This week’s revelation: I like working from home. This sounds silly. Who wouldn’t? Well for this workaholic mom, after weeks of feeling anxiety about not being in the office, I have come to a place where I am enjoying being at home every day, and I also do not feel especially compelled to be at the office. This transition has taken several weeks, a few months really, of feeling daily guilt about my absence from work. No doubt this is why it feels like a revelation. Chalk it up to maternal instinct, but suddenly nothing is as important as being with little Eva. Beyond that, I am thoroughly enjoying being able to multi-task my work to-do list and my home to-do list throughout the day. You know I’m not happy unless I have a full task list!

Typically coming home from the office was met with the exhaustion of immediately needing to jump from work mode to domestic mode, looking after our two boys, not to mention trying to address things that need attention on our fixer upper New England home. My work is never done! But being home the past several weeks has given me the opportunity to put our house on the to-do list, and multi-task to tackle some much-needed updates and repairs. Bringing our garden to life, throwing some paint up, reorganizing our living spaces are just a few things that my husband and I have been able to devote time to between feedings and Skyping. Making such regular progress in this area of our life has been really cathartic–especially now that the kitchen is done, and small jobs seem all the more manageable!

That said, Pearse Street is (as always) my other “baby,” and I am bugging my staff with questions and updates just as frequently if not more than I usually do. But so long as things are running smoothly, I don’t feel that I need to be in-office, in the flesh, when I can be occupying dual roles, at home and at work. The irony is that when I started the business 5 years ago, this is precisely what I had mind, until our business grew so quickly that my level of involvement was no longer open for negotiation.

This could all be a phase. As Eva grows and starts to be able to hold her own with her rambunctious brothers a little better, I will no doubt feel more compelled to return to my daily office regime once again. For the time however, I am glad to be able to take this reprieve and the opportunity to re-prioritize and take care of some long-neglected home matters, bettering our personal lives and my overall peace of mind!

When I first discovered the term “mommypreneur” I took to it pretty quickly. I still celebrate being a mother and a business owner, and the challenges that those dual roles play in my life, at home and at work. I recently learned that as a female C.E.O. of a high-tech firm, I represent less than 1% of the total private companies founded in a year. I knew I was an oddball, but I don’t think I quite realized to what extent. With so few others, it’s obviously difficult to find peers or even mentors. In fact, searches to connect with other pioneering mothers or successful young women are often met with a bunch of spam.

For example, on Twitter, to build a following you often “follow” other users with the same interest based on some keyword searches. Following multiple accounts who identify as working moms or mommypreneurs yields a barrage of spammy Direct Messages. Some of them lead you to scam websites that promise profitable work-from-home opportunities, or only marginally better opportunities to network with thousands of other professional woman–for a price! Why is a window into this very small world fraught with scams and closed doors that only open with hefty membership fees? It truly saddens me that this community has been targeted as vulnerable for exploitation, when I imagine what women starting out in the business world are met with on their initial search for insight and resources.

That said, in my ongoing search to find like-minded others, I have found a few valuable online meeting places for professional women and mothers. Unlike the majority of sites that target the same demographic, these sites are focused on important professional topics and have the ultimate goal of elevating women professionally, not just lining their pocket books. (more…)