After a long day at work, you’re looking forward to spending some time with your family, but instead you find yourself getting distracted by more customer comments on your company’s Facebook page. You may be enjoying some well-deserved downtime with your kids, but as the sole owner of your business, you feel a need to show your commitment and customer focus by replying quickly – it’s only one more message after all, right?
This situation can become all too common for entrepreneurial moms, who may feel like they must choose between keeping their business running smoothly or spending quality and uninterrupted time with their children. Our own data supports this. We recently carried out a survey of American moms who run their own businesses, and nearly eight in ten (77 percent) say they feel guilty about not being able to spend more time with their family and children.
Running a small business can feel like a 24/7 job, where customer service issues or large orders can come at a moment’s notice and temporarily throw your life out of balance. But it’s time to drop the guilt. Our research shows that running a business can have a positive impact on your parenting skills, despite the heavy workload.
Based on our experiences of working with entrepreneurial moms, here are some common tips they shared on how you can leverage the benefits of running a business to improve family life:
Be a role model
While it’s natural to feel guilty for not being able to spend as much time with your children as you’d like to, a lot of this guilt comes from your own perception of how you’re managing your work-life balance. If you took a step back and listened to what your children really say about their business owner mom, you’d realize how much of a role model you are to them.
To recognize entrepreneurial moms and everything they do, Vistaprint recently filmed a few moms talking about the reality of being a parent and business owner. What stood out in the video is how much of an inspiration these moms are to their children, due to how hard they work and the positive contributions they are making in their communities and beyond.
What’s more, some of the children are even inspired to follow in their mom’s footsteps, and become business owners themselves. Our data backs this up, as nine in ten moms (89 percent) also think they’re encouraging their children to be entrepreneurial.
Even if your children decide to do something else, your experience as a business owner can give them the skills they need to succeed in life. Simply observing you hard at work is likely to instill a strong work ethic in your kids, as they’ll realize there are no short cuts to success.
Share your life lessons
As a small business owner you wear many hats having to deal with everything from finance and operations to marketing and customer service. This gives you a brilliant work ethic and business mind – characteristics and skills that you can pass onto your children.
Almost every business-owning mom we polled (94 percent) said they believe running a business leaves a positive impression on their kids, teaching them important qualities such as responsibility, work ethic, leadership, self-confidence and commitment.
The key is to use your experiences of running a business, both good and bad, as valuable life lessons for your children. Share any examples of challenges you’re facing and how you plan to tackle them. Not only will this help your kids better understand what you do (and why it can keep you so busy), when they see and hear about you working hard, being a leader and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, they should feel inspired to do the same.
Involve your children
While observing and hearing about your journey as a business owner is an excellent learning experience for your children, there’s no substitute to putting their skills into practice.
Your children are likely to be interested in your business, and you can draw on their enthusiasm to help you make better decisions. You could ask your older children for social media advice or help with your website. But your younger kids could help too, as regardless of their age, they’re still likely to have an opinion on your products and designs.
Your kids may even provide the inspiration for your business idea, which was the case for two fifths (39 percent) of the moms we surveyed.
Embrace the flexibility
It’s also key to schedule quality time with your children where you aren’t thinking about work and instead focusing on having fun, catching up and enjoying new experiences. After all, stress, lack of time for personal interests and tiredness all feature among the top five biggest challenges facing entrepreneurial mothers, and taking time out is key to addressing these.
Although running a business can present unexpected challenges, the upside is that you can have more control over your schedule. Rather than feeling constrained by 9-5 working hours and travel time to and from work, you have the freedom to work on your business when it best suits you and from the comfort of your own home. Depending on the type of business you run, you may also be in a better position to hand pick the types of projects or clients you want to work on. This could allow you to focus on the work you’re most passionate about rather than striving for a full and busy schedule.
These more flexible working hours mean you can spend time with your children when they’re available, and work around them rather than feel like the two are competing for your time. To make the most out of the flexibility that comes with running a business, entrepreneurs need to be adaptable. Life is unpredictable and sometimes you’ll need to spend more time on either work or with your family. But the lack of office hours or a boss at least makes it easier to own your schedule and manage your work and life priorities in a way that best suits you.
Both running a business and raising children requires considerable love, attention and hard work. While this will feel overwhelming at times, the lessons you learn from running a business also complement your parenting skills and help to strengthen the bond with your kids.
