All mothers are entrepreneurs in disguise
An essay on why moms should be more respected in the marketplace. Written with humour, so smiling is encouraged.
Disclaimer: The first bit of this essay is intended as a humorous reflection of motherhood as if it was a professional job. The goal is to stir reflection/conversation and portray the absurdity in it not being recognised as hard and IMPORTANT work.
It’s also a critique for why women who choose family first gets discriminated when they want to re-enter the marketplace, and why I think entrepreneurship is the way forward for any mother who ones and for all wants to be free from the need of external validation.
And don’t forget: Your role matters. You can never be replaced at home. But an employer can choose to replace you within a day.
Let’s imagine motherhood as a profession
Instead of suits, wear jersey pants or leggings. Not too tight to easier bend and squat as quick as possible. Ideally a dark colour or pattern to minimize visible stains. The latter is both time and cost effective as it allows for increased use before the washer.
T-shirt on top. Don’t bother with a new one. At least for the first half of the day before you catch up. The new upgrade will include a nursing bra. Don’t want those nipples to go cold and cause icing on the organically produced milk.
Now that the attire is accomplished, let’s move on to the regular day-to-day activities. These are not one off courses for further professional development. Nope, they’re all continuously included in the everyday of motherhood. Incredible.
Tasks to expect include, but are not limited to:
Rapid decision making
Creative problem solving
Culinary ideation and execution
Extraordinary imagination
In depth research
Regular safety and security controls
Sanitary check-ups and cleaning
Product testing
Outfit sorting
Team building
Communication development
Life skills teaching
Multitasking
Peacemaking
This list can be longer, but let’s keep it to the basics to avoid overwhelm. It’s important that the leader of the team remains sane.
In addition there will be great opportunities for personal development to increase patience and perseverance. There is no choice but to keep going.
Oh, and it’s on a voluntary basis.
Good luck.
Motherhood trains you for entrepreneurship
I already had a business before children. But I could’ve never imagined how many overlapping mental realities exist in the two endeavours. Concrete examples are feelings of overwhelm, fear of failure, uncertainty as well as joy, excitement and fulfilment (let’s not forget about the plenty of positives too!).
After experience in both, I think all mothers are inherent entrepreneurs. In fact, it comes as no surprise that many go ahead and become successful business owners or “mompreneurs/mumpreneurs” after having children.
The skills one develop and the personal growth that comes with motherhood are truly a blessing in disguise. I say disguise, because the marketplace doesn’t recognise the incredible achievements as resources in the marketplace (despite it being so obvious in the bullet list above).
The focus is on the negative: of potentially sick children and tired/overworked mothers. I don’t think this is the fault of motherhood. It’s the fault of the system that doesn’t accommodate for a healthy balance.
While mothering you become incredibly time efficient because you never know how much time you’ve got at your hands. Will baby sleep for 10 minutes or 3 hours?
As a result, a working mother could potentially finish off the same task that would regularly require 3 hours… in 10 minutes (add a grain of salt here, it’s just to make the point that less hours could produce equal results, which would leave more time for the family while still earning an income).
Additionally, execution under uncertainty isn’t something that everyone can pull off.
To live in uncertainty is a skill one need as an entrepreneur and one you’ll develop as a mother simply by existing. For example, when running a business there’s no minimum pay-check guaranteed. But there’s no maximum either (thrilling if you ask me!).
To maximize your chances, you’ll have to make quick decisions and evaluations of every situation (just like when you’re with your kids).
Ask yourself regularly, is this working or not? Try new creative solutions and keep going with whatever is working. Drop whatever is not serving you. You learn to adapt to the marketplace to increase your chances of success until you need to change and adapt again.
You know it already
As a mother you know how to do all these things already, you just don’t realize it. Unexpected situations will occur daily and you always find a way to figure it out (because you’re a super-mom!). There’s no question of “I can’t”. There’s only the answer “I will”, because there’s no choice. Imagine how powerful this is in business?
It builds incredible resilience and I wish it built confidence too. Why wish? Because I notice how many are still stuck in the need for external validation in order to feel appreciated, strong and confident (!). And I get it. I feel frustrated too sometimes.
Important side-note: I mentioned earlier the need for the hard work to be recognised. I distinguish recognition and validation as the former being focused on the actual tasks, whereas the latter includes value of the person who performs the action (the mother in this case).
External forces
Imagine how great if everyone was able to source validation from the health of our families instead. That confidence and self-belief comes from the inside instead of the outside.
It’s not a matter of how you look like but how you act towards others and yourself. Your child doesn’t care if you showered today or last week. They see you as their biggest role model regardless of where or if you have a “traditional job”. It’s WHO YOU ARE excluding all the external metrics that matters.
I sometimes wonder how much of this pressure (especially for new mothers) originate from social media. Personally, becoming a mother in the age of the never ending scroll of picture perfect mothering was… Not easy. My own mother said on numerous occasions that she felt blessed to have had her babies before social media existed.
This makes me think of a recent article by
titled “How do I want to live?”. In it she, among other things, discusses the influence of external forces on the way we lead our lives.It’s as true for motherhood as for everything else. Especially when you’re doing something for the first time. As a “newbie”, you tend to be more influence-able because you haven’t grown your thick skin yet. To follow your gut can feel almost impossible when the external forces try to pull you in opposite directions. How to even make sense of it all?
used a concrete example of owning a home. External forces (for example social pressure) will try to influence you that you should buy a home. It’s more safe and stable.But who says that? Where are the forces (influences) coming from? Do those people/that society (you have forces on both micro and macro level) lead a life that you want to live?
For example, we’ve lived in four different countries so far with our children. It would’ve been impossible if we hadn’t been renting. It can look like a failure and waste to some, but we‘ve gathered invaluable life experiences together with our kids that we would’ve never had had we not followed our gut and left the “externally stable” life behind.
Who to take advice from?
I’ve spoken about the notion of who to take advice from for many years including in my first book “Get a real job: Our first year as creative entrepreneurs” and it continues to be an important reminder to this day.
Who we take advice from ultimately guides the external forces that influence our decisions and what life we’ll end up living.
If we return to the notion that mothers aren’t as attractive to the marketplace - is that due to the society not recognising the tasks performed as relevant skills for other jobs? And how do we as individuals consciously and/or subconsciously contribute to the narrative?
Is that why so many mothers feel inadequate today? Not to mention the elephant in the room…. MOM GUILT. Whatever you do it just feels like it isn’t enough.
Working mom? Mom-guilt for working.
Stay at home mom? Mom guilt for not doing enough activities.
All this guilt originates from the notion that there’s always more. Better. Whatever “side” we choose in our mothering, there’s always the “other side” telling you that your choice isn’t great. The job-market is sadly the other side for more or less all mothers, regardless of job-status.
Rather than being an intuitive choice to follow one’s gut, it becomes a financial choice guided by external forces of capitalism. It’s tough. I see you. I hear you. You’re not alone in reflecting on all of these things.
I hope that if anything, you will find the power in your own voice and recognise that (if you aren’t already) you have all the capabilities already built in to create a work-life balance that YOU OWN. Maybe it’s time to go down the route of entrepreneurship? Maybe it’s not? As long as it comes from your gut.
Thanks for reading!
Elin X
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Saved this so I can come read it tomorrow in a quiet moment! Love the title and SO here for this conversation xx
Yep. Hear you 👏 I’m a tad biased but I too think mothers are mostly incredibly skilled and wonderful human beings!!!