Momtrepreneur

It’s funny to me to think of my professional life as a “side hustle” when I don’t actually have a full-time job. Normally a side hustle is something you have to do outside of regular work hours. I quit my 9-5 in January of 2020 to focus my time on motherhood and my daughter. Yet when it comes to freelance, I have to work around my family’s needs and my daughter’s needs. I can get some work done in the morning while I give in to some tv time for my daughter. If she’s in agreement, I can work some throughout the day while my live-in mom watches her. Other times my attention is demanded by her, and I have to shove work off until the later hours of the evening – Today was one of these types of days.

Yesterday I worked pretty much through the whole day. She ended up being very cranky and clingy by dinner time when I finally had to stop working to feed everyone and myself. I was irritated and tired by her whininess. We had let her sleep in our bed the night before because after the 3rd time of putting her back in her bed my husband and I both gave up. While the closeness was cherished, her sideways sleeping, rustling, and hot body did not let me sleep. Luckily I’m not alone in caring for her, because by the end of the day I needed a break.

Today was different. Instead of going straight to the office to get a headstart on work, she and I played together. We built castles, did puzzles, and did whatever else she wanted. All before I had my coffee even! I had some errands to run that my mom had offered to do for me, but I wanted to do them myself. I could see that my mom might have just wanted to get out of the house, so I decided we’d all get out of the house and go for a car ride. First I returned an Amazon order and picked up groceries. Afterward, I felt that one can’t “go out” without getting lunch. So the three of us sat down and spent time together at a nearby diner. Then we went to the thrift store in search of a white apron for a costume (no luck). Lastly, we stopped at a local Mennonite shop for some fall flowers and pumpkins.

I had completely lost a day of work. I had/have a lot of to-do items in the funnel at any given time. Usually, at the end of the day when my mom asks if I’ve finished my work, I usually respond, “Well, it’s never finished. I just stopped working for today.” Anyway, around 2 or 3 in the afternoon I began working for that day. I tended to some IT-related things for one client and drafted up some social posts for another. I worked straight until the moment I had almost no time left to make dinner before my husband came home. Luckily he was running late today, giving me 10-15 extra minutes of work.

We all ate dinner and hung out afterward. My husband and daughter played on the piano together for a bit. It wasn’t bath night so that saved us a few more minutes together too. Then it was upstairs to get her ready for bed. As soon as I said my goodnights to her it was back downstairs to the office to continue working until my eyes were too dry to keep going. I called it quits around midnight. My husband had already gone to bed and I hadn’t said goodnight yet. I didn’t plan to work that late. I had a good jazz playlist on Spotify keeping me in the zone and for the first time in a while, I got my email inbox down to ~15. It was a productive and successful night.

After I went up to bed, I then wasted another hour scrolling through my various social media apps. I told myself, “Okay go to bed now. You’re going to be useless tomorrow and regret it.” I laid there for a few minutes thinking of all the things I wanted to write about, and tada, here I am! It is now 2 AM. I initially thought I would wait until the morning to write, but I was worried I’d lose all the thoughts and motivation by then.

All that is a backstory to what I had originally been thinking about, the term “momtrepreneur“. I only recently became familiar with it, and once I did I felt connected to it. It describes a whole group of people like me, balancing parenting with professionalism.

Mompreneur, or “momtrepreneurs,” is a slang term describing women who start or run their own businesses while also acting as a full-time parent, where mompreneur is a combination of the words “mom” and “entrepreneur.” – Investopedia

One thing to point out in the definition is, “their own businesses”. I have to stop thinking of my work as simply freelancing and realize and remember that I have created a business.

“A freelancer is someone who earns money by working on specific projects for different clients while an entrepreneur is someone who earns money by starting a business of some type.” – Four Pillar Freedom

I’ve only recently taken that real step from freelancing to becoming a business owner. There has been a lot to consider and sometimes it still feels contradictory to be a mom and business owner at the same time. But I know that I’m growing something for myself that my family can be proud of, and I’m giving myself control over my future.

Lately, I’ve focused a bigger percentage of my time working than on my daughter. The truth is, we are expecting our second baby girl in November (next month!) and I’ve been trying to get as much done before then as possible knowing that I will be unavailable for a period of time. As I write this I can feel the squirmy worm wriggling around in my belly (she’s also reminding me to go to sleep!). So she is already just as much part of this as the rest of the family. I feel crazy for wanting to expand my business next year on top of having a new baby, but I guess I can’t help myself.

This is where I enter my shameless plug for my business, Mixie Media. As an official business, we are young. My husband and I both however have many years of experience in marketing and design. As a team, we each have our strengths and many of our skills overlap but in unique ways. It has been exciting working together with him since we started this venture. We each have learned new things from our combined knowledge. One of the best parts of it is doing it together.

With that said, Mixie Media will be looking to bring on new clients next year for website development, marketing, social media management, graphic design, etc. If you have a business and you want people to know about it, we’re here to help in any way we can. We can even help you streamline some of your business processes or offer a hand with different software and integrations. We both have experience working for small businesses and have had to “wear a lot of hats”. You can contact us on our website at: https://mixiemedia.com/contact. We’re still working on our own website, but rest assured that is because we have been busy helping our existing clients!

Now, excuse any typos or general poor grammar until I can re-read this tomorrow in the daylight. Signing off here at 3 AM. Tomorrow is another day, another hustle.