Are you struggling with mom guilt? Today’s episode is the second in the summer sabbatical series, and features my chat with Brittnie Renee on the Capture The Chaos podcast. Brittnie and I are chatting about our experiences with the guilt that can come from running a business while being a mom.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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Review the Show Notes:
Introducing Sabrina (1:10)
Sabrina’s background in photography (2:48)
Stay-at-home mom to business owner (6:46)
The start of the mom guilt (8:32)
Putting kids in childcare (11:33)
Our mom guilt now (14:47)
Advice for your mom guilt (19:13)
Episode Links:
Instagram: instagram.com/sabrinagebhardtphotography
Connect With Brittnie
Website: brittnierenee.com
Instagram: instagram.com/brittnierenee_co
Review the Transcript:
Sabrina: On this episode of the shoot it straight podcast. We are on episode number two of the summer sabbatical series. This is a replay of an interview that I did on my friend, Brittany Renee’s podcast. And we are talking all about mom guilt. So this, this mom guilt thing. piece of the puzzle. When you are a solopreneur, when you’re running a business, when you’re a photographer or creative, what are that, whatever that looks like, this is the mom guilt piece that I don’t think gets talked about enough.
And Brittany and I are going there. I’m sharing how I struggle with mom guilt. She’s sharing her story as well. So if you are a mom and a business owner, I highly recommend you give this interview a listen. Let’s jump in.
Brittnie: Hello friends. My name is Brittany and this is the capture the chaos podcast. Right now. Your photography business probably looks like confetti on the floor after a birthday session. A bit of a mess. In this podcast, we talk about how you can be more productive and organize your business in order to have success without burnout.
We focus on growing your business in the most sustainable way so you can focus on the parts of your life that matter most. I am here with my friend Sabrina. Hi Sabrina. Hi, I’m so glad to be here. Would you
Sabrina: introduce yourself to everybody in case they don’t know you? Yes. My name is Sabrina Gebhardt. I have been a lifestyle family and newborn photographer for almost 13 years, and I’m in the Fort Worth, Texas area.
So very near to Brittany. I’m also an educator. So I speak. I speak at conferences. I coach women. I also have a podcast called shoot it straight. So Brittany and I are very similar and we do a little bit of all of the things. Well, it’s so
Brittnie: funny that we’re so similar. We’re so close to each other and we do a lot of the same things, but I only just met you this past year through mutual friends.
So it’s so funny that we’re so close yet. It’s such a, it’s such a big community here. I feel like in one online and then also just in the Dallas area and the Dallas Fort Worth area, there’s so many photographers. So. Oh my gosh.
Sabrina: Yes. Yes. Agreed. There’s so many of us. And, you know, I’m like very near downtown Fort Worth, which people that don’t know the area don’t realize, but like Dallas and Fort Worth are actually really far, you know, like you wouldn’t just pop over, you know?
And so for my friends that live north of me or, you know, east of me, it’s kind of like, you know, Yeah, you’re close with air quotes, but not really. So
Brittnie: yeah. Oh, so you must, you must see each other all the time. No, no. You’re Fort Worth now. Might as well be another state away. Exactly. Exactly. So far. And we have a mutual friend, Amanda, and she lives North Texas and she basically calls anything below like her area, Dallas, even though I don’t live in Dallas, I live outside Dallas.
She’s like, you’re, you’re in Dallas to me at this point. And she’s in Oklahoma to me because she’s so far up there. So exactly. Texas is huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, tell us about your business. So you have been a lifestyle family photographer for, you said, what, 13 years? Yeah. Yeah, a long time. How did you get into photography?
Oh,
Sabrina: the same as everybody else, basically. I do have a slightly different story. So, Growing up, my, both of my parents were amateur photographers. So my mom was really into what we now call lifestyle stuff. She didn’t photograph other families, but she did photograph a couple of companies locally that worked with children in like a lifestyle fashion.
And then she also photographed my brother and I and our cousins in that same lifestyle manner. And so we grew up with a camera in our face around us all the time. My dad was the other side. My dad loved landscapes and cityscapes. And so we actually had a dark room in our garage growing up. And so my, like I grew up with understanding a camera and film and all of that, but I went to college and didn’t touch a camera.
And then I, you know, went into the working world and an adult and I, again, didn’t touch the camera. And when my oldest was born, I picked it back up again and remembered how much I loved it. At that point, the world was digital. I’d forgotten all about film, but I still wasn’t immediately sparked with, Oh my gosh, I forgot how much I love this.
I want to do this for a living. I had a great career at the time and I was obsessed with it. Never thought I would be doing anything else. But what actually happened was after my oldest was born, I decided to stay home. And I realized after about a year that I was not cut out to be a stay at home mom. I was bored out of my mind.
And so at that point, I opened a little Etsy shop. I was sewing over the top children’s clothing. And so I opened an Etsy boutique and totally loved being an entrepreneur. You know, in the Etsy scheme of things, this was so much fun. It’s almost 16 years ago and Etsy was new and I was doing really well in my business and I was doing all of the things from my corporate career and my business background to like market better and do all these things.
And part of that process was after being in business about a year, I started to up level the images I was taking of my products for my Etsy shop, which of course my adorable toddler daughter at the time was my model for all of these things. So I started taking better photos of her and learning photography, doing it well for products, but she was the model, which means I was photographing a little kid, right?
And that very quickly opened into, wow, you’re getting such like great expressions and such reality. Can you, you know, can we photograph our daughter in your clothes? Oh, can you come to this birthday party? And then that’s where it kind of took off and became. The Oh, wait a minute. I could actually make a lot more money doing this other thing that I also enjoy.
So it took me a few steps, but it did. It did come through me becoming a mom and photographing my daughter. So
Brittnie: I love that journey. That’s really, I mean, we’ve talked about, I was on your podcast a few months ago and we kind of talked about how we both were into Etsy, but I didn’t know how much Etsy played a role into starting photography for you.
So that’s really cool. I love that. You made it a lot longer as a stay at home mom than I did. You made it a whole year. Yeah. I made it like a couple weeks and I was like, this is terrible. Right. It’s just, you, you only have like one little tiny child to talk to and they don’t talk back at that point. And which is good.
And cause then when they get older, you’re like, oh, and now you talk back. And I remember when you were cute and you didn’t talk back, but it’s kind of alone. It’s lonely, especially, I feel like. Being a mom, you’re lonely until your kids start school. Uh, this is how it was for me until your kids start school.
And then you’re kind of pushed into mom communities and like meeting other people. Cause otherwise you’re just like, I have no friends. I’d find myself going to Chick fil A and the park and the mall playground. That was our big place to go was the mall playground. So. Okay, so you’re a stay at home mom for a year, and then you started getting into Etsy, and then you started getting into photography, and I’m assuming photography kind of took off for you, and like got busy.
Okay, did you feel guilty leaving your kids to do this work? Like, how did that mindset kind of shift for you, going from stay at home mom to a business owner?
Sabrina: Yeah, um, I did not have mom guilt for the first few years of my photography business because at the time, a little bit of backstory at the time, you know, in this backstory, similar to so many people, because we were young, we were in our mid to late twenties.
My husband was early in his career. We were living in this tiny little super cheap house, you know, cutting coupons, watching our. bills, trying to make good financial decisions, you know, and so money was tight back then. And at the time it was seen as, Oh my gosh, I’m going to photograph as many people as I can because this is making a really big difference in the income in our family.
And so there wasn’t so much guilt because my husband worked for the government at the time. And so he had cushy bank hours, right? And he was home super early. He was off on all the holidays. He never had to work late or super early or on weekends. And so he was fully supportive of me doing the nights and weekends.
Right. And at the time, being a full time stay at home mom, I was like, Yeah. Get me out of the house when he comes home. Right? Like it wasn’t a drag. It was awesome that I had an excuse to leave my house and leave my kids and have some time with other humans, you know? So it was really exciting at the time.
And I kept thinking, Oh my gosh, people are paying me to do this. This is amazing. The mom guilt didn’t start until things started to shift in my business. It got to a point where, again, my husband was working for the government. Within just a few years of my business, I was making more than him. And so that created a shift in our household and how we were prioritizing like, how I was spending my days, right?
And starting to get childcare, starting to put our kids in school longer, starting to make choices with I’m spending less time with them and time that they’re not necessarily going to be with daddy, but with other people, strangers, right? And that’s when the mom guilt started to kick in is But I wanted to be a stay at home mom, so doesn’t that mean that all of my quote unquote available hours should go to them?
And I felt guilty about getting the childcare support. That’s where it started for me. One of the things I’m asked about the most as a business coach for photographers is marketing. Students want to know how to find their ideal clients. How often should they email their list? How can they use social media effectively?
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Brittnie: How did you reconcile sending your kids to child care while you were working?
Sabrina: So for the first couple of years, it was like close family friends. It was, we don’t trust anybody, right? You have to like know us. I wasn’t finding, you know, I live in a college town. I wasn’t, I wasn’t utilizing college girls. I wasn’t comfortable sending my kids to any kind of preschool at that point because, oh my gosh, what if their nap schedule gets messed up.
I was so. Tight about everything, staying as safe and normal with air quotes as possible, because I’m like a schedule fanatic and a rhythms fanatic. Here’s what happened though. At one point, the family friends who were in college at the time that were helping, they aged out, right? They moved on to careers and we came to a crossroads of the option is.
reaching out to college students that we don’t know, or let’s put them in a school program with trained professionals. And even though I wasn’t ready to like release that yet, I was like, that’s the better option. That’s the best option here. They will have structure. They will have socialization and within about a month of making that call and then starting school and then me being able to see how much they were thriving because of it.
That’s when I was like, Oh, this is actually good for them to engage with other people, to have other opportunities, to learn about life outside of our household. And so that’s what helped release the mom guilt. And honestly, Brittany, from that point on, I was like, how much childcare can I have? How many different places can I, you know, can I put them in zoo school and museum school and preschool and have a Friday nanny come, you know, it just, it all of a sudden opened the door when I realized that not only is it okay.
But it’s really good for them.
Brittnie: I don’t think I personally didn’t have guilt sending my kids to preschool or anything like that. Because when I first became a mom, I had a full time job. And so he was already used to going to preschool or daycare was an in home daycare. And then I quit my job and He only stayed home with me for like three months before I was like, let’s get you into preschool.
And so it wasn’t a big shift for me because someone had always taken care of him, you know, and it just gave me a little, little extra time to breathe and photography was starting to pick up. So I didn’t feel guilty in that sense. It was the nights and weekends and not charging enough and working too much.
And like, this isn’t worth leaving my family anymore because I’m, you know, Yes, I’m making some money and it’s great, but I’m not making enough for it to be worth leaving my family. And that’s kind of where my guilt set in. And then when my kids would like cry when I was leaving, that was just like, like rip my heart out.
Honestly, over the summer, my seven, my six year old, he would do this past summer, this past summer, I’ve been doing this his entire life. I’ve been doing photography. Okay. But this last summer, every time I would leave to go to a session, he would scream bloody murder and chase me down the street. And I’m like, what is this?
That’s so hard. Yeah. I know. But now he’s going back to school. He doesn’t do it anymore. So there’s something about like being super attached to me that was causing this like weird, like anytime I would leave, I don’t, I don’t know what was going on, but it was crazy, but he’s not doing it now that he’s back in school.
So my guilt was, was a little different and still is. I still do get it from time to time. Do you ever feel that mom guilt even now, like this far into your business?
Sabrina: Yeah. And now it’s different and it’s for different reasons. So my kids are older than yours. I have a 16 year old, a 13 year old and an eight year old.
Now I have, I don’t have any guilt really around the eight year old because like you said, he’s had this his whole life. He has had, he was immediately put into four days a week preschool as a, like a nine month old, like as soon as they were willing to take him, he was off. He’s always napped at school.
He’s that third child. He’s just, he’s never known anything other than. Nannies and school and mommy has this job and this is her job. My older kids, they have always known it too, right? They don’t really remember before, but the guilt has shifted because now they’re older and my oldest is like two steps from leaving, right?
She is, we are looking at colleges. She just started driving, you know, we’re entering a whole different phase of life. And as you will soon find out, teenagers aren’t home very much and it’s not because they don’t choose family. My kids both are very, very family oriented. It’s because they have so many other opportunities, right?
Like they had, they both play sports for their school. So they either have really early mornings or really late nights, academics pick up, they have tutoring, they have young life, they go to camps with different programs. They play club sports that take up off seasons. They’re just gone a lot. And so now it’s wanting to make sure that when they’re home, I’m available.
And so during the school year, that isn’t so much an issue. It’s the summer. This past summer was actually the first summer that I really was like feeling it in my core because it was just a few months before my daughter turned 16. And that milestone has been like on the horizon since she was born. And like, just kind of makes me teary just thinking about it, you know, and I was just having this realization that.
Even all of the little moments that you’re just driving carpools, all of that’s going to go away with her because she’s going to be driving herself everywhere. And so I started to really realize that this past summer I needed to have a different Rhythm and schedule so that I could hang with my kids when they were home, which wasn’t all that much, but I wanted to be available and I wanted to have different kinds of office hours.
And so the mom guilt has shifted a little bit just because I feel like it’s like a ticking time bomb, right? Of sending my kids out into the world, you know, like I’m running out of time.
Brittnie: Yeah, that’s a really good perspective, because it’s kind of like opposite, you know, like when they’re little, you’re the one that’s always gone.
But when they’re older, they’re the ones that are always gone. So you have to like kind of adhere to their schedule a little bit. And I’m kind of in the middle right now, I have to make sure that my nights and weekends aren’t taken up with photo or yeah, my nights and weekends aren’t taken up with photos, because I don’t want to miss their sports.
And I don’t want to miss their events. And I want to be able to go to their school parties and do their school performances and do all the things that they do. They’re they’re doing. I want to be a part of it because I don’t want to miss out on it and I think there was a point in time very briefly whenever my kids started playing sports, you know, the three and four year old sports.
That’s really didn’t mean much, but we learned our lesson that and we didn’t put my four year old. She’s still not in any sports because we’re like, well, this is kind of a waste of money. But anyways, if you put your kids in sports, that’s fine. It’s just it’s Mhm. It’s chaos. It’s chaos for her that little.
So yeah, we just gotta wait for her. But anyways, I didn’t like that. My husband would be the one that always had to take them to sports. And I was like, Oh, I gotta go do many sessions. I gotta go take photos. I gotta do this. And I was missing it. And so I have not, I only missed one game this entire year, this entire year.
I’ve only missed one game. And I feel really good about that. I feel really good about that. And that’s something that’s had to kind of shift because before when they were little, I could work nights and weekends because they weren’t busy in the evenings because I was home with them during the day. So now just kind of, I like to do newborn sessions during the day when they’re all in school and, um, yeah.
You know, I don’t work Saturday mornings. I don’t like taking morning morning sessions, and I don’t work Sundays because that’s my family, our family day for the most part, and I’ll only do sessions on Saturday evenings kind of thing. So things have changed a lot. And I think as we enter in different phases of our lives, then, you know, The way our business looks is gonna look different, right?
What would be your best piece of advice to someone at any stage of their life right now that is feeling this, like, guilt, like, I don’t deserve to run a business, I need to be home with my kids, or, you know, whatever their mom guilt feeling is that they have right now, what is your best piece of advice for them?
Sabrina: I think the first thing is to really question where the guilt is coming from. Is this a story that we’re telling ourselves or is this an actual problem, right? Because it’s two different things to your example, missing all of the games, missing all of the practices, not getting to participate in pieces of your child’s life that are kind of quote unquote bigger than just the everyday.
That’s a problem. A story is kind of what I was telling myself of, well, I decided to stay home. So shouldn’t I be the one, you know, that’s a story. And so asking yourself truly, like, where’s the guilt coming from? Because your, your action step, so to speak, is going to be different if it’s an actual problem that you’re feeling guilty about.
My answer is. Just to remind you that as an entrepreneur, you get to make the rules in your business. And if something’s not working, you get to change it. And it doesn’t matter if you think that it is going to inconvenience your clients, or that you’re going to lose clients, or that you’re not sure how it’s going to pan out.
Being an entrepreneur is too hard, not. For it to work for your life, right? Most of the time. Okay. It’s not always going to, but most of the time. And then if it’s a story that you’re telling yourself, if this is mom guilt that is just completely fabricated out of our mind, that’s not actually based on any truth.
Um, then it’s, it’s a mindset issue, which kind of like you said a minute ago, where you feel like you don’t deserve to have a business or time to yourself, um, that is something that is a mindset struggle that we have to work through because that is a worthiness piece that stems from something a lot deeper and it’s not as easy as just solving a problem, right?
We need to work through it. Why you feel that way and allowing yourself to realize that you do, you do deserve time for yourself. You do deserve time to do something that you love that feeds a passion, feeds a purpose that you do have a purpose outside of mothering, you know? And so that’s, I guess that’s my, that’s my advice.
Brittnie: I like that you’re talking a lot about mindset because I know I try not to listen to other people’s podcasts, especially when they’re in the same kind of sphere as because we don’t want to like get muddled up and start copying other people. But the times that I have listened to your podcast, you do a lot of mindset talk, and that’s those are the episodes that I like flock to is your mindset episodes.
So if you need more mindset help, highly recommend going to listen to those episodes because they’re phenomenal. Sabrina, thank you so much for sharing your insight with us. And I really appreciate you taking some time out of your day to chat
Sabrina: with us. Thanks for letting me be here. It was fun. I always love it.
I love to talk about motherhood and business. Again, if anybody comes over to listen to my podcast, that’s literally the whole point is like the muddled messiness of motherhood and business. And it just, I don’t think it gets talked enough. I do think it’s getting talked about enough. I do think it’s getting talked about more now than it was when we started, which I’m so thankful for.
But. Women are allowed to be multi passionate. Moms are allowed to have things outside of motherhood and outside the home. And anyway, it’s been such a joy to be here. So thanks for having me. I know we could go on and on and
Brittnie: on and talk about this, but totally, um, you know, hour long episodes don’t get listened to all the way through.
Right. Right. All right. Thank you so much. And I will see you around. All right. Bye.
