The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year

I could have told her that, based on the heavy depression hanging over our house at the moment.

‘Your man won’t be happy with you being a Stay at Home Mum surely. What are you going to do?’

Academic Mother’s partner is certainly keen for her to get back to earning. He’s an estate agent and the rocky economic climate isn’t doing his employers any favours. His enthusiasm for her to start earning again doesn’t extend to sharing the childcare though. I can’t believe she hasn’t folded under the sheer exhaustion of it all. The Husband may be many things, but he tries to be helpful and spends time with his children. I know I can count on his support, and for that I am always grateful.

‘Ironically enough, I’ve gone into childcare – I’m registering as a childminder,’ she answers. It makes sense, if you think about it. Apart from the enormous waste of lie-ins writing that bloody thesis, she’s a natural mother and enjoys spending time with children. It’s something I’ve thought about too, but only for a nanosecond because a) my house isn’t big enough to swing a toddler – even a small one, and b) though I love my children deeply, the idea of singing ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ for three hours straight makes me want to chew my own legs off.

Thursday 21 February 2008

I’m briefly leaving my country hovel to go and meet up with Mother from Work in London. She and I both work for the same magazine and have a peculiar habit of getting pregnant at the same time – twice so far. In fact, in our core team of four people there have been eight babies in the last four years. I think it’s something to do with the chairs. We’re both returning to what used to be the real world, a place where they get dressed before lunchtime. A place where they commute to offices and spend their time scanning Facebook for old boyfriends and sending emails to the person they sit beside.

We meet our Editrix in Starbucks and show off our respective babies. Mother from Work has already winkled out of me that I have no desire to go back. Nor has she, it seems. I won’t say anything to the Editrix – I’m keeping my options open until the very last minute. It would be very embarrassing to have to eat my words and have to beg for my job back if it all goes pear-shaped for the Husband. I’m keeping everything crossed that it won’t.

Having admitted to each other that neither intends going back, Mother from Work and I sit there feigning interest in the latest ad agency faux pas, or some consultancy that’s showering the team with gifts and dreadfully purple PR prose for the magazine. I worked with some lovely people and we had great times but, as with all the best break-ups, it’s not them, it’s me. Oh, and the peanuts pay and the smelly bloke on the underground.

Tuesday 26 February 2008

One of the benefits of being on maternity leave is afternoon wine. I haven’t been exploiting it fully until now because I am being a virtuous breastfeeding mother and trying to keep Boy Two off the Chianti for a few months at least. Also, I’ve just been too bloody busy to kick back with a glass or three.

My best friend from university in the east of Scotland somehow wound up living a mere five miles away in the deepest shires of England. Aside from the usual party nights and ill-advised snogs we have in common from our student days, we’ve also conspired to have babies only a few months apart. This provides endless scope for my Partner in Crime and I to gossip over a glass of wine and pick apart the horror that is OPC – other people’s children.

Today, the Partner in Crime calls round with her little boy in one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. It will be rude not to join her in a glass or two.

After last week’s trip to London, we get on to the topic of going back to work. I don’t think I know anyone less enamoured of the idea of going back to work than Partner in Crime. But, because she feels that there really is no alternative, she’s grasping the nettle and checking out nursery places, despite the fact that her son isn’t even six months old. Loathe as she is to leave him, if she has to then she’s going to make damn sure that she leaves him in the best place possible. And now it seems as though the good ones got snapped up moments after she left the delivery suite. She likes what she sees well enough, but she’s only just getting used to mornings of Kindermusic and trips to the park rather than to the water cooler. I think for her to feel happy about leaving her son with someone else, they have to be one step away from sainthood.

To be honest, Partner in Crime is unlikely to really need to work anyway. Her husband has a good job and they live in a fourteenth-century, original-features-intact house with a teeny mortgage in the centre of one of south Oxfordshire’s most genteel market towns. It was recently voted as having the most expensive real estate anywhere in the UK. Of course, things can go wrong, the value of shares, houses and marriages can go down as well as up, but the chances in her case are slim. But while part of her is just blissed out spending every waking moment with her baby, there’s still another side of her that can’t quite let go of the university-educated, emancipated career woman thing.

As we mull over our options I tell her about the doula thing I’m planning and explain that it’s all about being a mother’s help as well as a labour partner. She opines that she could do with one of those just on a day-to-day basis. Unlike me she doesn’t have any regular childcare so planning a lunch or going to appointments means relying on the in-laws or baby comes too. What she could really do with, she says, is a babysitter on call.

‘You can always call me,’ I suggest. ‘I couldn’t be a childminder full-time, but I don’t mind a spot of child-wrangling now and then. Especially if there’s a bottle of wine in it for me.’

‘Thanks, but wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to rely on hugger-mugger help from friends? I feel like I’m imposing…’ she says, worried.

‘Not at all, I’d help where I could,’ I reply, and I would, except I have to admit that I barely have time to look after my own children, let alone someone else’s at the moment. I have a deadline for a thrilling article on breastfeeding and I still don’t have any answers for my mumpreneur dilemma.

But then I have what can only be described as a Eureka moment, without the overflowing bath and wrinkly Greek man, obviously. If we both needed someone to sort things out for us, take care of babysitting, wait in for deliveries and so on, then there must be plenty of women in the same boat. What if we get together some mums looking to earn cash, who we could send out in times of need? We’d be the Ticketmaster of babysitting, a concierge service for harassed mums, a mumciergery!

Becoming excited at the prospect of not having to go back to work gets the Partner in Crime’s creative juices flowing and soon we’re talking about party organising, managing mums’ diaries and all sorts of services. Fuelled by wine we get a bit excited and start sorting out all the important details – who is going to appear on GMTV, what wardrobe suits the joint CEOs of a booming mumcierge business, whether a trip to Selfridges to acquire said wardrobe is a bit premature, which exotic island we can retreat to on holiday to spend the profits.

I call the Husband full of excitement that we are on the way with a proper business idea, one that will make money and have employees and be famous and everything. He puts on his best ‘indulging the little wife’ voice and asks, ‘How exactly is this going to make money, and who will be looking after our children while you’re building this empire?’

I’m on too much of a high, and possibly a little drunk, to care that he isn’t exactly bowled over by our magical money-making schemes. In fact, in my mind we’re practically in profit already.

Wednesday 27 February 2008

I’m still basking in the glow of my new-found mumpreneur status. At last I feel as though there is actually a business from which I can make some real money. I spend the day researching the competition, and find there isn’t any – well, there is an identical service in west London, but as that is over 40 miles away and this kind of thing is a bit dependent on help being practically round the corner, I don’t think we need to worry about them. It does mean that we can pinch, or rather be inspired by, the things they have already set up. Bonus! I’ve been trying to come up with a mission statement for our new mumciergery as well. We also need a decent brand name because mumciergery is, frankly, a bit weird.

I take a break from empire-building to go and collect Boy One from pre-school. His teacher greets me with what I take to be an admiring look as I troop up with the baby in a sling. ‘That baby is still practically a newborn,’ I imagine her thinking, ‘and here she is already back in the groove. What an inspiration!’ Perhaps I just exude success…

Walking home reflecting on her obvious admiration, I can’t resist a quick preen in a nearby shop window. Quick flick of the hair, and I’m a picture of yummy mumminess framed in the dark glass, with Boy One frolicking beside me and Boy Two angelically asleep tucked against my side. That and the two dinner-plate-sized orbs of leaking milk darkening my top. What I had taken for admiration was obviously indulgent pity as she thought to herself, ‘Bless her, she’s so sleep-deprived and hormone-addled that she hasn’t noticed her milk’s come in again. Maybe the poor love’s in such a state she’s plain forgotten to feed the baby.’ Not Superwoman, then. Bugger.

Sunday 2 March 2008

Mother’s Day. I remember the Husband talking about Mother’s Day shortly after the birth of Boy One. In obvious shock at someone having driven a bus through his wife’s lady-parts, he said to the midwife: ‘Now I understand what the fuss is all about. I’m never going to give my mother a crap present again. And I’d better make sure our son looks after his mum too!’ Three years and one more son and heir down the line and what do I get for this special day? Nada, nothing, zip. So that’s the birth in January, Valentine’s Day in February and Mother’s Day in March – three months, three Hallmark moments missed and I’m not impressed.

I’m only slightly mollified by the fact that my old book’s biggest selling season is just before Mother’s Day so it should have been flying off the shelves as desperate dads and children snap up anything with ‘mum’ in the title to dispense their duties for another year. Our skiing holiday is imminent so it’s comforting to think that the vins chauds and après ski aperitifs are being taken care of.

Friday 7 March 2008

Finally the long-awaited skiing holiday rolls around. But it also reminds me how little time has actually passed. Barely six weeks ago we were rushing out of the delivery suite to post Boy Two’s passport application. In the interim I’ve found two new careers and discovered that I can – almost – function on three hours’ sleep in every twenty-four. Things look rosy. Even the prospect of spending ten hours taking five separate trains across Europe with two small children can’t dampen my spirits.

Of course, the Husband’s precarious work situation is overshadowing things a little. Both the doula and mumcierge ideas could bring in a decent part-time income but on their own they won’t be enough to sustain our growing (grown? I’m really not in the market for a third) family if his (the main) breadwinning income is taken away. There’s still a very real possibility that I’m going to be back at my desk in less than three months. But now is not the time to think of such things. Instead it’s time to think of cutting through fresh powder and ignoring the fashionistas’ advice to slap on the sunblock. Even if it stops at a tide mark round my neck, I’m determined to get a tan.

Sunday 9 March 2008

First day of the holiday and instead of trooping straight up the hill, the Husband has curled up in an armchair, resembling a deflated Michelin man in his salopettes. He’s trying to steal Wi-Fi. It seems we can’t live without a permanent umbilical cord to the outside world. Miraculously he finds one. Webmail should, must, be read. And it cheers up my nonskiing father-in-law no end to discover that he can get the boxing results as a reward for being tied to fibreglass and thrown off the top of a rock, then left to hurtle down a sheet of ice with only a small, spiky forest to use as brakes.

Wednesday 12 March 2008

So far on my relaxing holiday I have:

Cooked five dinners for six people.

Used the medieval torture device known as a breast pump to extract two feeds a day for the baby, to be delivered into his gaping maw by my mother-in-law while I’m up a mountain.

Answered twelve emails covering, variously, names for the mumciergery, the impossibility of getting a criminal records bureau check and the consequent absolute necessity of one, queries regarding the potty training article (apparently, in one of the case studies where a boy had learned to do a poo in the big toilet, I’d put his age at 33. They wanted to check this is what I meant. I mean, it wouldn’t occur to them that the extra ‘3’ was a typo or anything).

Fallen over three times – twice when Boy One snow-ploughed into me at speed, having learned how to start, but not how to stop. The third was when the Husband also used my ankles as a braking device, scything into my legs with his skis and rearranging my kneecaps.

That I have had only one hour-long crying fit after all this is, I think, a good thing.

Monday 17 March 2008

We survived yesterday’s epic journey home from the Alps despite Boy One’s constant diarrhoea on the Eurostar. Fortunately he is still in night nappies so we had something to catch the accidents, but inevitably the nappy supply ran out somewhere under the Channel. We resorted to padding out his underpants with bits of newborn nappy that we hoped Boy Two would not require before we reached home.

Our happiness at being back home is short-lived, not least because of the three separate credit card bills waiting for me on the welcome mat. I always feel the worst bit about going on holiday is not knowing what you’ll come back to. I fantasise about break-ins, fires, floods and unpayable bills languishing on the mat. On this occasion we avoid all but the last. As I hide the offending articles from the Husband I pray to the god of re-mortgaging, hoping that our recent switch between banks will see much-needed funds land in our account soon.

At least I don’t need to worry about a slew of demanding emails because I’ve pretty much kept up with them while we’ve been away. Some might say you’re wrecking your holiday by never leaving work alone, but I say that I’d wreck it anyway by worrying about what was going on in my absence.

What I didn’t bank on was other people holding on to their bad news emails until I got back. While we’ve been away, someone has published a ‘How to’ book on becoming a mumpreneur that is almost identical to the one I have in the pipeline. No funny business, just a coincidence that someone else had the same cracking idea, but about four months earlier. Mr Book Man drops the proposal like a hot rock. As I’ve mentally already spent the advance and, reading the credit card statements, have actually spent some of it too, this is a bit of a blow. Never mind, there are still the proceeds of the mother’s day book, the latest payment instalment for which is due any day now.

Friday 21 March 2008

Galvanised into action by the sudden vacuum in the family finances I kick the Husband out of the house on Good Friday to fetch chocolate eggs and distract the children while I get on with some work. I still need brand names – mum4hire? Mumsitters? – and a website, posters, fliers…

This leads me to making yet more to-do lists with action points and division of tasks between my Partner in Crime and me, involving neatly folded paper and different coloured pens. I have always had this fetish: I have written the list, ergo the job has been done. Which of course it hasn’t and I’ve spent so long cataloguing jobs to do I no longer have any time left to do them. The Husband is now back with the children – one of them is high on chocolate and the other is desperate for some boob. Project millionaire is postponed for another day.

Saturday 22 March 2008