The author (middle) with her two sons says she now has regrets about her work-life balance when her kids were younger.
Courtesy of Julie Peck.
I got married in April of 2000 after living with my now-ex-husband for several years. At the time, I made a good living from my job in advertising, and like many of my colleagues, I'd been doing freelance work on the side for years.In 2001, my husband and I became proud homeowners, one of the many Americans who used a subprime mortgage in the early 2000s to finance our first home, all my idea. We even leased a new car that year.Then came 9/11. Amidst the tragedy, the advertising industry ground to a halt. When I got laid off that year, I took the opportunity to start my own marketing consultancy. I'd been talking about going out on my own for years, and it seemed like the right time to take the plunge; after all, we were talking about starting a family, and working for myself would give me the flexibility I'd need as a mother.I thought it was a foolproof plan. Now, more than two decades later, I look back and see how naive I was.I started a business and our family simultaneouslyAs I got my business off the ground, with all the stops and starts that entailed, I soon found myself incubating another project: In late Spring 2002, I got pregnant with our first child. My first pregnancy was eventful to say the least, but after spending most of the last three weeks in the hospital, I delivered a beautiful baby boy.There is no "right" or "perfect" time to have a baby. I firmly believe that. However, I either overlooked or blocked out one key fact that's important for solopreneur moms without a financial cushion: Even as I was healing from major abdominal surgery, and getting to know this actual human being I'd just brought into the world, I'd still need to be earning money. We had bills to pay. As a result, the memory that's seared into my mind from my first days at home with my gorgeous newborn boy is of sitting in my bed furiously typing away on my laptop on one side of my body while simultaneously nursing him on the other. I'd cradle both the baby and the computer on my nursing pillow at all hours of the day and night in an effort to be productive; that, looking back on it, bordered on lunacy.
