Motherhood and Business, Mostly

I woke up to the wind blowing so hard it sounded like it was trying to take the roof off the house altogether, or at least bully it into falling off by itself. I also woke up to some small person in the bathroom, although whoever-it-was was trying very hard to be quiet, so points for that.

I got up, drank water, went to the bathroom, washed my face. I put in my contact lenses. I exercised (for only about five minutes), I made a pot of coffee. I drank more water.

Now I am upstairs in my robe, at my computer, and I just finished sorting my morning email. My new office – Joey’s old room – is filled with lovely morning light. The sun is shining against the trees at the edge of the road like it was a flashlight pointing at them. The sky is light-light porcelain blue, with some very long stretched-out clouds across it. People are driving and going places and getting things done, I imagine.

And I sit here, comfy in my office, at my desk, in my cozy robe, listening to my children trying to be quiet until it’s time to get up. I sit here and I dream and I wonder what is the next big thing for me, for us; I have the luxury of being awake and alive at a time of my own choosing.

I am so thankful to be here. So grateful. The world cannot contain my gratefulness.

It has taken me years to realize that my children do not have to be happy all the time, or be mirror representations of myself, to be ‘okay’ or ‘great’ or even the elusive ‘good’. I realize, now, that they are four different and unique people. Sometimes they don’t respond to life’s twisty-turny-ness the way that I would (or will). Sometimes they learn a lesson eagerly and move on joyfully. Sometimes they get stuck, can’t see their way out, and won’t listen to anyone no matter how helpful or wise. Sometimes they do the same boneheaded behavior over and over (even and especially when that behavior is a no-no around here), and can’t understand why they keep running up against it.

Sometimes they are like me, and sometimes they are wildly not-me. I only compare them to myself because I am their mother, their beginning, and all the things I taught them have made an impression somewhere upon their souls, no matter how slight. I see them as part of the canvas of my being, and it is not always easy to see them as a separate thing: a canvas all their own, pasted with fingerpaints and torn-out comics from the funny pages and the broken treasures found under beds and behind doors.

And now the point of all this ruminating is really this: I am an entrepreneur who is also a mother and a wife. Being an entrepreneur - master of my own island domain, creator of my own crown – means that my life is lived as a stunningly vivid example of how to do business (and how not to do business). Living this example-life in my home, day in and out, where the little-people-becoming-big-people see me every day and can observe with their spider senses how I am doing, means two great and terrible things.

1. It means that their idea of freelancing, or self-employment, or entrepreneurship, is fully informed by what they see me doing; and 2. it means that their idea of motherhood is fully informed by how they see me acting.

Do I behave like this is all too hard? Do I complain about my clients? Do I complain about household chores or grocery trips or getting their schoolwork together? Do I whine about the time I have to spend working, and spend all my waking moments inside my office, ignoring the world (and the people who are my world)?

Or, do I model rising to the challenge? Do I show them that it’s possible to be a really great business-person AND be a really great mother? Do I use positive language about my work and my clients and my never-ending task lists? Do I express my joy in my job, through my words and my body language? Do I put everything aside to take care of whoever needs it, when my mommy-ness is needed? Do I cook dinner for everyone and read stories to them and go for walks together?

When people say that their children made them better people, they were truth-telling indeed. There is no deeper soul-truth than this: my children make me better. And in so doing, I am able to shape their betterness as well.