THE BALANCING ACT
the balancing act
MANAGING MOTHERHOOD & RUNNING A BUSINESS
‘A spirited baby’. That’s what my child health care nurse calls my daughter.
Like her mother, Florence doesn’t half-ass anything. While other babies will sit there placidly, she’s crawling everywhere, rummaging through whatever she can find, trying to stand, trying to talk.
Hopefully, this means one day she’ll be a CEO. Right now, it means she can be a (beautiful little) pain in my ass.
Let me rewind a little… I didn’t rush into kids. It was always a point of contention between my husband and I. Jordan, itching to be a dad, always wanted kids earlier. I wanted to wait. Why did I want to wait? Because I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to put my own needs aside.
I wasn’t ready for my career to take a back seat.
I wasn’t ready to give up Friday night drinks and solo travel.
It sounds selfish, but that’s the truth. So I waited until I was ready… And I’m a better parent because of it.
Now, I put her above everything, and I do it with no resentment and no frustration, because I knew that in becoming a mother, the priorities in which my world revolved would have to change, and I was ready to make that change.
But this doesn’t mean that it’s not HARD.
Sometimes when I’m home with my daughter and my creative juices are flowing or I’m feeling behind on a project, I have 2 choices:
1: Sit down to play with, read to, and entertain my 9-month-old. Be the great mum Facebook groups tell me I should be, or
2: Leave her on her to play on her own while I open my laptop to work.
And trust me when I say that no matter what option I choose, it never feels quite right. Because my attention to one means that at that moment, the other suffers. And I can honestly say that I wasn't prepared for this internal conflict Every. Single. Day.
The reason I wasn’t prepared? Because I heard some advice once that had me thinking I had hacked balancing motherhood and owning a business before my babe had even been born (oh, the naivety).
The advice was this…
‘Whether you are being a parent, or being a businesswoman, just give that 100%.’ So I had it all planned out. When I was with Florence, I would put aside my laptop and give her 100% of me. When she was looked after and I was working, I would give work 100% of my focus.
But that logic missed one very important thing… life.
It didn’t account for her needing to feed from me every 3 hours, or a random spark of creativity that would come to me while I had her. Or an urgent email coming in.
Like many of our ‘pre-parenthood ideas of how we would do it’ (ahem “I will never feed my baby pouches” and “no screen time, ever”) this turned out to be completely unrealistic.
I know that logically my babe is totally fine on her own for a while and she doesn’t need me hovering over her every second, but that logic isn’t enough to drown out the mum guilt gently stabbing away at my heart whenever I’m not giving her my full focus.
Because here's the thing… I know that the moments are fleeting and the years are short. And I know that time with her is the most precious gift I could ever have and that logically, I shouldn’t waste a minute working when I could be present with her.
Truly present.
But the truth is, when we become a mum, we don’t lose our old selves… Our ambitions. Our dreams. Our creative drive. These things are not replaced by motherhood but rather coexist alongside motherhood.
I don’t just work for the financial injection, I work because I LOVE it.
I crave creativity. I thrive on a challenge. I’m inspired by business and driven by ambition. Without my work, I don’t feel like a complete Kaitlin… the best Kaitlin. And when I’m not the best Kaitlin, I’m probably not the best mum.
So for now, I will continue to try juggling. I will take on each role with the whole of my heart, knowing that all I can do is the best I can do. And I’ll try to do it without any regrets.
Because if you’re a mum in biz you will know… This shit ain't easy.
And honestly? We’re all probably doing a pretty fucking good job.
xo
