Moms Starting Their Own Business

Do you have a passion, talent or an idea for a side hustle while you’re raising your babies? Do you watch Shark Tank and think of what you could pitch? Many moms have great ideas, many have taken that leap of faith to see what would happen if they just tried, and many have been successful—so you could be too!

I grew up longing to be a mother and truly hoping I would be able to be a stay-at-home mom. My experience as a SAHM has been rewarding, and I would hit repeat to do it all over again! But after a while, I also wanted something on which I could use my brain in a different way, and I wanted to add to my personal identity on top of being a mom. I have worn a few hats while keeping my gig as a SAHM, including volunteer work, leaderships teams for MOPS groups, writing for KC Parent Magazine, running my photography business and substitute teaching. I think we all have a desire to be fully known and appreciated, and sometimes those sweet-cheeked babies just can’t express the appreciation you crave, right? I think that’s where the rubber hits the road for me. Before I started my side gigs, I felt like no one knew how much I was doing at home and I missed the praise, promotions and raises that express appreciation in a regular job.

Speaking of raises, moms at home often feel like they’re not contributing to the family because they’re not bringing in any money. Though the feeling is common, recognize that you do contribute! I am just speaking from my own experience. I went to college and have a degree and now I am home raising my babies—like I hoped to—but, still, the emotions are complicated. At the outset, my husband and I discussed how we wanted to set up our family and our roles, and we have a pretty strict budget to tell our money where to go. I breastfed (free), made my own baby food, used cloth diapers to try to be economical as well as environmentally conscious, homeschooled my children for preschool and went without fancier things. I only note these as things I consciously did to attempt to contribute more to our family by not spending frivolously for our life stage. Keep in mind that we were young parents, so we were just starting out on adult life too.

When my oldest children were about 3 and 1, I met a neighbor who wrote for KC Parent Magazine, and it occurred to me that I could probably do that too. I have always loved writing and was currently composing a daily/weekly blog for our family. I emailed the editor just to see whether this would be a possibility, all the while knowing the worst she could say was no. Now, I have been writing for this amazing publication for the past eight years.

As for my photography business, again I had always loved the memories of photos and taking photos, but my children are what spurred the business side of things. Our daughter was a serious baby and would not smile at any photographer, so I started taking our own photos of her. Then, my husband gave me a nice camera for Christmas before our son was born, so I took all of his milestone photos, as well as taking our own family photos. I hesitated to start a business because it felt like all of my friends were photographers too. I didn’t really want to compete and liked supporting their ventures. When we moved out of state, I decided to go for it and see what would happen because, again, what did I have to lose? Now I have just finished up my fourth year of photographing other families and had my busiest fall yet! There’s something to be said for just going for it and seeing what happens, especially if it’s something you enjoy doing already. This year I also started substitute teaching to earn some money and help out in the school district while staying on my kids’ schedule. The schedule piece is huge for our family because my husband travels about 75 percent of each month, so I am the on-call parent at our house.

Jennifer Willis, mother of four and owner of Stitched on a Tuesday, says she was encouraged to start a business: “I am a hand embroiderer who specializes in stitching handwriting. I didn’t see a market for hand-embroidered items, so I gave a lot of my pieces away as gifts. I doubted that people would like my items, but I have some great friends and family in my life that encouraged me to go for it!”

Jenni Shields, mother of three and owner of Evie Pearl Handmade, talks about how she went for it: “I started my business about three years ago. It was shortly after my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She was starting school full-time, and I was a ball of nerves. I had to find something that I could do to take my mind off of worrying about her at all times. So I channeled my creativity to help me cope. Ever since Evie was a newborn, I have made her bows. It brought me so much joy, so I decided to make them to sell this time. My shop is named after her, Evie Pearl Handmade. When I first started my business, I was so nervous that no one was going to like or, better yet, buy my product. I continued to keep designing and sewing new bows for every holiday. That led me to starting my own Etsy shop, which led me to launching my monthly bow subscription and then designing a beautiful new website! This shop has been the biggest blessing for our family, and I’m so glad that I took a huge leap of faith three years ago when I did. It has continued to grow in ways I never expected.”

The perks for me with my side gigs have been working with people outside of my family, having a sense of pride in my own work, capturing memories for families to be able to keep forever and helping the school district. But the two main ones are being able to still be there for my kids before and after school, as well as bring in some extra money to help our family pay for Christmas, home renovations, vacations, extracurricular activities for the kids and things like that. Shields relates to the flexibility perk and says, “The perks to having my own business are being able to create my own hours. My husband is a firefighter for the city of Lenexa. Having flexible hours was important, so I can care for our three kids.” Willis says, “The most rewarding aspect of my small business has to be the messages I get when I hand stitch loved ones’ handwriting. I do a lot of memory pieces, so there is a lot of emotion to the words that I stitch. Many clients get pretty emotional when they see an old recipe brought back to life or a simple “Love, Mom” stitched in the handwriting they remember from their childhood.”

Emily Hilley, mother of two and owner of Ruby Red Custom Designs, says the perks for her are “being able to provide for my family and get extra things that we’ve wanted but couldn’t always afford. I also love to create and make special things for people and their families. The most rewarding thing is to see how excited someone is when I’m able to create exactly what they are asking for. Then they use those things during their most special occasions, first birthdays, baby announcements, holidays, etc.” Amy Shackleford, mother of three and co-owner of Purpose Play says, “We started our business to provide fun play events for kids. I still remember our first event and being shocked when people showed up. The most rewarding aspect has been the community that we have built through this business and the friendships that have formed.”

The downside of having my own side hustle is that my work as a SAHM can suffer when I am busier than our family is used to. We are still figuring things out like meal planning, cooking, cleaning and running errands or kids to appointments and extracurricular activities. The rest of the family has had to step up and help out much more, or things don’t get done and the house is a mess. Sometimes that’s okay, but sometimes it’s also important to either get help or schedule your own time off to catch up on all the other household tasks. As I’m typing this, there are three baskets of laundry to fold, two baskets to wash, papers to be gone through, meals to plan—the list is never-ending, as we all know. Honestly, sometimes this is a nice reminder for the rest of the family about how much you actually do contribute at home to keep the family running smoothly.

Work-life balance seems to be the biggest hiccup with side hustles and small businesses run by moms, as the following moms can attest to. Christine Rossiter, mother of two and owner of Christine Rossiter Photography, says, “It was great the first few years, but then my work became so popular that it turned into a full-time job and beyond. I was working nonstop because I didn’t want to turn anyone away. So the creative hobby I used to love became a huge chore and took me away from all of my family time. I’m much happier not doing my business anymore. It just snowballed so quickly I couldn’t keep up with the demand and didn’t like how it changed my priorities without me even realizing it.”

Shackleford says, “The pandemic was a huge challenge for us with having to shut down our events. We decided instead of being defeated we would go live on Facebook nightly with fun activities for kids to do. This ended up building a nationwide community. Another challenge had been navigating owning a small business with mom life and other life responsibilities.” Hilley has a similar experience and says, “My biggest challenge has been balancing my personal life. Since it’s something I do out of my home, I’m able to access it 24/7, and I can tend to take advantage of that. I find myself glued to my computer or phone, trying to always make sales and talk to customers. I’m starting to try and figure out the balance.”

Willis says a challenge she faces is “saying ‘No’ to more orders. Every year I have to cut off orders for Christmas, and I hate having to tell someone that their order won’t be ready by the holiday. Everything I do is done by hand, and I can only stitch so fast!” Shields shares, “The downside to having my own business is that I cannot shut my brain off. I go to bed thinking of ideas, new designs, to-dos, future goals and so on!” But I think that’s just the sign of a passionate business owner, and I think we can all relate to wanting more hours in the day or maybe another one of us to help do all the things we need to do!

At the end of the day, I think it’s worth it to see what happens if you have a good idea that you’re passionate about. Poll your family and friends, do a free giveaway and ask for feedback. It’s inspiring for your kids to see you try something new, and the worst thing will be that you’re still a mom to your sweet babies, which is still pretty amazing.

Stephanie Loux is the mother of Layla, 11, Mason, 9, and Slade, 6, and feels like a couple of plates are usually wobbling in life these days, but she keeps taking it day by day!