How do you jump back into the workforce after five years as a Stay At Home Mom?

Are baby steps allowed?

Thankfully, the world of remote and telecommute working options have exploded since I stepped away to start a family. Particularly if you are in tech, teaching, travel and tourism, or healthcare, you can earn your bread and butter working from anywhere, wearing anything.

Seriously, have you tried to find a stool in an urban coffee shop lately? At mid-day, they are all full, with youngish-looking professionals and laptops, caffeinated and concentrating intently on their screens.

They better make room for me.

A flexible work life is at the top of my list of work requirements. Because although I am creating some space for myself and between me and my children, I am not filing for separation from my family. As a mother of a toddler and a child going into Pre-K, I actually want some flexibility to go on field trips, have a lunch date with my hubby, and spend meaningful time with my children without being stressed and half-crazed from commuting to work or being locked inside an office for 8 or 9 hours a day.

Thankfully, the Internets have some suggestions. Specifically, I’ve found four websites that offer options for Remote Work and Work From Home jobs. You’ll need to do bit of sifting; there’s quite a few scams out there and for every legitimate “Remote Social Media Coordinator position,” there are five online tutoring gigs and jobs scheduled for 3am to teach students English on the other side of the world, albeit from the comfort of your laptop.

So here’s my list; and it’s a bit writer-centric since that’s what I do. I welcome feedback; let me know if you use these sites and have success finding work via their listings:

Problogger.com – If you’re a blogger, freelance writer, or searching for editorial or content-driven work, you need to keep this site in your rotation. Darren Rowse is the writer, photographer, author, and creator of the website and he basically publishes the Web Bible of blogging and content monetization. His simple and straightforward list of resources is a go-to for anyone building an online blog or portfolio of digital content. Recent jobs on the site include listings for a copywriter, marketing and project manager, and a Canadian real estate writer.

The Work at Home Wife – She’s either well-informed or a genius at repurposing the same content in a thousand different ways. In any case, this site is useful for guiding you to other sites that offer work-from-home jobs and general information about industries, like medical transcription, that offer options for remote work. There’s also good resources here, like this exhaustive list of writing jobs.

RatRaceRebellion.com – This website publishes daily listings of work-from-home jobs–mostly customer service, administrative, survey and poll-taking positions. But on a recent day, I found a few gems, including links to telecommuting positions at Northrop Grumman, a remote graphic designer, and a marketing coordinator. Did you know you could make at least $240 a month captioning videos?

Flexjobs.com – This website is basically a huge search engine for jobs that offer telecommuting, remote, and freelance work options. They seem to have a directory that includes thousands of jobs that fit the bill. Listings range from online tutors and transcribers to front-end application developers and crypto protocol engineers. And of course, writing jobs.

Happy Job Hunting!