An interview with... two highly successful parent bloggers
How do parents that blog manage the boundaries between work and family? What inspires them and how did they start blogging? Read on to hear from two highly successful parent bloggers Mother Pukka and ADayInTheLifeDad.
MotherPukka
Founder of Mother Pukka, Anna Whitehouse likes super hero cape-making classes and dislikes the naming of celebrity couples (TomKat, Brange etc.)
WorkLife Central: How do you manage the boundaries/pressure between work and family?
Mother Pukka: I don’t really. I just make sure I prioritise someone actually engaging with me in real life over the online world.
WorkLife Central :How did you become a blogger and what did you do before that?
Mother Pukka: I was a journalist and copywriter before and I’ve always been focused on communication. I don’t mind whether it’s magazine pages or pixels. As magazines started going down, I jumped towards blogging. It’s the same job, different platform - with more control over my working day.
WorkLife Central: What are the pros & cons of professional blogging?
Mother Pukka: Flexibility. I started this so I could be there to pick up Mae from school. I didn’t know of a job that would allow that. The cons are opening your family up to potential judgement. But the latter is irrelevant when I see Mae’s beaming** face at the end of that school day.
**It’s not always beaming but I hang onto those moments like a guinea pig to a carrot stick!
WorkLife Central: How do you manage your work life and balance this with your family commitments?
Mother Pukka: It’s one big messy, stressy whole.
WorkLife Central: What inspires you?
Mother Pukka: People. All the people. On the Tube, on the television, here and everywhere else. It’s not one person but the whole.
WorkLife Central: What are your views on managing technology and children? (especially after Jamie Oliver declared that selfies were like the sugar of social media)
Mother Pukka: I have the fear. But I also have a lurking fear of too much sugar. I am partly in this social media realm to get a handle on it before the kids get stuck in. I do believe, though, that the kids will be alright. There was a time when Elvis was seen as a threat.
ADayInTheLifeDad Jamie Day is an award winning blogger, editor, freelance writer and social media expert and manager, who has worked with multiple global and independent brands, delivering engaging and influential content.
WorkLife Central: How do you manage the boundaries/pressure between work and family?ADayInTheLifeDad: Luckily as a full-time writer, editor and social media manager, a lot of my work involves my family, so I can enjoy a pretty intangible boundary between work and family. Working freelance I can pick and choose my hours, meaning time with my family. Although that said, my days are usually dictated around my daughter’s school run and tidying my son’s apparent endless arsenal of foot-breaking toy cars. Therefore, I often find myself tapping away at my laptop late into the night. Also, most of the brands or magazines I work with are family orientated who want the family involved so as long as I can capture the content they require without impacting on the children too much (sure, they might have to force a smile for the odd photo). Any pressures between work and family are relatively minimal.
WorkLife Central :How did you become a blogger and what did you do before that?
ADayInTheLifeDad: I’ve always loved writing. At a young age I was jotting down short stories about superheroes or jungle-swinging explorers, and as an adult I’ve written a novel, a collection of children’s books and have written for music and football sites. Upon becoming a father and staring blankly at my phone at 2am, seeking help with a screaming baby, I stumbled across the online parenting community. There were hundreds (now thousands) of mums writing about parenthood and posting photos to Instagram, but not many dads. So, with some encouragement from my wife, I started writing about my life as a dad. Although it started as bit of a hobby thankfully, alongside my Instagram, its growth has enabled me to work with some great brands and magazines. Previously I worked in education, which afforded me a lot of time with my children, so I’ve never been short of material.
WorkLife Central: What are the pros & cons of professional blogging?
ADayInTheLifeDad: Pros; the experiences are fab, plus I can work from home. But on reflection, the most positive thing I’ve taken from all of this is the online parenting community that I now find myself heavily involved in. I’ve met so many mums and dads who I would now call friends, and regularly meet at events or down the pub. It’s a fantastic community to be part of. Cons; I would have to include (as with most freelance work) the lack of security when it comes to my income. I can have one great month and then one terrible month.
WorkLife Central: How do you manage your work life and balance this with your family commitments?
ADayInTheLifeDad: Family comes first for me. I live for my family and the fun we have together, so if need be, I’ll work late into the night, get up early to work or even take my laptop to bed to meet a deadline that might have suddenly crept up on me.
WorkLife Central: What inspires you?
ADayInTheLifeDad: My wife is my biggest inspiration. She’s incredibly intelligent, kind and beautiful in all aspects of her life – hopefully some of that has rubbed off on me (well, perhaps not the beautiful bit, have you seen my crow’s feet and thinning hair?!). To be honest, before I met her, I was just plodding along without any real direction or motivation.
WorkLife Central: What are your views on managing technology and children? (especially after Jamie Oliver declared that selfies were like the sugar of social media)
ADayInTheLifeDad: I’m certainly not against children using technology, but I think it clearly has its pros and cons. Social media is such a huge beast that I think we’d be silly to fear it and prevent our children from using it. It’s already such a huge source of news, entertainment and modern-day socialising, and it’s only going to get bigger as our children grow up, so to try and distance them from it might hold them back. Sure, guidance is required to ensure they stay safe and I hate the idea of kids wasting their lives taking selfies to look like a dopey puppy, but I’d rather embrace its benefits and help guide my children it if it’s to their advantage. At home, we don’t really have restrictions on the children using tablets as they have enough other distractions such as art, walking the dogs and that arsenal of cars I mentioned to give them a break from the screens. I think it’s fair to say that today’s children will be employed in jobs that don’t even exist yet thanks to technology, so a bit of time on an iPad or a phone isn’t going to kill them. If anything it’s going to be to their advantage to know their way around such gadgets. With any luck, sooner rather than later, one of my children might develop some AI to tidy up those wretched foot-breaking cars…
Want to know more?
You can follow them here:
Mother Pukka
Instagram: @mother_pukka/
Website: http://motherpukka.co.uk/
Twitter: @mother_pukka
ADayInTheLifeDad
Instagram @adayinthelifedad Editor @thefmlyman
Twitter @dayinthelifedad
Originally Released On 15 January 2018