As I write this my 6-and-a-half-month-old daughter is sitting on my lap in my home office, where she spends an hour or two each day. Despite all the toys I’ve laid out for her, the thing she typically reaches for is my keyboard, occasionally leading to the odd typo.
I’ve been a freelance journalist for about 12 years, but never has this work-from-home, choose-your-own schedule arrangement been so valuable.
Last year I was able to be with my wife at almost every doctor’s appointment, ultrasound, and blood test before we became parents in April. Since our daughter was born, I have enjoyed the flexibility not only to make it to every pediatrician appointment and give my wife a helping hand during the day but also to be a part of important milestone moments.
I couldn’t imagine having to walk out the front door each morning, only to return a couple of hours before bedtime in the evening, but of course that is the reality for most working parents.
That is perhaps why solopreneurship is so popular among those with kids, especially women, and particularly those stepping away from extremely demanding careers to start or grow their families.
Studies in Australia and Canada have found that many workers make the transition into parenthood and self-employment at the same time, and research even suggests that self-employed mothers outperform those without children.
Being more present at home and work
When her first child was born, Fernanda Chouza went in the opposite direction, taking on a more challenging role at a fast-growing AI startup in San Francisco.
Over time Chouza says she earned the respect and leeway to take time off to care for her kids, but then she got laid off in 2022, when her kids were 2 and 4 years old.
“As I looked at hyper-growth companies, I realized I would need to put in, like, two years of elbow grease to get to the point where I can take a week off for my kids,” she says. “The idea of starting from scratch was too hard.”
Instead, Chouza started a one-women marketing agency called the Launch Shop, offering fractional product marketing expertise to software companies launching new products.
Previously, Chouza says she spent many hours at work feeling guilty for not being home with her kids, and many hours at home worrying about whether she was dropping the ball at work.
“Now I have full flexibility. I don’t have to be constantly apologizing for stuff, and I only show up when I’m at the top of my game,” she says. “When I’m off, I’m fully off; I don’t have anxiety on the weekends, I don’t have anxiety at night, and I can be a lot more mentally present with my kids.”
Though she doesn’t enjoy the same kind of equity-payout potential, Chouza says her salary is about 50% higher than her previous earnings, while providing significantly more time off.
Previously, she said she could take two or three weeks off a year but was expected to be responsive on email and Slack during that time.
Thus far this year, Chouza has taken a week or more off from work on eight separate occasions for reasons ranging from her kid’s eye infection to a two-week trip to visit their grandparents abroad.
“In corporate, I would have had to grovel and apologize for any time off,” she says. “It felt like I was being penalized for being a mom and they think of me as a liability, like ‘We’re always making so many accommodations for Fern.’”
A “side door” to new career opportunities
Perhaps one of the most unexpected benefits are the kinds of clients Chouza has worked with as a solopreneur. She says most companies are hesitant to hire executives in the current market but still need short-term support, making a contractor with corporate experience a viable option.
“By being fractional I’m actually punching so far above my weight,” she says. “I would have never had this exposure if I was just trying to go through the front door, but I’m coming in through this side door and getting these amazing logos on my résumé and this amazing experience.”
That is perhaps one of the most surprising benefits for those who step away from the workforce to start an independent venture while raising a family. Though many choose solopreneurship for the flexibility, they often discover that it can also offer a bridge—or even a ladder—back into the traditional workforce.
“You can think of it as not necessarily ‘I’m going to build a startup that’s going to pay me a lot of money,’ but ‘I’m going to write a story for myself that professionally fills those years,’” explains Kyle Jensen, the director of entrepreneurship programs, and associate dean and professor in the practice of entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management.
“I created something new, I operated it, I ran it, and through all of this I developed all sorts of executive acumen and business sense, and maybe some software skills.”
Professional benefits aside, Jensen also says part of what makes solopreneurship so appealing to parents is the ability to trade some of the financial rewards for time.
“With this manner of entrepreneurship, you can treat your human capital as a luxury good, and you can choose different distributions of time that allows you to enjoy things that are important but not necessarily prioritized in our society—like parenting,” he says, adding, “The only person who’s going to remember that you worked extra hours are your children.”
