DAY.              CONGRATULATIONS Darren, may you have many wonderful memories and happy times with your little family. Have a great Father’s Day!

Post from: Babylune