A cautionary Tale from an Exhausted entrepreneur, Mother, Wife and daughter

I spent four days traveling in a car from San Francisco airport to the Redwood Forest in California with my youngest son who is 15 years old.

It was an interesting and eye-opening road trip for me because it was the first time I was able to spend some alone time with my youngest and last child. He is my most wild and clever one. He came of age during the pandemic where everything shut down: schools, gyms, tutoring, restaurants, neighborhood events, in-person relationships, community events, extracurricular activities, sports, everything went away. And for those two plus years he spent behind a screen, he lost some of his genius, and creative curiosity, that the screens snatched away and locked up his imagination, hopefully it won’t be gone forever. For now, screens dominate his thoughts and eyes, as he's entering his junior year of high school.

But I'm not really sharing a story today to talk about the negative impact, stress and mental health of my youngest son–which I believe IS a result of the immersive technology brought on by the pandemic. I want to share my story about what it's like to be a mother, with an abrupt and dark awakening during the pandemic, running a business and being a wife, in what I would consider the most pressing, challenging, and testing times of my entire life so far. I say this, knowing that there are other people that are unwell, fighting for their lives, in the middle of war, have recently lost a job or a parent, or a child, or maybe they've even lost their mind. But I do want to suggest that being a mother and an entrepreneur and a wife at the same time in the United States of America is crushing. Emotionally, physically, and spiritually crushing and it keeps your life in a state of the repeating emergence of looming emergencies that never get fixed. It's difficult to keep up any momentum or stamina, in an environment of constant challenge, questioning, and frankly doubt. Doubt not only about yourself, but doubt, disappointment and disparagement from everyone around you, and your requirement to constantly prove your worth, yourself, abilities and skills with no guaranteed rate of return.

I'm a person that has never believed that I have imposter syndrome as it is commonly defined as “the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high-performing in external, objective ways.” Instead, I would like to redefine imposter syndrome as the realization that maybe you ARE actually mediocre, average or perhaps even below average. There's this concept and idea that you're supposed to be superior and top-of-the-line and perfect and always operating at 150% or over performing and over delivering, hence when you are not, you are a fraud, a faker and a taket. These things are standards that are unreachable and not sustainable, especially the context of being a mother too, with a small business or as an entrepreneur. Anyone that tells you you can do anything even if you have children and if you have children and you're not doing it it's just an excuse that you never want to do it in the first place–I'd really like to see them try! 

I look back over the years with the understanding that I've had to work for myself in order to have children. I am not a candidate to be a mother of small children working in a corporate environment. Those are different types of super women with emotional armor that I have never wore or owned–I am just not one of them. So for any everyday middle- or working-class entrepreneur woman that is on her own with a child or more, I just want to be one the person to commend YOU. 

Give you all the flowers and all the music and all the hugs and everything to let you know that you're not alone. There are so many of us out here that are feeling excruciating, painful pressure, and we don't really have anybody to talk to about it. We don't have corporate mental health services. We don't have a single person that we can rely on because everyone is fighting for their own lives. But I do know from my own listening strategies, research and my marketing develoment, that there are so many women with children working on their own just like you and me. They are flying under the radar, and scraping their way to hold on to hope and seeking ways to earn. And even though you might feel like you're unemployable, because you've been out of the workforce for a very long time in the effort to raise healthy, confident, children, even in a pandemic…and heck, maybe you truly are unemployable in the traditional sense, please realize that your skills ARE transferable, they CAN be deployed in many other ways, whether you resign yourself to pivoting to work for someone else or you continue to work for yourself. 

You just have to keep telling yourself this over and over and over again: Your skills are valid and transferable. 

You are exhausted, and spiritually bereft, but you have to keep grinding and keep trying and keep moving ahead. 

Because no one is going to help you go forward. Not a single person. You have to help yourself. There is a famous saying that the Lord helps those who help themselves. 

You've got to be number one to YOU and you don't always have to show perfection and strength in front of your children. 

You have to show your children that you're human because it shows you are real and not full of social media lies, and instead you have grit and perseverance and will find a f*cking way to make sh*t work.

This idea that a small business owner and entrepreneur mother has to be strong and say “I'm a strong woman, I can do everything!” is just a way to make you work more, and get even more exhausted than you already are so you can’t be free.

Anyway, I'm sharing my story because I am reading, and hearing and learning so much more about women like me and how little support we have to really thrive. What does it take to raise a fully financed and healthy child in the United States and also help them get through high school and then onto college? I’m still busting balls to find out what I need to do to finally set my children free from the plantation. I’m not going back without a catfight.