As moms who are trying to balance work and family, we have to make many transitions in our lives. I’ve always found transitions to be tough. I guess I get used to the status quo and am fearful of changing it.
The first transition I made was when my first son was born. I thought I’d be going back to my old job at my publishing company after my maternity leave ended. To my surprise, I couldn’t do it. I loved my job as a magazine editor, but I loved my newborn son much more and I couldn’t leave him. That’s when I became a mompreneur, although I didn’t know I had that “name” in the beginning.
I wanted to get some part-time work, so I sent out notes to everyone I had ever worked with…publicists, other editors, people in the food industry (I was primarily a food writer) and told them I was going out on my own. If they had any work they could throw my way…anything that involved writing, recipe development, whatever…please throw it my way! I was hopeful but had no idea what to expect. We really needed two incomes. Would I be able to bring in enough as a freelancer? How would I juggle taking care of my newborn son if I had a tight deadline?
Three weeks after my son was born, an editor called me up and asked if I could come into the office to develop some recipes and help with the photo shoot. I jumped at the chance! But it involved being away from my son for at least 8 hours. My husband had a job to go to, so he was not available. I quickly called my parents and they offered to help out. So I thought I was all set. Wrong!!!
I couldn’t believe how much I missed my baby in those 8 hours! I called several times just to make sure he was OK. And these were his grandparents watching him! I realized that this whole work-family balance thing was going to be much harder than I thought! And I realized I wanted to do most of my work from a home office so babysitting could be kept to a minimum. Transitioning from a full-time magazine editor to a freelance writer who felt a huge tug between motherhood and work wasn’t going to be easy. I sort of winged it along the way…sometimes more successfully than others!