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7 things I wish I'd known before having kids

July 10, 2021
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Lauren_Nolan

Parenting – it's a steep learning curve and I'm still finding my way. Or more accurately; winging it one day at a time. Here's just seven things I wish I'd known if I could hop in a time machine and go back to speak to myself pre-children. Although of course I wouldn't use my one go in a time machine doing that, but I digress.

1. You will feel extremes of emotions to levels you've never reached before; especially love, rage, guilt, fatigue and boredom

I have experienced boredom before but not to the extent that I feel when I'm reading The Gruffalo for the millionth time. I've felt anger, but no one ever made me scream silently into a teddy or made me step out the room to count to ten before. I've never felt as much guilt before I had kids, and for small things like needing a break. Pre-kids I'd experienced sleep deprivation; I'd been to enough festivals and pulled enough all-nighters to know what being tired was like. But this level of fatigue is different; its unrelenting and debilitating, and it just goes on and on. And then the love – you'll feel it fiercely, and so intensely that at times you'll resemble Gollum with the baby as your 'precious'.

2.You might not bond straight away

I've mentioned this before but I always had the preconception that as soon as I held my baby I would feel an intense rush of love, a deep connection, and this fantasy stems from movies as well as other parent's experiences. But I didn't feel that cinematic rush of intense love, I just felt exhausted and terrified. Bonding can be delayed, especially after a tricky birth, but it does come. And it doesn't mean that you're a bad parent.

3. A supportive parent friend is essential

When I was pregnant for the first time my mum encouraged me to join some pre-natal classes and I naively said that I had enough friends, and that I didn't need to be friends with people just because they happen to be having kids at the same time as me. Which is totally wrong for many reasons, not least because you can never have too many friends. And of course, my friends weren't on maternity leave and available for coffee mid week, and even if they were free it's unlikely they'd be keen on sipping below-average lattes in a sweaty soft play café. Parent friends are essential because it's such a relief to be able to say "this is really hard" and have someone understand completely. You can ask if things are normal, you can share tips and ideas, and it abates the loneliness that parents can feel, especially in those early days. Ideally find a parent friend that doesn't judge, isn't smug, shares wipes/nappies/snacks, makes you feel better about yourself, you can laugh with and one you can see yourself having a beer with one day. I feel really lucky I've found a few of these and I'm so glad I listened to my mum about pre-natal groups – these parent friends got me through some tough times.

4. You will need your partner more than ever

If you have a partner – you're going to need each other in new and deeper ways than ever before. They are your team mate, your cheerleader, your confidant; you will need each other more than ever. Be kind to each other even in the depths of sleep deprivation and one day you'll have time to be a couple again.

5. Your existing friendships will be tested

I had no idea this would happen but it is inevitable that when your whole world changes it will affect the relationships you have, even strong friendships. Suddenly you aren't able to go out as much, and what's more – you don't even want to. In the early days of parenting I felt really bad about what I looked like (post baby weight and post baby hair loss, a winning combination), and I was so tired all the time I just wanted to be in my pyjamas and in bed by 9pm. Meeting up with the baby in tow is difficult too; it's hard to follow a conversation when you're juggling nappy changes, feeds and naps. But once things calm down a bit and you feel more like yourself again, these old friends will be there and they'll remind you that you're not just a Mum. You are still a friend, a wife, a lover of wine and dinner and music. It seems so surreal now but it took me time to even think about anything I liked or was interested in because I was so focused on getting to grips with being a new mum. I was probably a bad friend back then, but thankfully my friends didn't mind.

6. You won't care about getting poo on your hand, sick in your hair, or snot on your favourite cardigan

The amount of bodily fluids you'll encounter is immense and you won't even care, not at all. You won't even feel a flicker of anger if you're peed on, or if you toddler casually picks his nose and wipes it on your arm. You shrug and clean and continue with your day. It's insane but it's part of being a parent; you become immune to feeling grossed out by things that are disgusting because if you had a normal reaction to it, you'd spend a lot of your day feeling icky. And they are just a bit too cute to care that much about a little poo mishap.

7. This too shall pass

If you're going through a challenging phase and you're wondering how to get through another day of toddler tantrums or another night of broken sleep; this too will pass. It really will. There will be a time when you will sleep uninterrupted the whole night. There will be a time you won't have to follow your kid around saying "kind hands" constantly like a maniac. One day you won't have to crawl around the soft play with them – you'll be the parent drinking coffee scrolling through their twitter timeline. One day they'll be fine with having their teeth cleaned, one day they'll use the toilet by themselves and even flush and wash their hands. It doesn't seem it when you're in the midst of a bad phase, but it's a blink of an eye. Don't put pressure on yourself to cherish every moment, many moments will not be very cherishable, but do remind yourself daily that this time is fleeting – its passing by all the time, as our whole lives are.

To my pre-child self one final thought – even though its hard, this is the best thing you'll ever do, in your whole life.

parenting

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.