The return to work for most mothers brings weighty decisions and more than a few uncomfortable compromises.

After being presented with the choice between fulltime work commuting from Wollongong to Sydney or leaving paid employment to care for my daughter full-time, I chose the latter. The fact that I had that choice demonstrates my privilege in a time where not everyone is able to survive on a single income, even for a short time. I quickly realised that I indeed had a short time to figure out what work I wanted to do in the world and how to make money doing it.

My career path intertwined with my journey to motherhood and led me to become a doula, something that also required starting my own business. While the work of being a doula feels natural and fulfilling to me, the work of owning a business feels tedious and more than a little terrifying.

I have no regrets about forgoing a salaried job to start my own business. I have flexibility and limitless ways to stoke my creativity. I adore my work as a doula and feel immensely grateful for the clients I care for and for the stories they bravely share with me.

But beside that truth lies another: I have never worked harder, been more self-critical or felt the stakes were higher than when trying to start my own business. I sell relationships. I sell my friendship, support and care while women transition to motherhood. I essentially sell myself. So naturally, the door to self-criticism is wide open.

But the most challenging aspect is not the work itself, it’s everything else that comes with owning and operating a business. It’s the fact that I’m in charge of every single aspect. Meaning, when I don’t succeed, when I don’t turn a profit and provide financial relief to my family, I have only myself to blame. Or do I?

In comparison to the sea of literature, coaching containers and online courses available for entrepreneurs starting business, there is a notable dearth in resources that centre on mothers with small children. That is, besides a small but growing community of mother-centred coaches and mumpreneurs. This is despite one sixth of Australian small businesses being owned by mothers (ref). The omission of a large subsect of the entrepreneurial population tells me that this is a privileged sphere, one with a blueprint based on the industrial work model.

And this is exactly the nuance I want to tease out.

Anyone who has started a business knows how challenging and all-consuming the first years are. Any mother will tell you that the first four years of parenthood are likewise the most intense and the most taxing on mental and physical health. So, in a bid to seek fulfilment and financial stability during early parenthood after being unable to find it in traditional work environments, mothers are turning to entrepreneurship, with all the intensity that entails, and wondering why they’re burning out.

There are many ways to deal with the intensity and loneliness of starting a business as a mother and nearly all of them require money. It’s the familiar Catch-22 of privilege.

My feeling is that entrepreneurship for mothers of young children is like walking the edge of a knife. On one side, the personal power gained by creative fulfilment and financial independence is parried by a flip of the knife to the other side, where social pressure and lack of support can make the attainment of those things elusive.

Often what I have observed both in myself and others is that creative fulfilment is sated long before the financial rewards roll in and match the energetic output. Though this is normal when starting a business, mothers of young children have less in their reserves both emotionally and financially to remain resilient and survive through this period.

In some ways, I fear that entrepreneurship may be the latest platform inviting women to take back control of their lives only for us to realise that the platform is, in fact, a thinly veiled cage, one whose bars appear different to the cages of the past, but are cages nonetheless.

In my experience, the way to break out of a socially constructed cage is to start with self-reflection and awareness, as trite as it sounds. This looks like assessing the reality of my capacity and the reality of our social context and the expectations it places on me as a woman and a mother. And then, it looks like the readjustment of my definitions of success, which is paramount to staving off burn out and ensuring longevity. One of the most effective ways of locating yourself within your own reality is by finding a community that intimately understands the challenges you face as a mother in business, people who witness and support your journey.

It doesn’t mean mothers shouldn’t be in business, but it does mean that business may look a little different for us. It means that business will likely take longer to establish, and require more support, financially and otherwise. Much like parenting, it’ll be non-linear, loud in your brain and will ebb and flow with your energy. It looks more human, less machine. And I think humanity is a pretty solid pillar on which to build a new work blueprint.