To have thought I could start a business with children

[Blaaaaaaaaah]

I’m sorry I’m just so upset and angry.
I’m on my own and my mother’s agreed to look after my children so that I can work two days a week.
Honestly two days is not enough but it enables me to do the bits that can’t be done at night or with the children there.
She managed three days before messaging me this evening to say she’s too busy tomorrow.
I’ve paid out thousands in start up costs, I have meetings booked for tomorrow that will now need cancelling and a string of deadlines that are now going to fall through.
I’m just so so cross, it’s so unfair everything’s so difficult once you have kids and nobody takes you seriously the minute you actually have to rely on someone else.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for really, just a handhold I think. It’s bloody difficult not even having someone else to vent to.

It really is very, very hard without support, or with unreliable support. It’s terrifying to suddenly find yourself in that situation. I take it your ex is no longer involved?

What kind of business is it? What sector? How old are the DC? Maybe MNers will be able to make some suggestions.

Ask her if she can do it this one time?

My parents often ask to watch my kids but it’s always much harder work than they think so I politely decline or just do it for a few hours because they do struggle with it.

It is hard to start a business when you have kids and childcare costs involved.

It’s just so annoying. Not much I can do about it really I’ll have to work around it this week and try and find alternative that I honestly can’t really afford yet.
It’s the fashion sector, what I did pre kids and prechildcare dilemmas. And even then I worked 5 days a week so was able to have my evenings and weekends for pleasure. Now it takes up every nap time or childfree evening and every second in between. I just wanted to be a bit me again.

You can do it, but try to be realistic with deadlines rather than set them tight. As a parent and I imagine even more so as a single parent, you will need more of a buffer for unknowns so allow for them. If you do have a good week and get through the work quicker then great move onto the next one.

I think you need to sort proper childcare out. Most mothers who work have to do this. There is nothing "unfair" about that.

@dragoncena

I think you need to sort proper childcare out. Most mothers who work have to do this. There is nothing "unfair" about that.

But it's hard because most people starting out their own business really can't afford to spend hundreds on childcare, so they are trapped between a rock and a hard place.

I think childcare has to be factored as a business expense.
In the meantime can you get emergency childcare by paying a friend to take them for a few hours or can you sit them in front of the tv with head phones on so you can get on with some stuff

I don’t have anyone else to have them at such short notice and obviously if my mother hadn’t offered to have them I’d have sorted childcare. I stupidly didn’t envisage her being quite so flaky quite so soon.

Does your mother realise the absolute situation she's left you in at such short notice?

I’m sorry that’s really hard. Are you in the UK? Are your DC of the age where there are any free hours? I hope you can sort something more permanent and reliable. The bonus of using someone other than DM is that maybe she’ll be more open to ad hoc babysitting where you can start to grab some little pockets of time for yourself. Good luck.

YABU to expect your mother to look after your kids for 3 days.

If you're confident your business will succeed, you need to use your business loans or get another loan to pay for childcare.

You can lay it back when your business is successful,can't you?

Flaky parents here too 🙋🏻‍♀️ Let us down after 3 days of childcare (that they had proposed!) a week into lockdown. And now they are puzzled when we turn down their offers of ‘help’. Sadly it’s just much more trouble than it’s worth. Good luck with your business, it’ll happen - just not this week

You really need reliable childcare in place. It won’t work otherwise. Good luck with your enterprise.

So your mother had agreed to look after dc tomorrow, and now cancelled at the last minute? That is unfair and I can understand why you are disappointed.’ Busy tomorrow’ is a weak excuse when she had already agreed to look after them. What has suddenly made her busy? Surely if she knew she was looking after the children, she would have kept her diary free?

It sounds like to me she has found it all too much and doesn’t want to look after them anymore.

My mother asked to be the one to have them . She set the days and times she could do. If it was all too much then fine but oh my god why late the night before when there’s nothing I can do to rearrange things without appearing as unreliable and flaky as her.

Obviously using her as childcare won’t happen again but wow I’m so annoyed for now

Emergency local teenager babysitter service?
If you ask on Fb you might get some recommendations?
Yeah, sort something else. Your mum is not reliable.

Does your mother have form for this? If you explain how important it is would she change her mind? It doesn't sound like it.

Have you told your mother that it’s going to cause you such a problem, and asked her to still do this week?