Change of plan.

The greatest lesson that motherhood has taught me is how to quickly adapt when something unexpected happens. An essay on freelancing around homeschooled and ill children and how I always make it work.

I was going to write an essay on taking a spiritual approach to growing your Substack, or on using SQ (spiritual intelligence) to guide big life decisions.

But then my youngest was up in the night with a temperature, so he is now home with me and his (temporarily) homeschooled brother.

There are two non-negotiables for me today, work-wise:

1. I will prepare for the first ghostwriting interview with my new client.

2. I will write a Substack piece to schedule for next week.

And so rather than writing about spirituality, I thought I’d write about how I manage my workload when I’m unexpectedly parenting two children on a work day.

Becoming a freelance mum

I’ve spoken many times about losing my job when I had my first baby but what I talk about less is how that experience lit a fire inside me.

When you are discriminated against, it can make you feel burned.

But it can also become a spark inside you that grows into great whopping flames that propel you forward in an unstoppable way.

I felt burned; and then I felt determined. They had taken my job away when I became a mother and I would prove that it wouldn’t stop me from rising in my career.

Fun fact: that tech company no longer exists but I’m still going.

I know that some women have a baby and feel exhausted all the time, low in confidence and as if their identity has shifted to something unrecognisable.

I felt these things some of the time but in my quest to prove my former employers wrong, I worked my arse off to become a full-time freelance writer.

This began with my baby in a rocker on the floor next to me, while I tapped away on my laptop. And as she got older, I’d give her some Play-Doh and work in short bursts.

I used her nap-times and evenings (when I wasn’t too tired), as well as the occasional weekend when her dad could look after her.

Because I was always freelancing around babies, toddlers, kids - I became used to blocking out the chaos and honing in on my screen.

But, importantly, I also knew that there were times when I absolutely needed childcare and could not do my work without it.

For instance, when I got my first book deal, I hired a childminder to watch my 10-month-old baby for two school-length days a week.

I’d escape to a cafe and make notes, do research, interview people and - once the prep was done - write the book.

I couldn’t have done all of that while caring for a baby. I needed mental and physical space to enable me to properly focus.

That said, it’s amazing what you can get done with children-in-tow, when there’s no other option.

In one of the lockdowns, my husband and I managed to record videos for our online courses while the five and three-year-old watched telly and Rich rocked the baby.

But I wouldn’t choose that way of working; it’s bloody stressful.

Homeschooled and ill children

For a few years now, I’ve had the blissful six hours of the school day to work, because my older two were in education and the youngest was at nursery during school hours.

I loved the spaciousness of it but I actually didn’t always make best use of those hours. There was almost too much time, as I’d become so used to working in tiny bursts.

But when one of my children recently had to be taken out of school, and temporarily homeschooled, I had to quickly re-think my work days.

What I started to do was get really clear on my priorities, which tend to be:

1. Create content for Instagram (it feeds through to Substack, it is a community I enjoy building and being part of and it’s daily writing practice for me).

2. Write my Substack articles (two a week - usually one personal essay, one more business-focused piece).

3. Prepare for any client work I might have (next week: starting the ghostwriting project, a coaching/consultancy client).

I decide when I’m going to fit that work in by looking at the deadline and giving myself some extra time ahead of it in case something additional drops in.

So with the day - and approximate time - in mind that I’ll be working on each task, I turn to my child and his needs.

To start the day, we’ll usually do some learning or play together.

Then we go out for a coffee, walk or swim.

When we return, he’ll go on the iPad and I’ll work for an hour or two.

We have lunch, do another hour or so (him on the iPad, playing with Lego or drawing; me working) and then I’ll start prepping dinner.

At 3pm, we go to collect the others from school.

Having an extra child at home today, because of illness, doesn’t really change anything, because he’s not so ill that I need to sit next to him all day.

In fact, it makes things slightly easier for me, because it is company for the homeschooled child, which is important. Children need other children around.

Online meetings and interviews

When I’m being interviewed for radio or a podcast, I tell the children that they cannot disturb me, unless there’s an emergency.

I explain what an emergency is (ie. not that they want a new game on the iPad) and tell them that I will come and find them when I’m finished.

They are used to me working from home and so they rarely do disturb me, when given such clear instructions.

If I’m interviewing someone else, like the woman whose book I’m co-writing, and it feels really important that I’m not interrupted, I get help.

That might be asking my husband to be around for a few hours, or if this isn’t an option (it often hasn’t been in the past) I’ll pay a babysitter for a few hours.

I tend to reserve paid help for when I’m definitely being paid. So client work or a commission. If I’m doing my own podcast, or writing an email, I won’t.

Though I’d recommend getting as much childcare as you want and can afford because as women, we often devalue our own time and work.

However, I will not be homeschooling come January so for this short period, I’m ok with doing my unpaid (or not-directly-paid) writing with a child in the next room.

The shift in his emotional wellbeing since removing him from school is well worth the extra interruptions in my work day.

When one of my children is deeply unhappy or unsettled, I’m always very distracted anyway. So having him with me, happy, is preferable to away from me, in distress.

Making a commitment

If I have committed to writing an article for a newspaper, a book for a publisher or a ghostwriting client or to hosting a coaching session, I will never cancel.

Unless I suddenly became extremely ill, which thankfully has never happened - or one of my children is in hospital, which has - I will be there, doing the work.

This is a commitment to the client/publisher but also to myself and my career. I do a lot of mothering and make sacrifices but I will not sacrifice my career.

It will happen. I will make it happen. And I will find a way to get the help I need to make sure it does, always. If I’m being paid, I can afford to pay for help.

It has always been an interesting internal debate around when to ask my husband - also self-employed; also doing client work - to look after an ill or homeschooled child.

Usually, as he’s on a day rate and works outside of the home, I find another way. But occasionally, if there is no other option, I will ask him to step in. And he always does.

As I write this, I’m aware that it may sound like I do a lot more at home and with the children than my husband and that’s because I do.

He gets properly stuck in when he’s here but he is here less.

This is a choice. I want to be the one who is at home, fitting my work around the children’s needs. Some women slip into this role; I haven’t. It’s what I want.

At times I’ve questioned it: would I like to be out at work 9-5, Monday-Friday (even at a co-working space) and have Rich fill in the parenting gaps? My conclusion is that I would’t. I’m (mostly) where I want to be.

Also, I understand the difficulty of taking a day off work when you’re on a day rate, because I used to be. If there’s another way, that’s always preferable.

And so that’s a brief insight into what my working mum life as a professional writer looks like.

It’s not predictable, and can sometimes feel a little disordered but I have never missed a deadline or let a client down, and I’m proud of that.

I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to continue to work. And this career enables me to do all three things, so I feel lucky and grateful.

I made the right choice.

Annie x