My 4-year-old daughter fell asleep during this year’s fireworks. This is the daughter that stopped napping 2 years ago and didn’t sleep a wink during our 21-hour road trip. Yet, during the loud booms of one firework after another, I look over and there she is fast asleep in my husband’s arms.
I fought the desire to wake her up. After all, we’d stayed up so late to make this happen and I’d been building up the anticipation for days. Then I fought the feeling of guilt that I was a bad mom for keeping a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old up for the fireworks when they were obviously tired enough to sleep. Then I gave in and decided to snuggle up with my half-asleep 2-year-old and simply enjoy the fireworks myself.
After all, it had been 5 years since I’d seen them, always putting my children’s sleep and comfort ahead of my desire to go out and see the fireworks.
I see a lot of mamas today talking about how their children are their “why” behind their online business. While I definitely believe your children can be part of your why and your desire to show up as a mom in a certain way will impact the type of business you create, your children absolutely cannot be your entire why.
Your why has to come from YOU, from somewhere deep inside, not touched by anyone else. Not your parents. Not your partner. Not your children.
This is why the first component of a momstyle business is your creative spirit. That’s what lights you up. That’s what drives you. That’s why you choose to show up the way you do inside your business. You might think of this as your passion or calling. It’s why I chose first to start a blog about business analysis. And it’s why I chose to start the journey you are part of here at Momstyle Your Business.
The second is freedom and flexibility. That’s the piece that enables you to show up as you choose as a mom.
The third is profitability, which gives you the financial resources to make decisions from an empowered place, rather than one of constraint and need. Options like absorbing the cost of a virtual assistant, in-home child care, and housekeeping become viable.
If you’ve been believing that your children are your entire why, I’d challenge you to re-evaluate. Look at exactly what aspect of mothering and your children is driving you, and towards what. Then take personal responsibility for what you are doing above and beyond that, for you and only you.
There are dozens of ways that we neglect ourselves as mothers. Let’s not add to that problem by shifting the burden onto our children of why we do what we do in our businesses. For sure, becoming a mother and raising daughters has inspired me to show up in a completely different way, but they are not my entire why.
