What Working Mothers Actually Want From Life and Business

Working mothers are constantly told what they should want—more balance, more ambition, more hustle, more gratitude. But rarely are we asked what we actually want.

In this episode of Raising Hustle, we talk about the real desires of working moms—beyond titles, income, and productivity—and how those wants shape the way we build our lives, businesses, and families.

This is a heart-led conversation about:

• Real flexibility, not performative balance
• Time that feels like it’s truly yours
• Growth without burnout
• Partnership that feels equal
• Support without guilt
• Money that brings peace, not pressure

If you’ve been chasing someone else’s version of success, this episode is your reminder: You’re allowed to design a life and business that actually fit.

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This episode is sponsored by FM Bookkeeping 💛

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Whether you’re behind, confused, or just tired of carrying the mental load of your numbers, FM Bookkeeping is here to help you feel grounded and in control again.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Raising Hustle, the unfiltered podcast for the moms who are building empires with babies on their hips and grits in their hearts. I'm your host, Mariel Fry, bookkeeper by trade, hustler by nature, and mama by choice. Around here we're raising kids, raising hell, and raising the bar. If you're tired of choosing between nap time and next level dreams, this is your space. Let's redefine what it means to have it all on our own damn terms. Hey mamas, welcome back to Raising Hustle, where I'm so excited to talk about what working mothers actually want from life and business. Because we are constantly told what we should want. We should want more balance, ambition, gratitude, hustle, and patience. But rarely are we asked what we actually want. Because this episode is about naming the real desires of working mothers beyond the titles, beyond the income, beyond the productivity, and how those wants shape the way we build careers, businesses, and families. Because this isn't anti-work or anti-family, this is about actual alignment, like real alignment of what we want. Because what I hope you gain after this episode is clarity around your own desires and your permission slip to design the life and business in a way that feels so fit and amazing for you. Number one, flexibility that's real, not performative. So as a mom, right, an entrepreneur, I have a lifestyle where I control my schedule. And it, yes, I work from home, and I'm I'm always on my phone and email, etc., while I'm with my child. But you do want some kind of control over that, right? Especially a type A mama like myself. I do want some kind of control. I do want to feel like I can control my schedule, I can manipulate my schedule, and I can do the things that feel aligned to me. Because there is a difference between being flexible and available. I am flexible, especially with my child. I'm flexible with how I use and manage my time, but I try not to be so available and I try to have some kind of boundaries. And look, that can be hard for a life that feels very blurred and gray, and you're working from home. It can be blurred to say, well, I'm not going into an office at five and, you know, at nine and I'm leaving at five. And then I'm laptop shut, I'm not working. So we need to be very clear on the difference of being flexible, right? And being agile with our time, but we also need to have boundaries on availability, right? Like for me, I really do have quote unquote more office hours, typically on Tuesdays. And at some point, I'm going to be opening up Wednesdays or Thursdays. And that's my time to do deep work in my business, where I am not chasing a child, I am not feeding a child, I am not changing a diaper. Like I am truly available and aligned with my business and working just as much as I try to be truly available for my child and really being there for them too. So I really think it comes down to understanding that boundary and just having the boundary, period. I think we try to do it all or we try to be nice, but we need to not be so nice sometimes. Of course, being nice, but I think there has to be a boundary on your time and your availability and what that looks like. Because at the end of the day, for me, I want freedom in my life, but I also want success. And I don't want that to equate to more time, right? I want my time to be spent doing the things I want to do. And usually that means spending more time with my child or making more time to do the things I enjoy and not trying to feel like I'm in a hamster wheel surviving. Number two, time that feels like it's truly yours. So just like I mentioned before, I want this uninterrupted time with work and family. And that's why for me personally, we could talk into rhythms and blocks and all of that. Blocks work for me because I'm able to be very clear on okay, I'm hiring a babysitter from nine to three on Tuesday. That's my deep work time. That's my time where I book meetings, I schedule appointments, I have to go out to a lunch, or maybe I do a happy hour, or whatever that looks like. That is my deep work day. I don't call anybody unless it's related to work, I unless I'm in the car or something. But that is my deep work time, whether it's recording a podcast, working on books, working with my team, discovery call with new clients, whatever that looks like for me. Likewise, other days, especially Mondays and Fridays, I really try to not work so much, right? Busy season, it depends, but especially slower season. Mondays and Fridays, I really try not to work too much. And I want to focus on being with my family. I want to be with my child. And to me, that means so much to me because I want to create these memories, right? And not have to let time pass me by and wonder, oh, I spent so much time working. I didn't get to enjoy these moments. And it's hard being a business owner, your phone rings or something happens. And yes, do I pick up? More than likely, yes. But I do try to be mindful of that time and what that looks like and to say, hey, client, I'm happy to help you. Can we work on this? Can you give us a few days? And that gives me a little bit of a breather and setting expectations, which I think is really important because I don't, I feel like you're constantly switching on and off. It's like I have the mom brain and the entrepreneur brain and the entrepreneur brain and the mom brain. And it's trying to go back and forth on both all the time. And for anyone who may not understand, it could be really hard because you are with your kid, but you're thinking about your business. And then when you're in your business, you're thinking about your kid and you don't really win. But one of the things, like I said, I've done in my business that I feel really aligned and good about is like designing my days that reduce the mental fatigue, like having every Tuesday be an aligned day. And something I've done with human design. If you I talk about human design on this podcast because I'm obsessed with it, but it's this idea about human design where I am a pure generator. And one of the things I asked was, I am a bookkeeper and I'm a mom, and I own my own business and I can create my own hours and my own schedule. What does a typical week look like in my life as a bookkeeper and a mom? And the schedule I came out with through Chat GBT is exactly the life that I am looking to live. It was like Mondays and Fridays, like you take off. Tuesdays, Wednesdays are like deep work, and Thursdays are kind of a mix. And so that's the life I want to align myself with because it feels like I'm designing days that feel good with my schedule and that feel good with my time. And I'm not trying to sacrifice either one. I'm actually aligning both to make both work. And it's hard. There are some days where it's really hard, but I feel so good when I'm able to do that because I can have deep work days just as much as deep family days. And I know that I'm able to give a little bit of both, which feels really good. Number three, growth without burnout. So this can be hard, mamas, because a lot of times I was grown in the millennial era of boss babe, independent woman, get the job, get the career, you know, you're gonna smash it, you're gonna kill it, you're gonna do so well. But then you think about okay, if I get married and have kids, like what does that look like? And we were never really taught that. We were never taught what childcare would look like, what the cost would be, what kind of partner we would have, what kind of life we would have. And for my husband and I, the best thing we probably financially ever did was move away from family and friends because we are able to afford a nicer home and we could have potentially more than one child, right? And for us, we wanted that. We wanted to be able to build careers without having to sacrifice like a family or having a home. And that's really hard. And I think if we were to live up north, we'd have massive burnout. You know, we lived in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area. And working for corporate and having an employer would have really burnt us out a lot. And so what I have done in my business is I've wanted to create a lot of sustainability. And yes, do I want to expand and grow? Always. There's never a point where I'm never gonna have that fire in my belly that I'm not gonna want to scale. But scaling and growing looks different for everybody, especially moms with little kids. I don't have the energy or the time the way I used to network and go out. I love to go out and network. It's just not my season of life. And it's burnout for me. And I'm making a choice to be conscious about my alignment of growing that might not be what I used to think of networking. Do I think networking is a great way to grow? 100%. I think if you live in an area where there's events and networking to be gone to, go do it. Like make the effort. I think it's worth it. Right now, I have just made decisions where I'm still gonna be ambitious. It's just hard to be as ambitious. And I talk to a lot of moms, especially entrepreneurs, about this because you kind of have this, right? You you go from being pregnant in your life before a baby, and then you have a baby, and your hormones change, your life changes, like especially a woman's life. Like a man's life doesn't change that much. Not saying they don't help or do things, right? I think men these days are a lot better than like my parents' generation. But you shift and you adapt and you change. And the beautiful thing I talk to mothers who are entrepreneurs is you can scale back your business. You don't have to ride a hundred miles an hour. You could scale back, you could level up, like whatever that looks like for you, let that be a definition of enough. And that is my word for 2026. I really thought about this long and hard. And my word is enough. What is enough for you? What feels like enough? What feels aligned to you that's enough? Because we could always want more, more, more, more, more, but doesn't mean you're always happier. I joke with my clients, more money, more problems. And it's not a bad thing. It's just you have to define what enough means because burning out as a mom is so hard. Because as a mom entrepreneur, we work from home and you think, well, what do you do? Right. I'm up with my son playing, or I'm answering emails in between, or I'm doing a load of dishes, or I'm folding laundry, and I'm running a house, I'm running, having a baby, and I'm running a business. Your burnout is so real, and you can only pull in so many directions because you're one person. And so fine, maybe you can't grow to be a million-dollar year business. And that's like, okay. It's not no now, and it doesn't mean no forever. It just means no in this season of life. And just understand like letting go of that ambition now isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean it goes away either. Because you, at the end of the day, have to define what enough is for you. Like, what is your cap? What is your max? You cannot think as we like, I don't hate the term that women are superwomen. Like we do amazing things and we're incredible. But a lot of us are incredible because we have a team. A lot of us are incredible because we have people around us. And I know for me, I will never sit here and tell you I'm amazing. Like, I appreciate when people say that, but like I always say on this podcast constantly, I have babysitters, I have some help, I have cleaners, like I'm not gonna do this alone, and neither should you, mamas, because you have to defy enough in your life and your business, because you are gonna get burnt out. You are going to cry. You are gonna be upset, you are gonna be frustrated, and you have to like let live and let go a little bit in order to be the best version of yourself. Number four, respect in both worlds. So it's interesting, mamas, because I want to talk about working for somebody and then being on my own. Because when I worked in corporate and I worked for other people, I was always like a coordinator. I never grew anything more than that. And not that people didn't respect me or give me credibility. It just felt like I was always this like low-leveled man of totem pole. Like I'd always was worker bee, could never grow, could never go anything further, never made my career anything more than what it was. And then became this business owner. And all of a sudden, I grew credibility and respect. And like I had employers actually reaching out to me to want to hire me, which is so crazy and something I never thought of. And then it does happen. There's plenty of entrepreneurs who do great work and they might get a W-2 opportunity and they can't turn it down, benefits, 401k insurance, et cetera. And I would say in motherhood, not that we don't get respect, it doesn't feel as respected unless you pay a babysitter or a nanny, unless you pay an au-pair, right? Unless you pay a daycare center. Then it's respected. But it's like you being a stay-at-home mom and being home with your kids. It's almost like it's not. And we want that credibility because I believe in entrepreneurship, we're we're gaining that credibility and respect and professionalism. But why aren't we gaining that as moms? Not saying we're not getting respect, but it doesn't feel like the same kind of respect. Because double standards are real. And I love the Instagram reels of guys who take their kids to the grocery store. It's like, oh my God, dad, what a great job. And like moms do it, and like you just bet an eye. Or when dads cook a meal, oh my gosh, look at dad. He's cooking a meal for his son or feeding his son. Or when he bathes his kid, oh my God, he's bathing his kid. But when moms do that, it like doesn't matter. So it can be very frustrating. But it's almost this expectation of a job that women are supposed to have automatically. And there's a big double standard. There's always gonna be a double standard in this. There's no, it's never gonna go away. I don't think so. Not in my lifetime, maybe not in yours either, but it's gonna be very hard. And I think for any mom entrepreneur or anybody working, it's hard to be taken seriously as both. Like you even look at a guy who has a family and he has pictures of his kids. It's like, oh my God, how how are your kids? How old are they? How cute are they? But if a woman has a picture of her kids, like, oh, like who's taking care of them? Like, why aren't you with them? And it's wrong. It's absolutely wrong. Women should be respected in both the home and in business equally. Period. Case closed. Like, why are we disrespecting women? Why are we making women feel like more shit than they need to feel? You're doing the best you can and you want the respect in both worlds. And it could be hard to gain that or feel like you're gaining that. But I just want you to know, Mamas, you're doing an amazing job. And if you're not getting that from anybody else, other than me telling you that today, I want to be that person. Because you want to be taken seriously in both worlds. You want to get respect in both worlds. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because you want to be visible in both worlds too. You want to be visible at home so your kids see you, but you want to be visible in the workforce. Whether you work for somebody or working for yourself, you want to feel visible in that. So there's nothing wrong with wanting either one. Number five, partnership that actually feels equal. So mental load is very real. At some point, if the podcast came out of this or not, I'll probably go a lot deeper into mental load and the mental labor and the mental shift that women go through, because shit's hard. And to put that all in yourself without speaking up and communicating, so many women feel this way. They don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to upset their partner. So they do everything. And when their husband's upset why they're tired, then you can, it's hard for you to be like, oh, well, I did all these things and you literally didn't help. And I think there has to be more conversation about wanting equal mental load. We don't live in a world, at least I grew up, and so did my husband grow up with moms staying at home and dad's work all day. So moms really took care of the house. They did the planning, they did the coordinating, the appointments, the cleaning, the cooking, all of it. Now we live in a world where it's two-income household. Mothers who are working are still doing so much of the load at home, too. So you're fried. I'm fried. Like I go to bed at seven, eight o'clock because my brain, I'm brain dead. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. And it's really hard. It's hard to explain the mental load to someone unless you're in it. And I think it really doesn't break down to tasks. Like I can write a list of tasks to my husband, but I think what women really want more than anything else is ownership. Just like at a job, you take ownership of certain tasks. Like these are your tasks, and like you own those tasks. You own that. That's what we want in the home. I want my husband to own, right? Like he sees dishes. You're gonna own doing those dishes. You see the garbage, you're gonna own taking that garbage out. So you're gonna own those things. And that's what women want. We want you to take ownership. We want you to actually like do the thing that you say you're gonna do and just like make shit happen. Women make shit happen every day, 24-7, all the time. We just want men to do the same for whatever they're able to do. It's like if you want to cook dinner every night, like that, you own that. If you want to take do bathtime every night, you own that. Or if we take turns, like, let's talk about it. But there has to be better communication. And I think so many couples really struggle with that after kids. I know my husband and I did. Like we used to communicate probably better-ish before a child. Not saying we don't communicate, but I think it's a little bit different. And I try to be very clear and direct, sometimes too clear, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I don't want to feel like a nag. I don't want to bother my husband. He worked all day. But it's like, yeah, I worked all day too. I had stuff going on. So it's a it's a tricky balance, but I would say the biggest thing is just like a real partnership. You are a team. And some days I feel maybe I'm not a team with my husband. Maybe I'm just frustrated or I'm angry or hormonal or tired or whatever. But at the end of the day, my husband and I are a team, just like your partner, you, and your partner are a team. And you really have to work together and be together in that. And that's really hard, especially hard days where you're struggling or you're tired or you're emotional or whatever it is. It's so hard. And so I think it's just really letting it out and communicating and just not being afraid to speak up because so many women are. And mamas, I don't want you to be that person. Number six, space to be more than one thing. So, of course, we want multiple roles. Like, as women, I think it's hard when you, especially stay-at-home moms, when you really want to do something. But like, what do you do? How do you make money? How do you stay at home and do a side hustle? Or how do you stay at home and start a business? It's it's extremely challenging. And you still want to be who you are. Like, I still want to be Marielle. I still want to be me. And I don't want to let go of my identity of who I am before a child, but you are different. It doesn't mean you've changed this insane person, but you are always going to be different forever. But it doesn't mean, right? Like I'm never gonna let that be a thing in my life. Like, I still want to be me, but also a mom too. And I think we can coexist that and make those things combined. Okay, maybe I can't go to as many networking events. Maybe I can't go out to dinner as often. Maybe I can't see people as much as I like. It doesn't mean that I'm not still me. And I've just learned that I gotta let that shit go. Like, I'm not gonna be perfect in this. Perfectionism does not exist in motherhood. And if you think it does, like, good luck. But my experience, not at all. I've just decided to let pressure go. I've decided to let expectations go. I've decided that I'm not, I'm just not gonna be who everyone expects me to be. And I'm not gonna try to be something I'm not. I think the truth is being a modern mother is so hard. I read a lot about like millennial moms, how we are the most stressed era of motherhood out there. And I forgot the statistic, but it's crazy how we are working more than we've ever worked. We are home with our kids more than we're ever home with them. And we are taking on so much more than we ever have in our life between work, the house, the kids, everything. It is complex. It is challenging, it's a spider web. It is so challenging and hard. But, mamas, I encourage you to find a little self-care in this too. Like, take a pause if you need. I see a lot of moms who will like work after maternity leave, maybe leave their job for a little bit, and like maybe just take the time to figure it out if your income and your bills allow you to, right? And I think that's a hard thing for a woman to give up her financial independence. It's something I never want to do, but that's personal choice. Some women want that, or maybe you need a pause to figure out your next move. Either way, there's nothing wrong with any decision that you make. I just believe back to alignment. Like you have to be aligned with doing the thing you want to do and really thinking about what you want to do and not putting insane pressure to be like perfect or to have it all figured out because none of us have this shit figured out. Trial and error, baby. That is what raising children is. That is what raising ourselves, raising hustle. We are raising hell to figure out who we are and what we want to be. And every damn day we work 1% to be a little bit better. And whatever that looks like for you, own that shit. And I'm proud of you for even trying to figure out in this complex modern day age of motherhood. Number seven, support systems that don't depend on guilt. So support is so important in motherhood. I really believe in this wholeheartedly. And support does not mean coming from like a mother or a mother in law. Those are great support systems. I'm not saying that. But there is nothing wrong with saying you need help. Like, let's let's start there. Moms like to admit we don't need help. No, no, we all need help. Let's be clear. We all need some kind of help. Even if you Don't want to admit it, it's deep down, you're in the thick of it, you need help. And what does help look like? What does help look like? Child care, we'll start with that. Because childcare is something that unless you are fully staying at home and you are not depending or relying on anybody, you need help. For me, that was a big breakthrough when I worked with Shine SheEo. Shout out to Sarah, she's amazing. I really had to get clear on like, okay, I need a dedicated day a week to have a babysitter. And I trialed with a babysitter, I loved it, and I've continued on since. That has saved my sanity and it has saved my life. Having at least a day a week of childcare. And again, I will probably up it to two, potentially three, but I'm easing into this because that's what works for me. But I have no shame, I have no guilt because I am home with my child personally. And I know he's getting the best care. And I am home, right? So God forbid something happens. I am here. So it's fine. But if I go out for a little bit, I also have somebody here in my house and I feel aligned with that energy. But just know if you do work full-time or you have to send your kid to daycare, or maybe you want to send your kid to daycare, there's nothing wrong with that either. Like everybody has to do what's best for them and their family. And I don't shame or discredit or make anyone feel like shit about it. Like you have to do what's best for you. And just wanting help in general, by the way. Like, I want to go to this too, because I just want help cleaning my house. I don't want to scrub a bathroom. I'm not scrubbing a toilet. Like, I'm just not doing it. Right. Like, I'll change sheets and I'll clean that, but I there's certain things I'm not doing. And I want the help. I need help. I need help with certain things. Like I would love help with like meal prepping occasionally. I would love help with just anything. And even in my business, I ask for help. And I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna outsource the things I don't want to do to focus on the things I enjoy. And that is huge. You need the infrastructure in both entrepreneurship and your like your business, but also your life and your motherhood. There's nothing wrong with that. Building systems and building support. I think when you come to your business, right, the support I have is contractors who shout out to them. They are amazing. I'm so grateful to have a team. I hire SEO people, I hire marketing people, I hire people in my business to do the things I'm not good at. Likewise, in my home, I hire the support of babysitters and cleaners. That is my support that helps me. And I have worked at Charleston Postpartum Support Group. I absolutely love and adore them. I think they're a great group. And if you have something similar to you in your local area that you can meet other new moms and bond and connect, building these support systems is everything. And I want to just be very clear on this when I talk about support. Support is coming from like more strength. We have more strength and more confidence when we have support. I think when I know the most vulnerable times I've ever felt since having my son is not having support and feeling alone and feeling lonely and feeling like I had nobody there for me. Sure, I could call my mom, and that's very helpful. But it's something to be said about someone physical, like just sitting with you and making time go by and having conversation. Like that reframe to have that strength and support is everything. So, Mamas, I encourage you to find support systems that align with you and your life, whether it's having a mom friend come over and help, a family member, someone you trust, anything, any support in your life will just make you feel that much better. And like just don't be afraid to ask for help. It's really hard. You don't want help, but I have learned to be okay, if not thrive, off of wanting help. So it's helped me tremendously, and I hope that helps you too. Number eight, money that brings security, not just status. So you need money. Let's be real. I am a bookkeeper by trade, and I was not great with money. I used to spend a lot of money, got myself in stupid debt, and fortunately I've paid a lot of that back, and I'm really not in any debt. Very little. Something that most people would be like, yeah, you're fine. But I really just want financial peace in my life. I am putting money into retirement. I am saving money for my son. I really want to have financial peace and financial clarity. I want to feel like I can be in a really, really good split, like space in my life to have money. I never want money to be a dictator of the way I live my life. And what my belief is on this is stability, but having like a money foundation, I talk about this with bookkeeping, where when you have good bookkeeping, right, and clean books as a foundation, you springboard to elevate to whatever you need to do. File your taxes with the CPA is obvious. Working with the fractional CFO, looking to get a loan, looking to get a grant, right? Like even somewhere like I have clients who go for lines of credit. Like you need a profit and loss statement, you need a balance sheet, you need tax returns, like you need clean numbers and clean books. Otherwise, nobody's going to take you seriously. You're going to get a higher interest rate and shit's going to hit the fan for you. Period, case closed. Just as much as personally, when you have money in your life, and look, money, you you can't bring money to the grave. But you while we're alive and living and well, money is very, very important. I believe that when you have money as your foundation to your life, you elevate. And when I talk about money, I talk about some of these pillars of like family experiences, and I'm trying to think of the third one that I thought of at this, but it's like family, experiences, and then like your health. You need money for your family to pay for bills, to pay for a home, to pay for things, right? Experience, you can go on vacations and you can travel and you can just go to a museum, go to the beach and like not feel guilty. And then your health, you need money for your health. You need money for health insurance, you need money in case you get sick and you need medicine, you need money to just feel good and give yourself nourishing food. So that stability is so important. And look, there's plenty of women out there who are stay-at-home moms who they live on one income and they figure it out and they cut a lot of costs back. There's plenty of people who live in two dual income households and they want a lot of money because they want to live a certain lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with that. But the thing I encourage you, mamas, if you are going to start a business or have a business, I work to live, I do not live to work. I feel like I repeat this a lot, but I do want to make this very clear. I work to live, I do not live to work. I want to build a business that fuels my life so I can travel and spend time with my children and go to museums and not feel guilty about that, right? And not feel guilty about spending the money or taking away time from my business, which is hard. But I do believe having the money and not having to worry about it makes your life so much more at ease. Like anybody in financial situations or financial crisis, that that is what you think about. Maybe you don't talk about it. Maybe you're too nervous to or you're embarrassed. But I know that my husband and I, like, I we could always be better. Like I believe in being happy but never satisfied. We're happy, we're okay, but I'll always want more for myself, right? Financially. Because money, I don't want money to define me, right? I want money to be a tool to elevate my life so I can go on the vacations I want to go on. So I can buy my children clothes, so I can buy my children shoes, so I can buy my kid a cake on their birthday. Like I want money to serve the purpose to do the things I want to do. And I think with that mentality, if you go with that, you're gonna feel so much better. And then you'll dictate what you want to make in your business, how much you want to take out, how you want to allocate funds and what that looks like for you. And so again, I feel money is like a security blanket. It's a solid foundation, and it just needs to level you up to do the things you want to do without feeling any kind of guilt or shame. Because money has a lot of shame and vulnerability around it, but it doesn't have to be the more we talk about it. And last but not least, permission to change the rules. So again, there's always gonna be like permission. Should I do this? Should I do that? I need to ask this. And I do almost feel like a child sometimes asking permission from my husband, hey, are you gonna be home tonight so I can go out? Or even asking a babysitter, hey, are you available so I can go to a meeting? It's always asking for some kind of permission, but I'm just deciding to letting that go a little bit, especially for careers. We are living in a world now where rules are very different. They're becoming more stay-at-home dads. And that's not, I never thought that would be a thing, but there are plenty of them and they thrive and they're happy. And just women can be breadwinners, and that's okay too. We need to let go of any idea of what we think a normal life is or what society deems. Because we need to define what our season of life looks like and what how how that makes us happy and the success we have. I want to create a life where I feel successful and thriving and I'm happy. And I need to trust my own intuition with that, just as much as you, mamas, need to too. Because you need to define what makes you come alive, your purpose, your fulfillment. I have a mommy mentor who's amazing. And I told her how it feels really hard to have a baby and a business, and I'm really challenged by it. And her kids are older, and she goes, you know, I wish I loved being a mom with my kids and staying at home, but I wish I would have done something on the side. I wish I would have done something to had that fulfillment or that kind of like gateway, so to speak, of a break to do something different. And it can feel really hard, mamas, in the season of life a littles, but I feel so fulfilled with purpose that I am doing all the things that I'm doing without trying to have guilt or shame or that I need to ask for permission to do this. Like if I want to do this, I'm gonna do this. And I give you the permission slip to do that as well. And if I can be a lead by example here, I want to be. It's why I am so passionate about sharing my story because I am not your typical entrepreneur. I came from a family from New York, New Jersey area where my parents were like, you're gonna go K through 12, you're gonna go to college, and you're gonna get a job and you're gonna be happy with 3% raise, you're gonna be happy with the insurance and like you're gonna take it and leave it. I never was taught entrepreneurship. I never felt I can allow permission. When I met my now husband, he even said I should be an entrepreneur and I laughed. I said, What would I do? And here I am, years later. I'm going into year four of my business with the recording of this podcast. And it's really exciting that I am an entrepreneur and that I have wonderful clients. And I'm able to not prove to people, I'm I'm done proving myself now, but I've been able to show my parents, right? And they've been shocked and surprised, but also really proud of what I've been able to achieve and accomplish. And even doing this with a child, they're like in shock. But if I can be the example to the next generation of you can work and you can have a family and thinking about that a little bit differently, I hope to lead by example always. Because really, what working moms actually want isn't so complicated. We really just need more alignment in our life. We need alignment for a life and a business that don't compete with each other, but that support each other. And that's what I love, mamas, about what I do is I built a life and a business that support and complement each other. Because I'm not trying to fit into someone else's versions of success. I'm designing my own just as much as you should. Because I want you to think about a few things before we take off and be done with this episode. Ask yourself what you really, really want. Not what sounds impressive or flashy, like what really aligns with you. And that's what I would tell anybody who is a mom, thinking about starting a business. What kind of lifestyle are you looking to live? How often do you want to work? What kind of money do you want to make? And there's so many breakdowns of this, but that's just the beginning. Name one change that would bring you more alignment. Is it just reading a book? Is it taking a cooking class? Is it fit like trying a different business? Like, what feels good and aligned to you? And give yourself permission to want something different because I think we grew up with so many of the stereotypes that I grew up with of like school, college, work, right? And that's it. There was no room to think about fantasy or travel or romanticizing relationships and what children could look like. We need to think more strategically. And we need to allow ourselves and give ourselves permission to think outside the box and to think differently. Because when working mothers stop chasing expectations and start building alignment, every single thing changes. Thanks so much, mamas, for listening. This is just the beginning. Subscribe now to Raising Hustle and get ready for raw stories, real talk, and unapologetic ambition. We're showing up messy, loud, and all in. Because success doesn't wait for quiet. Let's raise our voices, our businesses, and our babies together.