What I've Learned About Work Since Becoming a Mother

As someone who has built an entire business around my ability to develop and create recipes, film myself cooking them, share them on my social channels, and show up consistently for my community, I was very curious to see how motherhood would change my relationship to work. It was hard for me to imagine having a baby and also maintaining the same level of work as I was doing before giving birth, but I’ve seen so many creators and entrepreneurs juggle everything so I assumed it would be possible. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I can say that while it is possible, it’s certainly not easy! I’ve learned a lot about what’s truly necessary and important in my business, how I can focus on things that are most valuable for achieving my goals, and how much of my identity has been wrapped up in my career ambitions. 

I will admit that up until recently, I had my doubts about being an ambitious and successful woman and a great mother. Most of the women around me when I was growing up had chosen not to work so they could be home with their kids. When I was working in corporate, most of the women in leadership didn’t have kids. The examples I was exposed to reinforced the idea that you could either be a good mother or an ambitious woman. That’s an outdated model, I know, but it’s still the only one I knew. Early on I decided that my career and professional aspirations were very important to me, so I simply put off thoughts of having a family, too. Of course that all changed once I met Kyle and we started this business together, and I started to meet other women who placed just as much importance on raising their family as they did on building a successful company. 

Every woman has a completely unique experience with childbirth and raising kids, which I want to acknowledge because even with as much information as I absorbed going into my pregnancy I could have never been prepared for what it’s actually like to have a brand new baby, and also because my journey is specific to me and is likely different from many other moms out there. All that being said, hopefully some of these learnings resonate with you and can offer some helpful guidance if you’re also navigating the balance between work and family! 

The first thing that became immediately obvious after having Suede was that I was spending way too much time on tasks that didn’t need to be done by me. I thought I was good at delegating until delegation became non-negotiable, and I realized that there were so many other things I could and probably should have gotten off my plate. I think delegation is an eternal struggle for entrepreneurs because we are our businesses! It’s hard to imagine someone else getting all of the details just right, but at a certain point you learn that first, people are more capable than we think they are and second, many of the details that we think are important really don’t matter. I will admit that I haven’t completely cracked the code on this yet–in fact, creating graphics for Substack is a prime example of something I should be able to delegate but haven’t yet!—but motherhood is forcing me to become as efficient as possible. 

I’ve also gotten much clearer on which parts of my business are truly value-add, and am committing to only focusing on those. Right now, that’s creating and sharing recipes on Instagram and my blog, continuing to write and share advice and insights on Substack, filming more personal day-in-the-life videos for Instagram stories, and writing my cookbook. Before Suede, I was experimenting on YouTube and building out my LTK but I’m putting both on hold for now. YouTube is fun for me because it gets my creative juices flowing and I love linking things for my community via LTK but I’ve had to push myself to table those since they aren’t the biggest value-drivers. 

Working with my husband, Kyle, was helpful in preparing us both as individuals for parenting and as business partners who are now parents. We’ve been teammates and partners in work for over three years now and we’ve learned how to communicate feedback and execute our separate responsibilities that work towards a common goal. We’ve always had an expectation of 50/50 partnership and full commitment from each other at work, and we expect it from each other now as parents. I think half the battle with a newborn is figuring out how to parent individually and together, at the same time, and everything is won or lost in communication! We’re not perfect, but having been pushed to navigate honest and clear communication throughout growing our business has helped us dive right into parenting. 

On the personal side of things, I’ve realized how much of my identity was tied to work before Suede. I always knew it was important to me, but I don’t think I understood how much business wins or hurdles were impacting how I felt about myself and my own worth. Being a parent has completely rewritten that script–gone are the days of “if you work hard you’ll be successful”. Anyone who has tried to get a newborn to stop crying and has done literally everything they can think of to soothe their baby to no avail can relate to this! I think that ultimately this will make me better at my job in some ways–for example, now I really know what it’s like to create recipes in a time crunch and I can use this learned experience to make my recipes even more valuable for new moms or people who are really tight on time. And, now I see everything I do for work as a tradeoff—if I’m working, I’m not spending time with Suede. I want to spend as much time with her as I can, so the mental calculation has become “is this worth being away from Suede for?” which is a new feeling for me. 

Being a mother has also prompted me to be more vulnerable, as you can likely see through this post, which has brought me closer to my community. I am so grateful for all of you who have commented or messaged me with your passionate, supportive, and helpful thoughts. You’ve shown up for me throughout my pregnancy and now postpartum and I am so grateful! 

Though my relationship to work has changed, it’s still a very important part of my life. Not just because it has to be, but because I genuinely want it to be–and I don’t think that makes me any less of a mom. Despite society having advanced and evolved greatly from previous generations, there’s still a real pressure on women to take a step back from work when we have kids. (Which, by the way, is a wonderful path for many women–the point is that I think every path should be open to women, free of judgment or societal pressure!) Every now and then I’ll catch a little judgment, or someone questioning my desire to keep working, and it irks me a bit. I am fortunate to have a career that I love, a wonderfully supportive family and group of friends, and a healthy baby girl who I’m completely in love with. I hope to be an example of someone who can balance her professional and family life–even if it’s a little messy and imperfect sometimes–and support other women who want to do the same. 

What have you learned or realized about your work or career since becoming a parent? Or if you’re not a parent but thinking about starting a family, what questions or concerns are going through your mind? I’d love to chat about them all in the comments!