Being a working mom is hard. Being a freelance working mom who has to work only when someone has a project is really hard.
What my job was like before freelance.
I was working on the creative team as a photo stylist for one of the world’s largest online home furnishings retailers and loved my job. I went in every day happy to work with a team of photographers, art directors, set builders, fellow stylists, and more. It was a little family of creatives working in a huge, dark warehouse. Until one day, we were all told we needed to either commute to Boston and work on their emerging 3D styling team or leave.
I felt like I was slapped in the face because I loved the physical aspect of my job and working with my hands. I created photos many people expressed to me “made them spend all their money to redecorate their house.” I didn’t want to sit behind a computer screen and use a mouse to move a sofa in a living room.
Starting a freelance career.
After speaking to my husband, I decided that I would go freelance. At first, I didn’t know what that meant. At the bare minimum, I knew I would be hired when a company needed a stylist, and I set my price. Boy was it a lot more than that. I started freelancing in 2019 and was feeling good. I had my first freelance job with the same company I was working for which felt like a no-brainer and an easy transition. Then with meeting new creatives in the freelance field, I started to get jobs with different companies.
How the pandemic affected it.
I was on a high and then a little thing happened called a global pandemic. Jobs went from being rescheduled to just next month to being on hold indefinitely. We creatives didn’t know what to do because our jobs were face-to-face, in-person. We would be dressing models, speaking to the art directors on set about changes, and working with producers to stay on budget. All of that came to a halt. I had no clue what would happen.
Slowly but surely we started to figure out the new normals on set, but it was hard. It was weird. Another thing I love about my job is meeting new people and that human connection. While dealing with so many changes and newness—I found out I was pregnant.
Becoming a mom.
Here I was excited about becoming a mom and feeling like my gig-based employment would be ideal for pregnancy and postpartum. There were so many pros to being freelance. I set my rate, and say yes or no to jobs. I say how long my maternity leave will be. While pregnant I still had jobs coming in, but not as many as I wanted because studios weren’t having many freelancers in.
The world entered a new normal when I had my son. I was in my beautiful newborn bubble and excited to be a mom. I told myself three months should be enough time to get to work. But before I knew it, I had a 6-month-old.
The search for a nanny and finding reliable childcare was a NIGHTMARE. I was supposed to give my most precious thing to a stranger and hope for the best. The same stranger who wouldn’t pick up at the scheduled FaceTime or answer said FaceTime in the car while someone else was driving (true story). My mom always offered to help, but she lives in another state and has a full-time job So while waiting to see if she or my husband was available I felt like jobs were passing me by. Like everyone just saw me as that “mom who doesn’t have childcare so she’s going to say no.”
Balancing motherhood and a freelance career.
I felt like I was falling behind all my creative colleagues. All I saw was everyone working and jobs not being offered to me. I doubted my talents. On one hand, I had this amazing bonding time that many women don’t receive. On the other hand, I felt like I would never get a job again because I thought when I said no to one gig they would never ask me again.
Now my son is three years old, and I still have doubts and anxieties pop up. I’m so happy to be working when I have a job and love it but when I don’t have work for a couple of weeks I don’t feel good enough. I keep at it, and I hustle always trying to find new connections. When on set I make it a great experience, so they want to hire me again. The gigs are sometimes too far in between especially now that I have found full-time childcare, but I think about all the time my son and I had together. He is my little bestie, and I got the chance to set the foundation for an unbreakable bond.
