Since becoming a mother four years ago, I have noticed something within the echo chamber of my social media channels. Instagram, in particular, has become rife with alluring content all designed to sell me the solution to my problem.
My problem?
Having two tiny full-time dependents, minimal capacity and maximal financial insufficiency.
Their solution?
Start a business. Be your own boss. Gain flexibility to work and ignite your creativity and passion around the constraints of mothering small children. This comes in several forms from the frankly nefarious MLMs (multi-level marketing) to small heart-centred, passion-led businesses.
But why not just return to a salaried job?
Well, I don’t think the solution is that easy for many, many women and families.
Back when I was working as a research scientist, I had a full-time job in Sydney at a company who prided themselves on their diverse workforce. Equality was an important company value and they loved to celebrate women in science by hiring and promoting women in addition to the perfunctory cupcakes on International Women’s Day. They seemed to walk the talk, at least more than most.
So, imagine my surprise when I fell pregnant and found out that there was no paid maternity leave policy. At the time, I didn’t even know that was legal. I now know that companies are required to provide 12 months of maternity leave but are not required to pay a cent.
I kicked up a stink and received a measly two weeks' paid leave. After nine years of university, a PhD and a long list of published research, I was more than a little affronted at what that effort amounted to the moment I stepped into motherhood.
By this stage, I had moved to Wollongong and was alternating between commuting and working from home, prompted by the first wave of Covid. Months after my daughter was born and I began conversations about returning to work with my team, I found that I would be unable to return in the capacity I held before I was a mother. At 12 months old, my daughter was still breastfeeding multiple times a day and commuting to Sydney was no longer an option. The role I was offered was full time and on-site or nothing. It should be noted that I willingly resigned from that job, knowing that my career was headed in a different direction and no longer fit with my passion or values. But the story does highlight a very common phenomenon that women who become mothers inevitably face.
Every single mother I know has made a decision that does not sit well in her body, one that does not align with her values to be able to fit within the mould of what it means to be a working mother in our society. Whether it's ending breastfeeding early, or not beginning at all. Whether it's training a baby to sleep on a schedule that suits the workday or putting a baby in childcare long before the separation feels right.
I believe that so many women turn to self-entrepreneurship as a way to deal with the fact that our current workforce is woefully ill-equipped to support and retain mothers. Not only that, mothers are seen as a liability due to their duty to their dependents. Their increased capacity for empathy and compassion and therefore leadership is not acknowledged or capitalised upon.
After living in the quicksand bog that is motherhood, our ability to zoom out and contextualise problems and get shit done in record time is second to none. We are intimately acquainted with the feeling of constantly running, only to find ourselves in the same place, still sinking in the mire of endless domestic and emotional labour. Thus, our sense of perspective and ability to discern the significance of a problem, then solve it, is greatly improved by our experience of motherhood.
For many women, work becomes a refuge, a way to nurture the person we are beyond our role as mother. It can be a place that we relish and in which we could flourish with support and adaptation.
In the face of so little validation for our talents and gifts and for the constraints that hobble us, it's no wonder women are regaining their power by turning their backs on traditional salaried jobs and jumping into entrepreneurship. Perhaps mumpreneurs are the canaries in the coal mine.
They warn us of the increasingly toxic air we breathe as we continue to participate in a work-model whose growth was seeded in the Industrial Revolution and that holds little relevance 200 years later. Not to mention how that model directly contradicts human physiology. Perhaps mumpreneurs would have something to say about how we can integrate career and family in our modern society without making ourselves sick. And perhaps we could listen and enact change before the canaries become the sacrificial lambs offered on the altar of social change.
About the writer
Andy Lawrence is a doula servicing the Illawarra and globally online. Having trained as a research scientist with a PhD in entomology, the birth of her two daughters catalysed a career shift toward supporting women and their families as they traverse the transition to parenthood. She runs women's circles locally to build community connection among women and her doula work centres on guiding women home to themselves and their own wisdom. She works with women who are feeling the need for support beyond that from their partner and are ready to create their village. She believes that supported mothers equals secure families and healthier communities.
