I decided to write this post on a whim after having a moment of gratitude today. It’s been 6 weeks since my baby nephew has been born and I’ve been very fortunate enough to have a very hands on relationship with him since day one. My sister is based in New York but for various reasons coming to Hong Kong was the sensible answer, and so they’ve been staying with me in Hong Kong since September. and let me tell you this. It’s not easy being a parent.

I wish there was another direct, to the point statement to convey the message of how difficult it is to be a parent, but I’m lacking the words for it. So let me say it again. It. Is. Not. Easy. Being. A. Parent. We all know the amount of work needed to raise a child, but it genuinely doesn’t hit home until you’re in the trenches of parenthood yourself. This 13 lb pooping adorableness is eating up to 7 – 12 times a day, getting his diaper changed …I’ve lost count, crying all together a good few hours collectively and requires constant TLC to sleep his recommended amount of 16 hours. (he’s only tallying in around 12 on a VERY good day…) I never appreciated the amount of work involved to keep a tiny human being alive. Being the youngest of two kids and never having any experience with young babies until now…I, well. I thought it was manageable. How hard could it be? You just feed it and keep it alive, right?

True, but people just conveniently skip the details of how fulfilling these two tasks WILL ware you out physically. My sleeping schedule has been completely derailed to say the least. But a more embarrassing consequence to looking after my nephew is the physical aches I have from the constant man handling needed. My nephew is 13 lbs at 6 weeks old and isn’t the easiest to go to sleep or burp. What does this mean? It means he’s either over my shoulder being burped or he’s being carried in various positions while I’m bouncing on a yoga ball praying he’ll sleep. Guys, I don’t know about you but I’m really tiny, with tiny shoulders and even tinier hands. My arms and wrists ache. They seriously ache and after carrying him for more than 30 odd minutes, I need to get creative on how to keep him up without dropping him! (You should see me in action, it’s truly a sight to behold)

Another inevitable consequence to being on call around the clock, is my productivity in my businesses has taken a drop. I haven’t stopped completely as I do try my best to do what I can during the day. But there’s no denying the fact that I’ve had to lower the daily work load and slow down the speed of progress on new projects to keep things manageable. I’m very fortunate that I know my lowered productivity isn’t going to have a huge effect on this month’s income. In fact, I could choose to not work this month, and be 95% confident about what I’ll be able to earn this month. This is because, the majority of work I do is focused on creating online assets that generate residual passive income, which means my present income isn’t effected by my present actions. The work was done long ago before my nephew was even born. And I feel so incredibly lucky for this, because I can’t imagine how some parents do it. Single earning families, single parents or even both parents working full time to make ends meet. I have no ide     a how you guys do it and I want to make sure you know I have my hats off to you all. I have this incredible situatio n where I don’t have to work and I’m still finding it challenging to keep the little bugger fed, clean and safe. Before my nephew came along, I had already logically known the power of passive income. The amount of freedom it could provide for me made sense in theory, and I also felt it in practice during the times my family needed me to be physically present. But this definitely takes the cake. Which brings me back to the start of this post. The house is finally quiet except for the light wheezing from the 13 lb tiny human next to me and I just feel this immense sense of gratitude for having passive income in my life. It must sound like I’m preaching, but all I can think of is how impossible the situation would be if I had a normal full time job like everyone else. Even if I did shift work, it would be stressful because I’m actively trading my hours for money. The same hours I could be using to take care of my nephew, or even my own kids in the future. But I never need to make that trade simply because I don’t partake in any form of active income, and after this experience I can confidently say I never will rely on active income to live. I just wish every parent in the world could also enjoy the extra time passive income gives you. Sometimes I wonder why they don’t…

Other resources you should check out:

• Check out the countless possibilities of passive income with the internet’s longest list of passive income methods.
• Learn the 3 rules of money I follow that allowed me to not work for 4 months. 
• Read how you can take the first steps to creating your perfect life. 
• This is how I make $2000 per month working from home