title: "There's no such thing as balance (and other lies we tell working moms)" date: "2026-07-05" excerpt: "Running a company and raising small humans at the same time... not the highlight reel, but the actual operating system: what I cut, what I protect, and why 'balance' was the first thing to go."

Let me save you some time: balance is not coming. Nobody is going to hand you the week where the company hums, the kids are calm, the inbox is empty, and you've also worked out, called your mother, and slept eight hours. That week does not exist. It's a stock photo.

I run a company. I've shipped eight products. I raise small humans. And the single most useful thing I ever did for my sanity was stop chasing "balance" and start running my life like the operating system it actually is.

Balance is a scale. You need a system.

The word "balance" implies a scale, two sides, perfectly level. That's the trap. It tells you that any time work is up, home is down, and you're failing. So you spend the whole day feeling guilty in both directions at once. Guilty at the desk for not being home. Guilty at home for not being at the desk.

A scale can only ever be level for a second. A system can run for years. So I stopped weighing and started operating.

What I cut

You cannot add a company and two children to a life and keep everything else. The math doesn't work. So I got ruthless about subtraction.

I cut the meetings that could've been a message. I cut the perfect version of almost everything... the elaborate dinner, the color-coded everything, the belief that I personally had to do the thing. I cut a lot of guilt, which turned out to be pure overhead that produced nothing.

And I cut the myth that I could be fully present everywhere. I can't. Neither can you. Presence is a resource you allocate, not a state you achieve.

What I protect

Subtraction only works if you're protecting something specific with the space you free up.

I protect a few non-negotiable windows with my kids, and inside them, work does not exist. Not "mostly doesn't." Does not. I protect the deep-work blocks where the actual company gets built, and I guard them like a founder should, because a distracted hour of strategy is worth nothing.

And I protect the recovery. I'm an extrovert who people assume never needs to recharge... surprise. After I've shown up all day for a company and a family, I need a corner, some quiet, and a good book to become a person again. That corner is not a luxury. It's maintenance on the machine everything else runs on.

The part nobody puts on LinkedIn

Some days the system fails. The kid is sick on the day of the big call. The launch slips because bedtime ran long. You firefight a churn case at midnight and then you're up again at six.

That's not the system breaking. That is the system. It's not supposed to look serene. It's supposed to keep running.

The founders and mothers I admire aren't the ones who found balance. They're the ones who decided what mattered, protected it without apology, and let the rest be imperfect on purpose.

So no, I don't have balance. I have priorities I actually defend, a lot of things I've deliberately let be good-enough, and a warehouse of products I somehow built anyway... a wine app, a spontaneity app, a neighborhood marketplace, and a few more, made in the margins nobody thought were wide enough.

Turns out you don't need balance. You need to stop apologizing for the version of the week you actually have.