Freelance Freedom #115

Haha, awwr. I know many-a-man who would disagree with you there, but good for you…hope all is going well!

I can’t believe it! This episode has “perfect timing” written all over it!

That is so sweet!

I’m a proud father of two and can insure you that the fun is just beginning. Teach your kids what you love and they will follow along.

Apparently excited about the new addition. Congrats and make sure the keep the Freelance Freedom comics coming so we can have our fun too!

As one who just 7 weeks ago became a dad for the first time, I can assure you, you will have fun with that kid. You will also lose some sleep, but it’s all worth it.

That makes me happy. Having children redefines the word fun.

a lot of fun ! Freelancer Daddy since 29.4.09

Why not bring the wee one to Comic Con next year? It’s never too early to get ‘em started.

I’ll go against the grain here but… can we please get those comic entries in a different RSS feed? Or at least get to choose between a feed with the comics and one without?

I can’t help but find them annoying and I don’t really see what purpose they serve in a “business” blog. I’m a grumpy grumpy man, I know.

Keep telling yourself that…

Still too young to be thinking about kids for me… but still a neat comic.

Cool One! bingo….

I’m a freelancer, soon to be dad too. I really enjoy this series of ‘soon-to-be-dad’

Ok, I’ll probably sound like the bad guy here and get flamed for this, so let me preface this all by saying that the Freelance Freedom comic is what started my regular visits and reading to and of the Freelance Switch site.

With that said, what drew me in was the daily struggles we as designers go through – especially having to always ride that line of professionalism while certain clients either think they know our jobs better than us or just look down on “artists” all together. I would often print out and post these comics on the side of my file cabinet behind my desk that only I could see and would often smile while talking to clients and looking at the comic strip(s).

I certainly am happy that they have a baby coming into the picture and congratulate them. I’m a 35 year old man with plenty of nieces and nephews and their creativity is inspiring and they are fun to have around. I’m just voicing my opinion that I would like to see a return to the cynical, witty comic strips about the design world that often say things for us designers that we can’t say out loud. I mean, just last week I had a client give me a 1 inch by 3 inch photo at 72 dpi to use for a 24 inch by 36 inch poster. You can only imagine what the thought balloons above my head had in them.

I’ll end the rant here. Commence the flaming.

I didn’t realize that I stumbled onto the Stay-At-Home Dads Blog. What does this have to do with freelancing?

@ Mike Well parenting has a lot to do with freelancing whether you like it or not.
At least for freelancers who are also parents – a lot of them. Raising kids when you work at home can be an advantage or a disadvantage. It can add an extra layer of stress when you have a baby (needs attention, cries, shout, and more at home and urgent clients needs to be taken care off. As time goes it can give you as a freelancer an advantage to have kids, because you can convey to the professional life what your learned raising them, specially time and people management skills. It certainly affect the way you have to work if you work from home and your priorities. Sooner or later you might be a dad too. Think about it looking at the whole picture, not just throughout the lenses of your world.

After spending time with some friend’s babies, I’ve realized hanging with real kids is much more fun than hanging out with a bunch of grown men who think they are still kids.

Congrats in advance, man. I’m about to become a grandpa for the sixth time any day now, myself. Grandpa is a much better job than Dad — a lot more like freelancing!

@ Creta: Of course parenting is part of some freelancers’ lives, and I suppose you could look at any freelance task in relation to parenting and draw some parallels. This strip, however, lacked any connection to freelancing. If N.C. wants to work his own current personal life into his strips, that’s great. But this is freelanceswitch.com, so let’s try to keep freelancing a part of whatever gets posted here.

And I’d ask you to also think about the whole picture and not look at this just through the lens of a parent (which I’m assuming you are, but correct me if I’m wrong). Writing about any topic without referring to the main subject of a themed blog like Freelance Switch alienates a large number of the audience. Parents will love a strip about parenting, but a lot of other people (like me) will be scratching their heads thinking “What does this have to do with freelancing?” Think about it in terms of a topic that you cannot relate to. If you aren’t a cat owner, for example, you might be surprised to come across a strip here all about freelance guy’s cat that makes no mention of anything related to freelancing.

It does have something to do with freelancing. N.C. is a freelance comic artist that didn’t go to the biggest comic event of the year! What’s with that? Is he crazy, I mean.. there can’t be anything else more important to him than that, right? Oh, but there is…

My excuse for all of my missed freelance related adventures is usually “I have kids”. So I completely understand where he’s coming from, and not just from the ooey-gooey/lovey-dovey side of things.

That said, not as funny as some of his other ones, but I still give it a thumbs up.

Thought I’d accidentally read the “funny” pages in a printed newspaper… that’s where I’d normally look for sentimental platitudes about family life.

It’s always a shame when a sharp comic wit ends up settling down, starting a family and suddenly all their routines are about babies/children and how great they are (Ben Elton, Jack Dee, etc).

Don’t let it happen to you! There’s still time, the baby isn’t even born yet! I loved Freelance Freedom when it was about, erm, freelancing.

@ Mike Sure, I see your point – however there can be a link to freelance life even in this strip. life is not that compartementalised