For much of my twenties and even into my thirties, I viewed becoming a mother young as something that had placed me on a different timeline to many of the people around me.
While friends were travelling, building careers, discovering who they were and enjoying a level of freedom that naturally comes with that stage of life, I was raising children. At various points, I felt as though I had skipped an entire chapter. There were responsibilities that couldn’t be postponed, decisions that couldn’t wait and priorities that arrived long before I felt fully prepared for them. If I’m honest, there were times when I looked at other people’s lives and wondered whether they had figured something out that I hadn’t.
I think that’s a fairly normal feeling when your life unfolds differently from the version you imagined for yourself.
When we’re younger, we tend to view timing in very simple terms. There is a perceived order to things. Education comes first. Career comes next. Financial stability follows. Family arrives somewhere after that. When life follows a different sequence, it can feel as though you’re constantly trying to catch up to everyone else.
For a long time, I looked at becoming a mother young through that lens.
I focused on what I might have missed.
What I didn’t appreciate at the time was what I had gained.
The perspective only really arrived years later. It happened gradually rather than all at once. As I became older and spent more time around founders, executives and professionals from different backgrounds, I started noticing that many of the skills people were working hard to develop in their thirties and forties were things motherhood had quietly been teaching me since my early twenties.
Not through books. Not through courses. Not through business experience. Just through life.
Motherhood introduced responsibility into my life long before I could negotiate with it. There was no option to procrastinate. There was no option to wait until I felt more confident. Small children don’t particularly care whether you feel ready. They need what they need, and they need it now. Looking back, I think that experience changed my relationship with responsibility in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.
Many of the people I meet today talk about confidence as though it’s something that appears first and action follows afterwards. My experience has often been the opposite. Most of the confidence I’ve developed throughout my life came from handling situations I wasn’t entirely prepared for. Becoming a mother young was probably the earliest example of that. You learn very quickly that waiting to feel ready isn’t always an option. Sometimes you simply move forward because somebody is depending on you.
I’ve often wondered whether that mindset influenced the way I approached business later in life.
When I started building companies, there were plenty of situations where I didn’t have all the answers. There were risks, uncertainties and decisions carrying significant consequences. Yet uncertainty didn’t feel unfamiliar. I’d already spent years learning how to make decisions without perfect information. I’d already spent years understanding that responsibility often arrives before confidence.
Another unexpected advantage was perspective. One thing children teach you remarkably quickly is that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
That might sound obvious, but I think it’s one of the most valuable lessons a person can learn. When you’re responsible for somebody else’s wellbeing, your attention naturally shifts beyond your own wants, frustrations and ambitions. You begin thinking differently. You become more patient in some areas. More resilient in others. Problems that once felt enormous become easier to place into context.
I’ve noticed throughout my career that perspective is often one of the most underrated leadership qualities.
Businesses inevitably experience challenges. Deals fall through. Clients leave. Projects fail. Markets change. If every setback feels catastrophic, leadership becomes exhausting. One of the advantages of having children is that they constantly remind you that life is larger than whatever happens at work that day.
Some of my most stressful business moments felt very important at the time.
Then I’d go home and hear about a school project, a sporting event or some completely random story that one of my children wanted to share.
Almost instantly, the scale of the problem changed.
Not because the problem disappeared.
Because perspective returned.
I’ve also come to appreciate how much emotional intelligence motherhood developed without me consciously trying to develop it. Children don’t always communicate directly. They don’t always explain what they’re feeling. Much of parenting involves observing behaviour, recognising patterns and understanding what sits underneath the surface. Looking back, those same skills became incredibly valuable in leadership. Teams, like children, don’t always tell you exactly what’s wrong. Clients don’t always articulate their concerns perfectly. Understanding people often requires paying attention to what isn’t being said as much as what is.
For years, I thought becoming a mother young had slowed me down. Now I wonder whether it accelerated certain parts of my growth in ways I couldn’t recognise at the time.
Not professionally. Personally.
It taught me resilience before I knew I would need it. Responsibility before I fully understood it. Patience before I valued it. Perspective before I realised how important it was.
None of those things felt particularly significant when they were happening.
Like most meaningful experiences in life, their value only became visible in hindsight.
These days, when I look at my children, I sometimes find myself reflecting on how differently I view that chapter of my life compared to when I was living through it. The things I once considered limitations often became strengths. The detours became part of the journey. The responsibilities I worried might hold me back ended up shaping who I became.
I still don’t believe there’s a perfect timeline for life.
I’ve met extraordinary people who became parents young and extraordinary people who became parents later. Everyone’s path unfolds differently.
What I do know is that becoming a mother young gave me gifts I didn’t recognise at the time. Not because it made life easier. In many ways, it made life harder.
But some experiences have a way of developing parts of you that no classroom, career or business ever could.
And for me, many of those lessons arrived in the form of two small children long before I understood how much they would shape the person I would eventually become.