{"id":44123,"date":"2026-01-29T15:21:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-became-self-employed-after-having-kids-it-was-harder-than-corporate-life\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:21:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:21:38","slug":"i-became-self-employed-after-having-kids-it-was-harder-than-corporate-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-became-self-employed-after-having-kids-it-was-harder-than-corporate-life\/","title":{"rendered":"I became self-employed after having kids. It was harder than corporate life."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6966646c04eda4732f2ef70f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Mom with three kids posing for photo\"\/><figcaption>Katie Bullon left the corporate world after her first child was born.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Katie Bullon<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Katie Bullon is a 41-year-old mom of three based in Cardiff.<\/li>\n<li>She left the corporate marketing world to move into freelancing after the birth of her first baby.<\/li>\n<li>However, the reality of self-employment ultimately led to burnout.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Katie Bullon of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarketingagencyfranchise.com\/\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>activ Marketing Franchise<\/em><\/a><em>. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Before I got pregnant with my firstborn, I was working in the corporate world as a marketing manager. It was an intense job that I absolutely loved, both as a single person and then as a newly married one. I got to travel the world, quickly advance in my career, and diversify my skill set, but I could only do the job because I didn&#039;t yet have kids.<\/p>\n<p>I knew once I started a family, I wouldn&#039;t want to continue working in the corporate world full time. I never wanted to be in a position where I had to choose between taking care of my kids and doing my job, so I initially decided to go back to my role part time, thinking that would be a happy medium.<\/p>\n<p>But after keeping in touch day, a reintroduction to work after maternity leave, when my son was 7 months old, it became clear I couldn&#039;t even manage the part time role. To do the job well, to the high standard I expected of myself, I had to give it my everything.<\/p>\n<h2>I quit my job to be a freelancer<\/h2>\n<p>I remember finishing the keeping in touch day, crying in my boss&#039;s office, telling her I just couldn&#039;t come back. The day had been a reminder of my old life \u2014 the life of a young, free, travelling corporate marketer. It was a life I knew I couldn&#039;t maintain with a baby in tow, and I mourned the end of my life as a corporate professional.<\/p>\n<p>I quit my job and, after months of deliberation and dreaming, decided to go freelance \u2014 I was really excited. Surely, I thought, I would strike a healthy balance of parenting and working if I worked for myself.<\/p>\n<p>The plan would be to devote all my attention to my son when he was awake, and pull out my laptop to work while he slept.<\/p>\n<p>But the reality of being self-employed as a new mom was not what I had imagined.<\/p>\n<h2>I was exhausted<\/h2>\n<p>I was running on empty all the time, exhausted from sleepless nights. I didn&#039;t know what I was doing with parenting, as I had never done it before, and often felt I was doing it all wrong. I adored my son even more than I had imagined I would, and not being with him while I worked constantly pulled at my heartstrings.<\/p>\n<p>It was from this state that I then tried to work, attempting to be at clients&#039; full-time disposal. Even though I knew about marketing, I didn&#039;t fully take into account the amount of work or the number of non-billable hours I&#039;d be working as a self-employed individual. As opposed to working for a corporate company, I was the sole person responsible for every aspect of the business. It was all on me.<\/p>\n<p>Not keen on putting my son in a day care to save us a bit of money, I tried to build the business with him around most of the time, save for a few hours a week when my mom or sister would have him.<\/p>\n<p>I was on a hamster wheel from the moment I woke up, becoming more and more exhausted as I tried to work as if I didn&#039;t have a child, and parent as if I didn&#039;t have a job.<\/p>\n<p>The standards I set for myself as a mother and business owner were unachievable, and I could feel myself starting to burn out as I attempted to do it all.<\/p>\n<h2>I had more kids<\/h2>\n<p>Only 20 months after my first son was born, I gave birth to my second son, and I continued trying to balance my own business with parenting, this time with a toddler and newborn in tow.<\/p>\n<p>My second didn&#039;t ever take a bottle, so I frequently sat with him breastfeeding on one side with my laptop set up on the other. I was absolutely determined to do it all, and do it all perfectly.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose part of me wanted to prove people wrong, to show them that I could be a completely present mother while also being an incredibly successful self-starter.<\/p>\n<p>My mental health crashed. My physical health deteriorated. My relationship with my husband was rocky. I was exhausted all the time and felt like I had hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#039;t what I had expected freelancing to be like, and it most certainly wasn&#039;t what I wanted motherhood to be like.<\/p>\n<p>While self-employment might seem like the &quot;easier than corporate path&quot; for new mothers, it wasn&#039;t \u2014 not for me.<\/p>\n<p>Something had to change, so I went back to the drawing board, considering what I could do differently, and joined a marketing franchise.  It allowed me to continue doing what I loved, marketing, but I had the back office and a team of people behind me to carry out all the work that had overwhelmed me when I was working on my own.<\/p>\n<p>If I could go back in time and give myself advice, I would say: You can&#039;t do it all, nor should you. <\/p>\n<p>As a mom, I can&#039;t put myself last. I must build my life in a way that prioritizes me; otherwise, I&#039;ll burn out repeatedly, which is detrimental to ume, my family, and my work.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katie Bullon left the corporate world after her first child was born. Courtesy of Katie Bullon Katie Bullon is a 41-year-old mom of three based in Cardiff. She left the corporate marketing world to move into freelancing after the birth of her first baby. However, the reality of self-employment ultimately led to burnout. This as-told-to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}