Entrepreneur Mom
with Aliza Sherman
If you own a business - home-based or otherwise - this is the blog where you'll find practical tips and smart ideas about entrepreneurship. I've started and run 4 different businesses so "been there, done that." I'll also invite successful entrepreneurs to share their best advice with you.
To learn more about Aliza, check out her profile on Work It, Mom! and her website, www.mediaegg.com.
I miss my family. I love my family. I have to say that right upfront because I don’t want you to get the wrong impression because of what I’m about to say.
But I’ve been away from my family for a week and damn if I haven’t gotten an enormous amount of work done in a short period of time.
If you’re married or closely partnered with a significant other, then you know how an intimate relationship can really impinge on work. For better or for worse, since I got married, the work side of my life has been reduced to a small window of time and my productivity has suffered greatly.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe others don’t experience the same thing or have a different perspective on work/life balance. I just had no idea that “compromise” meant that my work day would have to be reduced by half and tucked into a time frame when frankly I’m just not that productive.
I love my husband, don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to have found someone at all who can tolerate my bachelorette idiocyncracies and ADD brain. Getting married at 38, however, meant that I had that many more years under my belt flying solo so all the many compromises of making a marriage work aren’t always comfortable for me. But I try to just go with the flow of partnering.
I love my daughter. I’m grateful to have her, especially after four miscarriages prior to her birth. But I don’t think I ever intellectually understood the impact of children on your life until the year after she was born. The first 12 months immediately after she was born? I can’t even count that year because it was wrecked by untreated post partum depression, something else I never anticipated regarding having children.
No matter how much I love my family, I still mourn the loss of the freedom of my previous life. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t want that old life back. Yet I wistfully recall how much work I could get done in a day, then look at my normal routine today where I might get 4 or 5 hours of interrupted worktime on a weekday - if I’m lucky.
Back to Going Solo
I’ve been away from my husband and daughter for a week on business. And while not at my old standards of productivity, I have gotten a fair amount of work done. Uninterrupted. Without my husband giving me that “Oh no, you’re on the computer again and neglecting me” look or my daughter grabbing my fingers in her tiny fist crying “no mommy, come do a puzzle with me.”
The beauty of this weeks worth of productivity is:
a. I can go back home with less urgent work on my desktop;
b. I can go back home in the afterglow of accomplishment and be able to better focus on my family.
My Work is My Therapy
I called my therapist this week. I haven’t spoken with her in months, but I felt compelled to leave her a message.
“I feel great,” I said into her answering machine. “I’m getting so much done, and it really feels good.”
Odd as it may sound, my work is good for my mental health. Being denied optimal time to work hurts me in some primal way. It goes beyond me wrapping my personal identity around my work. I am beginning to realize that the way my brain is hardwired means that I’m constantly working out problems, ideas and projects in my head so without the outlet of work to produce some of these things, my brain begins to short circuit. That short-circuiting causes me to become anxious and irritable. Then I become testy and impatient. And then I take it out on my loved ones.
But given this time and space away to just work in my impulsive and compulsive way, I feel the anxiety melt away. And I am looking forward to returning home today to see my family. I feel I’m a better wife and mom when I’ve had time to immerse myself in my work self for a while. And I get things done.
Do you struggle not with finding balance between work and the rest of your life but to actually get to work when you want or need to work and getting things done when life is constantly pulling you away? How do you handle that?
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you have said nothing that helps with anything, except for your need to vent about what YOU have lost. bravo
anon | April 19th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Well, thank goodness I have a blog where I can vent - and also express the things that other working moms think about but are afraid to articulate.
I appreciate all feedback including critiques and criticism. At least I have the courage to express my thoughts and opinions out in the open instead of behind the cloak of “pseudo” anonymity.
Aliza | April 20th, 2009 at 12:19 am
I totally hear you, especially when you explain how your work is your therapy.
I, however, got married and had kids while in my early 20’s. So while I didn’t get to be single for long, there were times, when the husband and the kids were away and I couldn’t believe how much more time i had.
Thanks for this post. And we all always compare and contrast and wonder what would life be like if we made this choice, or that choice, etc.
vera babayeva | April 20th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
It gets somewhat easier as the kids get older. Honestly! Mine are 17 and 22 now, and while they’re great kids, they don’t covet my attention any more. Treasure the work time when you can, but savor your family, too.
Daisy | April 21st, 2009 at 1:52 am
I understand what you’re saying completely. I too have the work-at-home frenetic and often frantic struggle for uninterrupted time. And a husband who says, “thank goodness for the money you’re making” out of one side of his mouth, and “what, more computer work?!” out of the other side. And girls who literally hang from my mouse-hand in order to distract me away to the blocks, paints, or puzzles.
For the sake of women who are on the brink of embarking on this parenting adventure, but haven’t taken the plunge, we need more talk (like this) about the frustration, the wistful longing for the Before-babe life, and the truth about trying to have it all: you can’t! Thanks!
Kawartha Mom | April 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
This really hit it on the nail. While I love my hubby and 3-year-old son, having a virtual business means that I work from home A LOT. And since the birth of my son 3 years ago, I was at maximum productivity and could really crank things out. When I started the business, it was a lot tougher (even with my aunt taking care of the small one during work hours).
I find that getting my groove on means keeping strict work hours, shutting the door and working out a schedule of “late work nights” with my significant other. I still work between 50-60 hours a week, but since I work from home and I cut out the 2-hour daily commute, I’m much more productive. And, I get to see my child while he’s awake.
Though, I have to admit, on the days that I know there will be a big play date, I take my laptop, my cell (having my calls forwarded) and go to Starbucks for a few hours.
Yin Chang | May 19th, 2009 at 12:33 am