By Linda Attram
For many mothers in business, we experience mum guilt at some point in our journey of motherhood. The emotion of guilt taps into our subconscious when we least expect it and sometimes when it does not show up we go looking for it. Mum guilt can prevent you from pursuing your goals, dreams, and aspirations and affect your home and business relationships.
Mothers who are in business face many challenges juggling their time between home and business life and this can put immense pressure and demands, both physically and emotionally in these areas. The emotion of mum guilt is not as a result of an action but one of an emotion that is created. Children are super resilient which we sometimes forget and we create these thoughts, feelings, and emotions connected to our actions usually around the calculated hours of time we spend in pursuit of running a business and creating a desired lifestyle and wealth.
As a mother of three children and businesswoman for over 20 years, I have experienced mum guilt, particularly in the early years of motherhood, there was a time in my life when my husband and I were rapidly building our property portfolio and we would regularly on weekends, for about a year, due to financial constraints at that time could not afford maintenance staff or cleaning staff so we would dress up in our overalls and decorate and clean our apartments whilst our kids sat on a rectangular mat with tassels in the middle of the floor. My eldest was around five at the time and had the responsibility of looking after her 20-month-old sister and two-month-old brother whilst on the mat. I would ensure they would have refreshments, including stored breast milk for my youngest , as well as snacks, books, and toys for my other children to entertain themselves but they could not move from the mat as the properties were not clean. At that time I felt like the ‘Worst Mum in the World’ for selfishly pursuing my dreams and aspirations of building wealth and creating financial freedom at the detriment of spending quality time playing with my children and having memorable days out.
Mum guilt is a common feeling for many mothers in business and this guilt is often felt personally through our motherly instinct and emotion to consistently nurture those around us. It can also be difficult to admit to ourselves and those around us as it can make you feel like you are not good enough or unable to cope with the demands of being a great mum and a great businesswoman at the same time. If you are experiencing any type of mum guilt as a businesswoman, my advice would be to look back and review those experiences, consider what is it that you are feeling guilty about, is there a real impact on your children or is it just your fears that is creating that emotion. Perhaps your feeling a sense of overwhelm, low self-esteem or lack of confidence which may lead you to think that you are not good enough because you have so many balls to juggle around the home and business which is enabling mum guilt to show up.
Consider how mum guilt appears in your life, what impact is it having on your business results, your well being and is this affecting your relationship with your children and your loved ones? Looking back now at my children they were absolutely fine and they rarely complained and I think they quite enjoyed regularly visiting different properties and having the opportunity to play in different homes (albeit from a mat) whilst watching mummy and daddy decorate houses. Mum guilt made me feel worthless, stressed and a disappointment but looking back these are all emotions I created in my own head as my children were absolutely fine.
The key point here is when you are feeling those intense feelings of mum guilt is to consider is that emotion connected only to you and/or is it really having a detrimental impact on your children? Yes you may sometimes miss out on the final kiss goodnight because you just needed 5 more minutes to finish off that email or you may have missed the note in your child’s school book bag that tells you about a non-uniform day and your child turns up in their school uniform or you may have even forgotten to help them bake a cake for the school bake-off! You are human and we all make mistakes. Your children will learn so many life skills as they watch you and your business to grow. One great tip when your feeling mum guilt because you may feel that you are spending more time on your business rather than your children is to find things that your children can help you with, get them engaged in your business – really simple tasks can make all the difference especially when you see their eyes light up because they feel like a grown-up helping mummy. For example, you could get them (age dependant) during school holidays to enter actions in your diary, filing, make basic phone calls or even be your timekeeper to remind you to have a break for lunch or coffee.
Mothers in Business face many challenges when dealing with managing home and business life. Mothers who run their own businesses are a great inspiration to their children and it’s important that mothers recognise their value in shaping their children’s future.
I help mothers to be more and to achieve more by creating the life they desire and deserve. If you would like to improve your results in your business and home life but feel there is something holding you back whilst juggling between the two and you want better business results without feeling trapped by mum guilt, overwhelm, low self-esteem or any other many challenges mothers in business face, come along to our amazing 2-day event delivered by three amazing mothers. They are highly successful business owners, as well as mothers, and will share their experiences and success strategies with you to help you create the life you desire and deserve.
Curious? Come and join us on this celebration of Mother’s Day and International Women’s Day on 14th and 15th March 2020 at the Holiday Inn, Heathrow!
Linda Attram is the Founder of Mothers in Business, to connect with her, join the community or read their latest blog posts, follow www.mothersinbusiness.co.uk.
Buy One Ticket and Get One For Free on Eventbrite, you will also get a FREE copy of my digital book or audiobook taken from my Story in the ‘Amazon Best Seller’ that I co-authored as part of the Global Woman Book Project 2019: The Mind of a Female Entrepreneur – How to Succeed and Act in Business.
