Six Days in the Life: A Home-Based CEO Mom, Working Around the Kids’ Carpet Stains
A Medium parenting diary
As part of our working parents publication, Medium commissioned a diverse array of American parents to document a week — four to seven workdays — in their lives. Our hope is that the resulting tally of dinners and bedtimes; playdates and naps; sprints from daycare to work and back again; will reveal some essential truths about parenting in this country.
Name: Kae Whitaker, 32
City: Katy, Texas
Children: Jorda, 11; Elijah, eight; and Morgan, two
Job: I work from home as the owner of a branding and business-development agency.
Allowed leave: I’m self-employed, so I’ve set my own leave.
Taken leave: Two weeks for each child
Dad’s job: COO of my agency and director of environmental services for a Fortune 500 building-maintenance company
Dad’s allowed leave: Two weeks paid
Dad’s taken leave: One week paid
Childcare setup: Morgan is at a daycare. The older kids are with me during the summer. They attend camp every now and again, but they’re mostly at home unless a client is visiting me there, in which case they go to the home of a cousin or another family member until I’m done.
Childcare cost: $240 per week.
Active parenting time this week: 50 hours. Hubby gets in about 10 p.m. if he’s lucky enough to make it home in time before they go to bed. (He gets his time in on the weekends.)
Parenting policy you want to see in the world: I would like to see parents having to spend more time with their children in school. Too often, parents leave the sole responsibility of educating their kids to the teachers. I think it should be mandatory for parents to volunteer at schools at least one day out of the year — and parents’ jobs should allow for that one day. It would make the partnership between the parents and schools much stronger.
See, we’ve got three darling kids, and while we love them dearly, sometimes it feels more like a three-ring circus than a normal family. I have a business that I run primarily from home, and my husband and the kids forget that just because I work from home, I’m not necessarily available to them all the time.
With this five-day diary, I’m going to try to give you an inside look at what it really looks like to run a business from home, take care of children, and try to keep your sanity all at the same time. My Instagram looks glamorous, but I’m about to get real with you.
Day One: Wednesday, August 19
This will serve as an overview of my daily routine; I’ll summarize on the other days.
5:57 a.m.
The alarm on my smartphone rings to the tune of “Angel’s Feather.” That’s nice. I hit the snooze button, eyes still sealed shut, and I think to myself, Three more minutes.
6 a.m.
The real alarm goes off. Ha. Snooze again; I’ll do this for the next 15 minutes. I hate getting up this early in the morning!
6:30 a.m.
I finally roll out of the bed. I’ve got a good 15 minutes I can kill in the bathroom before I have to get Morgan, the opinionated tw0-year-old, up and ready for school. Gotta get my mind together for whatever fight she’s going to want to fight this morning.
6:45 a.m.
Morgan wakes up with a smile, as usual; it won’t last long, but it’s refreshing to see first thing in the morning. I get her out of bed. Then I petition her to go to the “potty.” I can kiss that beautiful morning smile buh-bye! The fight is on! Morgan: No, no wanna go potty! Me: Yes, you have to go potty. Morgan: No, mommy, no! Me: Whatever, you better not potty on yourself, it’s big trouble for you if you do. Morgan [as if I’m annoying her]: O-kay. The nerve of this kid. For the record, this goes on for about 25 minutes.
7:10 to 7:15 a.m.
Morgan is finally dressed, pottied, and needing her hair comb. I ask, Can mommy take a picture for the family journal? Morgan’s answer (take a wild guess): NO! I take it anyway.
7:25 a.m.
Morgan’s finally ready to go! Thank God! Me to Morgan: Go give Daddy some love so you can go! (Daddy’s still in bed.) She gives hugs and kisses and screams bye, and we’re finally out the door.
7:40 a.m.
Drop Morgan off. Now I can go back home to get ready for work.
7:55 a.m.
I’m back at home, where my husband is finally up. I head to my office space and immediately jump on the computer to start my work day.
8:15 a.m.
Surprise, surprise, hubby is ready and leaving. (He usually needs my help with picking out HIS clothes or packing HIS work bag in the morning, but not today.) He leaves notes from an interview he conducted for me yesterday for an intern we are looking at hiring. I think I’ll finally get a moment of peace before the older two kids get up. But I’m wrong. My nosy 11-year-old hears that I’m up — and here she comes! Good morning, mommy. I spend a bit of time with her before getting back to work.
8:30 a.m.
I’ve got a mix of coaching and consulting calls all day, so for now I’m out. The older kids are at home a sitter will be over shortly. I’ll be back when I pick up the little one!
12 p.m.
Hubby is conducting the first phone screening for intern candidates for the agency. He’s at his “real” job, but during his lunch break, he spends an hour doing phone screens. I’m anxious and can’t wait to hear results, but he’s busy at work, so when he gets home after I’m conked out for the night, he’ll email me the conversation so that I can review it in the morning. Most times, business works like that, because during the week, we don’t see each other except in the morning — and that’s in passing as we both get ready for work. I feel him when he crawls in bed, but talking face to face? Not happening — the schedule doesn’t allow it. So we FaceTime when he’s at the office, and he calls the kids before they go to bed.
5:30 p.m.
It’s time to get the little one, so that I can head back and hop on a call in less than an hour. Of course it’s not an easy task, because by now you know that nothing comes easy with my two-year-old. It takes us 15 minutes to leave and another 20 to get home. I’ve got just enough time to grab something to drink before I need to close myself up in my room to take my next call. I give brief — and what I think are very clear — instructions to my 11-year-old. Then I close the door and I’m in for another hour of work.
There’s banging on the door 15 minutes into the call. I ignore it. Why? Because these kids know the dang on rules. Whatever it is it can wait. I’ll be done in a minute.
7:30 p.m.
The call is done. I open the door and come out to this.
Dang it! I should’ve opened the door!
7:35 p.m.
I’m scrubbing fingernail polish out of the rug, it’s not going anywhere, I’m pissed, that’s it, lights out, everybody go to bed. Where is my glass of wine?! This is only Day One!
Day Two: Thursday, August 20
5:57 a.m.
All over again! The alarm goes off as usual, and I hit snooze as usual. When I finally get up, it’s time to get the little one up. Just like she does every morning, she smiles, but it doesn’t last long.
6:15 a.m.
After we have our normal fight, I finally get her out of the house and dropped off, only to come home to have to answer a few emails and get the big kids ready. It’s a busy day. We’ve got orientation at school today from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (What if I worked a nine-to-five?) I’ve got three calls for the day, at 9 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., and I’ve got to get these kids ready and make sure they are presentable when we leave home!
Just before 9 a.m.
I’ve got a call. It’s an important one. A high-paying client from New York is taking on a new branding project and needs my assistance to launch it, so the kids can’t be anywhere around. For some reason, my husband is still here, so there isn’t a quiet place in my house. (Why is he still here? $#@%&*#!) The kids are in the living area, a.k.a, my office, and my husband is taking work calls in our bathroom, a.k.a., his office. I’ve got to Skype for this call, and the only place where the background would look half-decent is the corner of my bedroom. I’m forcefully expressing to my husband that my nine a.m. starts shortly and it’s video, hoping he gets the picture that he needs to leave. Don’t want to say that outright, because I’m usually complaining that he works too much, but today I need peace!
9 a.m.
He gets the point and sneaks out. Once the call starts, the kids are quiet, and I close the deal! Yay me. I’m feeling accomplished. Now I’ve got a hot hour to comb my big girl’s hair and do the next call. I throw the headphones in my ears and comb hair and participate in a conference call at the same time.
10 a.m.
That call is done. Now let’s head to school.
We’re in the building for 6th grade orientation.
9:30 a.m.
Orientation is done. Now we gotta go buy school supplies and call my next client. She loves my kids, so she’s alright with the noise in the background, but I gotta make sure I get it in now, because I’m also on the way to the little one right after we leave the store, and if she get’s in the car, the call is over.
3:30 p.m.
I wrap up my call just as I’m pulling up to pick up Morgan. Work is over, and I can take care of the rest of my mommy duties. Today was O.K.
Day Three: Friday, August 21
It’s a slow day. The schedule is the same as usual. Hubby does another phone screening of a social media intern for me. He’s not impressed, so I decide to post the openings for the company online, and to my surprise the applications start to flood in! I spend the day making sure the interview questions are up-to-date and the packages are prepared for the panel interviews. But it’s generally a quiet day.
9:00 a.m.
I take the big girl to her school to decorate her locker and drop off school supplies.
12:00 p.m.
I start my Facebook ad for the position. Then I call it quits. It’s been an eventful week. It’s wind-down time.
Day Four: Saturday, August 22
This is a NO WORK ZONE — and I’ve decided that means no journaling, either!
Day Five: Sunday, August 23
5 p.m.
Sundays are typically our hang-out-around-the-house days. Well, this Sunday, I don’t have a choice but to get some work done, because in two days I’ve got over 50 applicants combined for these positions so I need to filter through them. Since it’s Sunday, I won’t send any invitations for interviews, but I’ll make notes on the ones I like and reject the ones I don’t, so that tomorrow morning I can send out the invitations. That takes about two hours, maybe a little more
Day Six: Monday, August 24
5:30 a.m.
The alarm goes off — but I jump right up this morning. It’s the first day of school, and I can’t take chances. Plus I’ve got a long day today with a coaching client. So I’m running a tight ship. To my surprise, the kids are already up. They are all excited about the first day. The middle one is hyper. He feels like he’s grown ’cause he’s going to school by himself without his sister, and his big sister is feeling it ’cause she’s going to middle school. I’m a nervous wreck, too, but there’s no time for emotions this morning; there is a long day of work ahead.
6:30 a.m.
We’re out! Little Miss Morgan is the first stop, Jorda is second, and EJ is third.
8:10 a.m.
The kids are all dropped off. I’ve got to get back home to receive my client at 9 a.m. I run by the grocery store to pick up breakfast, because there’s no time to cook for her. (Yes, I do special stuff for my clients; I provide an experience!)
9 a.m.
My goal is to hop on Periscope before we get started, just to see what happens. Then my client arrives, we spend some time on Periscope — I like to show how our VIP days with our clients go — then we’ll get to work.
It’s work for the next eight hours: we’re strategizing on the client’s business model; creating client profiles; putting plans together for the infrastructure of her marketing team, etc.
2:30 p.m.
We take a break to grab my big girl from school, ’cause there’s no bus, then we head to grab a bite to eat because we are starving. Then back home to finish up the day.
5:20 p.m.
We call it quits. I’ve got to go grab the little one.
7:30 p.m.
I take a planned call. I feel terrible because I have not taken any time today for the kids, but it’s back to school, they are on a schedule, and we’ll have to make up for it tomorrow.
9 p.m.
One more coaching call. Then I’ve got to wrap up this journal and submit it.
I’m exhausted after a long day, but I made it through. I hop on Periscope for a quick nightcap. I use it as a means to connect with my ideal clients, sharing what transpired throughout my work day, or giving quick tutorials about a topic or technique. A couple of people hop on. I give a few nuggets before it’s time to go to bed.
10:45 p.m.
I’ve got to get these interviews scheduled. My next job post is going to be for an assistant! But for now, I’ll call it a night.
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