What I Learned Running Two Businesses While Raising Kids

I used to think motherhood would make my working life smaller. Fast forward: there is room for success after babies. No one gets to tell you that you are done.

I used to think motherhood would make my working life smaller. I did not think I would disappear completely. I just assumed there would be less room for growth, less headspace for ambition, less time to build anything big. I thought I would stay in the media industry, but in a less demanding and ambitious role. Something that f it neatly around school runs, bedtime, and all the invisible jobs that come with raising children. In my head, motherhood meant I had to lower the ceiling a little.

But fast forward to now. Tegan is 11 and Clyde is 8. I realised that the older my kids get, the more room there is for ambition and success after babies. For many of us, our 30s and 40s are not the years to disappear. They are the years when our experience starts to count. We know more. We have better instincts. We are clearer about what we want. We can earn more, ask for more, build more, and take up more space. And yes, this often happens at the exact same time someone needs help finding their swimming kit. That is the bit nobody can really prepare you for.

I run two media businesses while raising two kids in Dubai, and on some days that sounds impressive. Most days, it just sounds like a normal Tuesday. A client meeting. A school pick-up. A proposal to finish. A child who suddenly remembers something is due tomorrow. Sometimes I get it right and follow my colourful calendar down to the minute. Sometimes I schedule an important meeting at the exact same time as school pickup and wonder why I have made it difficult for myself. It is not seamless and polished, but I promise you, it is possible.

What motherhood has taught me is not that I need to want less. It has taught me that I need to be sharper with what I want. I have become more organised because I have to be. My time has edges now. I cannot waste a whole afternoon drifting around a task when I only have one proper hour to get it done. I have become better at planning, because the calendar is not just a calendar anymore. It is the thing that decides whether the day works or completely unravels. I have become more selective, because not every opportunity is worth the cost of saying yes.

And when I am with my kids, I try harder to actually be with them. I still get distracted. I still check my phone when I should not. I still say “one minute” and then realise it has turned into ten. But I am more conscious now that small pockets of quality time matter. The school run chat. The bedtime cuddle. The random story they tell you when you are already late. Those moments are not small to them.

And that is something I think we sometimes get wrong when we talk about working mothers. We act as if children only benefit from endless availability, when sometimes what they remember is real presence. My kids know I work. They know I speak on the radio. They ask questions. Here is what I hope they are getting: I want them to understand that ambition is not something to apologise for. I want them to see that work can be meaningful. That building something takes courage. That when a door does not open, you can go and build a new one. I want them to know that loving your children deeply does not mean abandoning the parts of yourself that still want to grow.

Of course, none of this works without support. In Dubai a lot of us do not have close family nearby, and that can be hard. But I have also learned that your village is not something you sit around waiting for. You build it. You reach out to people who understand the season you are in. You find the friends who can listen without judgment. You make time for the women who say “tell me everything” and actually mean it. No sugar-coating.

Because there will be days when work wins and the kids get the slightly rushed version of you. There will be days when the kids win and the work waits longer than you would like. There will be days when the balls are not so much juggled as gently dropped and picked up again later. So if you are a parent quietly wondering whether there is still room for your career, your business, your ambition, your earning power, your next chapter, there is. It may not look neat. It is tiring and requires a lot of brain and muscle. It may involve late nights, backup plans, childcare logistics, and the occasional moment where you wonder what on earth you were thinking. But you get better. It can be messy, but there is always room to learn, to grow, to build, and to keep going.

Good luck. You’ve got this.

PS. Maybe you see things differently. We want you to share your story: email us at stories@parentingplus.me