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Georgina Mitchell (Int. 17) was a human resources manager at a large public university when she became pregnant with her first child. Georgina had worked in various human resources roles for several years, building up her expertise in the field. Yet despite her well-developed resume, Georgina said she never really considered her work as “a career”. After her first son was born, she reluctantly returned to her

The first period of maternity leave that I had right after my son was born, I really wanted to stay home. I didn't actually want to go back to work. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what options I had for working from home. I ran through the whole kind of creative stuff and making things and selling them at the markets, and that's quite labour and time intensive.

And I ended up going back to the university part-time. And after I started working again, I got a magazine—you know, the ones from either online courses or local TAFES [vocational colleges] or that kind of thing, and they have a listing of all their courses? I was looking through that to get some inspiration and saw proofreading and editing as a course… And I thought, ‘Well actually, I do a lot of that stuff anyway within the work that I do and that’s something that I’ve always enjoyed—that’s something I can do’. – GM/17

Georgina completed the course by correspondence while working part-time at the university, where, by her own account, she had enjoyed highly flexible conditions. After taking a generous period of maternity leave following the birth of her first child, Georgina’s request to return to work part-time – three days per week, four hours per day – was met with ease, an arrangement that was contractually guaranteed for up to five years. The conditions for working parents offered by her employer were, in Georgina’s own words, “amazing”, but still not sufficient to keep her there. After the birth of her second child, Georgina resigned to begin building up her business. She described her feelings about organisational employment – even in a very family- friendly, flexible environment – this way:

At the end of the day, you still have to be there for those four hours. And yeah, I guess if my children were older, I don't think that would be an issue. But having a child who was still not yet at school— that was a big issue for me.

My mum was around a lot when we were little. Dad worked very, very long hours. So, I guess we always had the stability of mum being at home. And it wasn't until I was kind of a little bit older that we'd probably go to my grandparents' after school. So, I guess having that, the family influence

around, I think was really important to me and I want my son and my daughter to have that as well. – GM/17

The experience of not wanting to be away from home was echoed by Agnes Pulito (Int. 37), who returned to work when her first child was five-months-old to provide the family income after her partner lost his job. She found her job as a

community services worker stressful and unrewarding. But mostly, she wanted to be at home with her baby. For her, working outside the home was tolerable as a financial necessity, but working from home was the ideal:

I never really wanted to be there; I really wanted to be at home. My

partner looked after my baby. We kind of got into a groove and, you know, you get back into the rhythm. But when this opportunity came up for me to be a stay-at-home-mum and consider having my own venture, I felt really good about that. I really relished that opportunity. – AP/37

All of the women in this category cited the desire to be physically present and available for their children as their main motivation for becoming self-employed. For some, this was manifested as a reluctance, or outright opposition, to using formal child care (Int. 22, 39). Lucy Kingman (Int. 39), for instance, was particularly outspoken about her desire not to use any form of formal child care until her children were at least three years old. When she became pregnant with her first child, Lucy quit her job as an events manager so that she could “just relax and enjoy” the pregnancy and the early months of motherhood. Her husband, also self-employed, made enough money to cover the

family’s expenses, so returning to paid work immediately was not a financial necessity.

A year later, while organising a celebration for her son’s first birthday, Lucy came across a party-planning business that was for sale. Thinking she could make some extra income for the household while enabling her to stay at home with her son, Lucy bought the business and proceeded to re-design it from scratch. The venture quickly grew into

a full-time commitment for both Lucy and her husband, who managed the logistical end of the business through his own transport business. Despite the apparent success of her enterprise, Lucy took particular pains during her interview to emphasise that keeping her children out of child care was her primary motivation for becoming self-employed:

I feel like it’s a priority for me. I wouldn’t leave my kids in full-time care and work outside the home. I think it’s obviously a personal choice; I don’t judge anyone who does it. I’m just saying if you’re interested in the

relationship between children and work-at-home mothers, you’ll find that’s a big motivator. –LK/39

Asked to elaborate on her feelings about work and motherhood, and why it was so important to her to keep her children out of child care, Lucy explained:

I guess it’s that constant paranoia and that constant pressure on women (and on myself) to feel like we’re doing everything right. I have to say I’ve got that. And I always feel like, ‘OK, I still want to work and have my own business and be successful, but I don’t want that to be at the expense of the kids’.

So I actually believe that children under three should be spending as much time as possible in their home environment, being raised by their parents or their immediate family. That’s really important. Just setting the groundwork, I guess, the bonds. In my opinion, no one will care for your child the way that you would.

I mean, I have to say, I’m not judging because I know some people have to go back for financial reasons, but I’m just talking about my own situation. I was lucky enough that I didn’t have to. So that was a big thing for me; that I didn’t want to— I wouldn’t have considered going back to work somewhere outside the home when my kids were so young and I was just starting my family. So it is a major thing for me. –LK/39

Mandy Franklin (Int. 22) also spoke about choosing self-employment to avoid putting her children into formal child care, a position she had been forced to reassess with the growth of her business and the birth of her second child. Mandy had been a primary school teacher for the early part of her career, but was working in an entry-

level marketing role when she became pregnant with her first child. She resigned before the baby arrived, and began looking almost immediately for a business she could run from home. Mandy and her family were not desperate for extra income, but still found it “a bit tight” managing on her husband’s salary. While searching around for business ideas, Mandy discovered a baby feeding product that was not yet available in Australia. At first she toyed with the idea of simply becoming an importer; then she decided to design her own product. Whilst caring for her first baby at home, Mandy figured out how to have her designs manufactured in China. Within two years, she was running a profitable wholesale operation out of her garage, distributing her own unique line of baby products to major retailers across Australia.

Nevertheless, Mandy said her initial motivation in starting the business was not to “build a baby food feeding empire” but to make some extra income from home, while looking after her child. Like Lucy, keeping her daughter out of child care was a primary motivator for Mandy. But the success and rapid growth of the business had forced her to reassess this position:

I went into business so I wouldn’t have to go back to work. When I had one child, I waited until she was two because I thought it was very— [pauses to find the right words] not great to put your kids in day care when they’re too little… Before the business I was a primary school teacher, and before that I was a nursery nurse. So I just know what some day care centres are like. I just feel like no one will love your child as much as you do. If you’re going to have kids, you might as well look after them.

That was my old opinion. Since then I’ve changed my mind on that one. There’s no way I can be in business and look after [my two children]. It just would be impossible to do it. It would be impossible to run the business. It was different when it was a start-up to when it was an

established business; there was less demand. When it was just a start-up, when I had one child, it was a lot cruisier [sic]; she would sleep, I would work, just take it easy. Now the work is demanding, as opposed to doing it just because I feel like it. –MF/22

At the time of her interview, Mandy had placed her two daughters, a three-year- old and an eight-month-old, in a family day care centre14 _{for two days per week. Mandy} said she felt that the new arrangement was “a happy medium”, between her desire to keep her children out of full-time, centre-based care, and her ambition to run a

successful business. But many aspects of her story suggested that she felt torn between her entrepreneurial drive and her desire to be emotionally and physically present for her children. She spoke at length, for example, of the difficulty of trying to get work done when the children were around, and her frustration at not being able to grow the

business as quickly as she would like. These frustrations led to a period of depression, which compelled Mandy to reassess her priorities about work and family:

I’m just trying to be a lot more strict [sic] with myself [about not working with the children around]. I used to do a lot of it with my older daughter, when my work hours weren’t so strict. I would work when she was in day care, but I would also work when she was watching telly, and I’d work when she was having a nap. I’d work all the time in little snippets. That’s just not working out anymore. I just end up doing nothing properly.

Yeah—my attention’s too divided. But actually, it’s more that the kids lose out. Then you just get wracked with guilt because you’re not doing a good enough job with them. And then you have to remind yourself that you have young kids and they’re the most important thing. So just because you’ve got this, that, and the other thing to do with the business—that’s not really the main goal of life is it?

I’ve just completely, sort of, stripped back my ambition, as it were. I know that the business is in early days and it’s kind of a frustrating point

because I know it can be so much more than what it is. I’ve got a lot of ambition for what I want to do, and I’ve just decided to strip it right back to the bare minimum just for sanity’s sake, so I can enjoy my family. It’s so easy to get lost in a rolling, ambitious cycle of what you want to happen with the business. Then you just end up miserable because you’re not enjoying your family. –MF/22

14 _{An accredited home-based child care arrangement in Australia, in which one educator} generally cares for a small number of children (www.fdca.com.au).

Lucy also spoke about her ambitions for her business, the time pressures entailed in working from home, and the burden these placed on her family:

It’s so hard to switch off. Ultimately, it’s not going to be a home-based business. But for now, I want it to be—because of my kids. It’s just the fact that you’re on 24 hours. You’re just immersed in it. So even if you go on holiday, you’ve still got your phone with you. You’re answering emails. It’s not like you can just shut down, and go on your holiday and come back four weeks later and pick up where you left off. It’s a sacrifice – in terms of, it’s much harder work [than being an employee]. –LK/39

The experiences of Mandy and Lucy suggest that family-focused motivations can co-exist with substantial profit or growth motivations within a single enterprise. But significant inter-role conflicts can also arise when the success or growth of a business threatens to overwhelm the initial, family-driven motivation for start-up.