Things I’ve learned as a freelancer with a newborn

This isn’t my first child. I already have a two year old with the vocabulary of a six year old and the energy of a skate-boarding teenager. And during the first few months of her life, I tried to balance being a new mom and a freelancer and I struggled quite a bit. So I vowed to do things differently the second time around.

Well, the second time around came a little over a month ago and while it feels disingenuous to already state all the things I’ve learned so far with this newborn, the difference between the first go and this second time is already astounding.

Months before my second was born, I started significantly cutting down workload while focusing on a handful of higher paying clients which weren’t necessarily fancy bylines. Within weeks, I already felt a load off my chest. I could breathe easier and actually had more breathing room between deadlines. I even stopped pitching for awhile. I took on a short-term editorial consulting gig to financially replace a handful of articles per month.

So by the time I was holding my newborn in my arms, I wasn’t feeling stressed out about the new changes that would require I rearrange my life as a freelancer once again.

Now, to put this in some perspective, I’m blessed to be living in a country where my husband and I can choose to be on parental leave for up to one and a half years with pay. But as a creative, sitting home for a year feels impossible for me. So right now, I’m back to work and my husband is on six months paternity leave. Once he goes back to work, I’ll be on a modified part-time maternity leave.

Yesterday, he and I were thumbing through photos on his cellphone from last year. Photos of our first and just how much she has grown.

“I don’t remember this,” I said.

“Oh yeah, I think you were in the Balkans then,” he replied.

“What about this one?” I continued.

“Ummm…probably Belfast then,” he said.

I slowly realized just how quickly I was whizzing through life without stopping to breathe. That is what I want to avoid with my second and I’m so glad I’d finally started down that road of consolidation months before so I could take back some breathing room.

So really, the three things I’ve learned as a freelancer with a newborn are:

That I have the world’s most incredible spouse who lets me flourish and supports me in my goals. Without him, my life story as a freelancer who focuses a lot on travel and thus, has to travel sometimes, would be quite different. There are single parents who do this without extra support and they are heroes on so many levels to me.

That I need to be much kinder to myself. I need to shake that feeling of always “producing something”, be more vulnerable, stop competing with myself, and take care of myself first.

That I’m incredibly blessed to live in Sweden as a mother with small children. That’s where my relatively high taxes go. To help families carve out that breathing room in their lives. Here’s an article I wrote about 10 Things that Make Sweden Family-Friendly on the country’s official website.

To sum this all up, this quote from Afrobella continues to resonate with me as I settle into this new landscape of my life:

“Slow down. Calm down. Look back at your year. Appreciate the journey you’ve made – the peaks and the valleys, the growth and the realizations. Be thankful for who you are, what you have, and the people who love you. Look forward to the upcoming year. Make plans that make sense for you, considering what you know you are capable of. Don’t limit yourself. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Rejoice in yourself.”…Patrice Grell Yursik, Afrobella