What Nobody Tells You About Being a Founder and a Mother

Sept 23, 2026 · 5 min read

When I told people I was going to build a company while raising my daughter alone, the responses were well-meaning but consistent: "That's going to be really hard." Some were less kind about it. "That's impossible," a few said. "You'll have to choose."

I chose not to listen.

The Assumption Nobody Questions

There's a widespread belief in entrepreneurship that the best founders are those who can give everything to the company — every hour, every thought, every ounce of energy. The mythology of the founder who sleeps in the office, who has no life outside the startup, who treats building as a form of total devotion.

This mythology is not only unrealistic for most people. For mothers, it's often used as a reason to doubt us before we've even started.

What Motherhood Actually Taught Me

Being a mother — especially a single one — has made me a better founder in ways I could not have predicted. Not in spite of the difficulty, but because of it.

Parenting teaches you to make decisions under pressure, with incomplete information, when the stakes feel impossibly high.

It teaches you to hold a long-term vision — who you want this child to become — while managing an endless succession of immediate crises. It teaches you to love something fully even when it is exhausting, even when it takes more than you thought you had.

Those are exactly the skills that build companies.

Two Things That Need You Completely

Every morning I wake up and show up for two things that need me completely. My daughter. And Lhamour. For a long time, I saw this as a tension to manage. Now I see it differently: each one makes me better at the other.

The patience I practice as a mother shows up in how I lead my team. The creativity I bring to building a brand shows up in how I parent. The resilience I've developed doing both has become the foundation everything else rests on.

Don't let anyone define your constraints for you. Your whole life — all of it, including the parts that others see as liabilities — is professional development. The people who told me it was impossible had never done both.

Join the conversation

What part of your life outside of work has made you stronger in business? I'd genuinely love to know — leave a comment below.