A few tantalising excerpts from Mum Ultrapreneur.

From Part Two, “Gemma’s Story” Chapter One:

“Laying some A4 pads out across the kitchen table several pictures fell to the floor face up. There was one of a beautiful looking villa in the South of France high up in the hills with breathtaking views out to the Mediterranean; the other a snapshot of her sitting on her Father’s broad shoulders, aged about seven, during a Spanish family holiday. Gemma stared at that  familiar smile and wished he was still here now.

 

The pictures remained on the floor, she thought she’ll just wait for Ryan to come in from the garden and reach them. He was still having fun with Sam and Katie – she could hear the laughter from the kitchen and it reminded her of her childhood.

 

What a contrast to the sounds of only a few years ago. There was plenty of laughter during the day after school but there was an unnatural silence when Rob came home. Gemma understood he was tired but she had been working too! Sometimes she really resented Rob crashing in front of the TV the moment he came home. Most nights he hadn’t even the energy to take a shower first so the room would reek of sweat and Castrol GTX. The weekends were no better with seemingly endless tirades about muddy boots, scattered toys and boisterous games…

 

Gemma recalled the opening words of a book¹ she had once read: “To the worm living in horseradish, the world is horseradish”. Only a few years ago that had been her reality. ‘That’s how life was,’ she thought ‘I never considered it could be otherwise. …. yet my childhood was so very different – how did I let that go on so long?’

 

Her thoughts returned back to her pads. Though several weeks had passed since she had reread her Nan’s words they hadn’t entirely left her.

 

‘Remember always to trust your own heart. Everything will be fine. Just SPARKLE!’

 

Gemma had made several notes to herself in the mean time but had never made the time to sit down and really think them through. But today, today she felt upbeat and truly energised. Gemma promised herself that this would be the first day of the rest of her life (which it was…)

 

1

End the struggle and dance with life, Susan Jeffers

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From Chapter Three

“The coven finally met at Vino’s Wine Bar – the original 1980s’ yuppie paradise they use to stake out when they were all at the neighbouring university.

 

‘Can you believe this place is still here?’

 

‘And it hasn’t changed one bit, doesn’t that waiter look like Rick Astley?’

 

‘It probably is Rick Astley? Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.’

 

‘Ah, memories. Do you remember watching the video screen in the corner over there? What was that song that was number one forever… from the Bodyguard?’

 

‘Ah yes, I remember you had a thing for Kevin Costner!’

 

‘Yeah, he’s probably got a job here too!’

 

The coven was back. It had been too long Gemma thought. One shouldn’t let friendships fade away. Increasingly Gemma was becoming aware how important good relationships were.

 

The ‘coven’ was formed on October 31^st 1991 when these six unlikely friends shared a house at university.

 

Tulip, not her real name, was the artist of the group. Just before her 21^st birthday she had decided to change her name and her course, abandoning law for design and never looked back. Now a highly successful graphic designer Tulip thought Gemma’s desire to give setting up on her own another try was ‘Stupendous! I’ve always done my own thing, followed my bliss, you know. Hasn’t done me any harm.’

 

‘But you don’t have a family,’ piped in Siobhan, “You are very brave and having another baby too. Three children, Gemma. I struggle with Tyler – but then he’s a sensitive child. I would love to go back to work now he’s at school but he’s so fragile and often unwell. I need to be at home. He needs to know Mummy is there for him. And, well… maybe in a few years I’ll get a little job locally… before my brain freezes over!’

 

‘Siobhan, how do you stay sane?’ Toni (short for Antonia) asked. Toni asked this question of all her friends who stayed at home with their children, even if it was just for an afternoon! For Toni the idea of not having a career was abhorrent. Toni worked hard to get where she was, and where she was, was pretty remarkable. Chief Executive of a national aid charity, constantly in demand for radio and television debates, famous blogger and author Toni was ‘having it all’ – except her ‘all’ did not include kids or a husband, not even a boyfriend.

 

‘So, Gemma – when is this…Ryan, going to make an honest women of you?’ Sophie asked.

 

Sophie, like Siobhan was married with kids but Sophie had not stopped working when the children came along, instead she had downsized her ambitions, went part time and adjusted her goals to getting all her work done before she needed to pick up the twins from school.

 

‘Surely, you are not going to make that mistake again!’ shrieked Toni. ‘Why do all of you still insist that you need a man to ‘complete you’ ?’

 

‘I blame Jerry McGuire, personally,’ choked Siobhan as she sipped her Vodka and Red Bull.

 

‘No, Rene Zellweger and bloody Bridget Jones!’ trumpeted Tulip as she slammed her glass onto the table.

 

‘Yes, bloody Bridget Jones, I mean how could you even consider Hugh Grant over Mr Darcy?’

 

‘Ryan, has a look of Colin Firth actually, Sophie, with the body of Colin Farrell. And I’m not making the same mistake twice; Toni…Ryan is nothing like Rob. Nothing at all.’

 

‘Thank God for that,’ they all agreed. ‘Here’s to Gemma, and new beginnings!’

 

‘Yes, new beginnings!’ Toasted Gemma. “

 

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And finally some snippets from Part Three

(taken from the Mumpreneur Interviews held during the summer of 2009 )

  

 

A Mother’s Wisdom

 

“My mother was someone who worked and who had time for her family but never made it feel as if one was kind of outstripping or outshining the other and always managed to try and get that right balance that sort of she felt comfortable with and that, sort of, she was the linchpin in the household.”

 

Anna Hayward, Managing Maternity Ltd

 

 

“One final piece of advice is to savour every moment with your own children. I know it’s a cliché but it’s so true, and I sound like my own mother when I say that they grow so quickly! Before you know it they’re independent and preparing to enter the big wide world in their own right. My children are both secondary school age now and I know it won’t be too long before the eldest is off to university. Yet another ‘scary’ prospect, but I know I’ll get through it!”

Karen Muxworthy, Freedom Events

 

“I definitely wasn’t green before I had my son. That’s definitely something that came about by having him. Realizing how much rubbish I was throwing away and I started to worry what kind of planet I was going to leave my kid and what was he going to inherit. We’re all making an absolute mess of this place. Our poor children are going to be the ones having to sort it out. So I think that’s what happens when you become a parent. You become responsible. You think I’m going to start doing something for my kids whereas when you’re young and single, you don’t even think twice about things, do you? I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are a bit more conscientious than I ever was but I was in the city and probably didn’t think about many things. Going from day to day and working for someone else, making quite good money but that’s all that drives you through… this way you’re making a difference for your kid.”

 

Jill Barker, Green Baby

 

“I think everybody should know that they can actually achieve what they want to achieve. In other words you can do anything you like, and I think that would be my tip. You can do it if you want to.”

 

Sarah Sherrington, Illustrator

 

“If you constantly keep your eyes, your ears and your heart open, always carry around a notebook with you, just keep writing everything down throughout the day. You know, write little messages to yourself, you know, to keep yourself going. Always feel like a self chat, I call it. You know just evaluate how you’re going that day that week, that month, you know, keep track of your successes, keep track of anything you’ve learnt how to deal with, anything you’ve learnt that is new. Remember how proud you are in each and every little step that you’ve overcome every day that goes by. Be proud of that. and just keep people around you that are going to keep you feeling enthusiastic… You know, it’s powerful and I think if you keep those sort of influences around you, you will always feel like you’ve got enthusiasm and drive to be successful.”

 

Monic Joint, Mummy Must Have

 

 

“(My mother said to me once that I was acting like a girl with no options). I now understand actually what she meant because you know … She ended up doing me a favour that day. Because I started behaving, in time I started behaving like a person with options as opposed to being somebody who was going out into the world thinking this is it, I don’t have any options. And I think that …certainly…many women… think about themselves, the type of relationships that they go into, the opportunities that they turn down or avoid or sabotage inadvertently, some self-filling prophecy, you know all these things that we do, you know, as women… we have really got to stop behaving like we don’t have options.

Natalie Lue, Bambino Goodies

 

 

“There’s a lot about my mum that’s great, and that she gave me that I can really identify with but a couple of things to share, one of them in particular that you’ll enjoy is my mum was very gifted in amateur dramatics, and did a lot of performance. She was really good in that sort of thing and when she was training me to my competition during my childhood in North Wales or, you know, helping me learn a part for a production that I was in, she would say to me ‘sparkle’. So sparkle was my mum’s advice. And the other thing she said to me that was really lovely for a parent to say. She would say to me at times: ‘I don’t really know what you’ll end up doing or where you’re heading but I know that you’ll do it well.’ And I thought well, that’s a lovely thing as a parent. It’s not particularly relevant to running a business …but as a parent to offer a child that trust in who they are and that confidence without wishing to put a stamp on where they have to be headed, is very empowering as well.”

 

Jennifer Liston-Smith, Managing Maternity Ltd