Julia's Story

Summary

Julia loved her job as Head of Sales and Marketing for a luxury travel brand in London.

But after having children and paying nursery fees, she was earning almost nothing for her hard work...

When her part-time request was denied, she left the job and relocated to Cornwall with a newborn and 18-month-old.

Following a long, difficult journey, Julia retrained and now owns an award-winning digital advertising agency, employing more than 20 staff.

Her advice to working people is:

• Be savvy about finances. Even if you’re not planning to start a family soon, find out what impact having a family will have on your mortgage, your insurance. Be in the know, ask the questions.
• Choose where you live carefully because moving house is costly. We didn’t have many childcare options because we were so rural.
• I’ve learnt that there is no point working my arse off for another year to achieve X, Y and Z. It’s about living in the now, focusing on how happy everyone is today because no one can be sure what will happen next. I had cancer last year. I try not to plan too far in advance because I don’t know what’s around the corner.

Read Julia’s full story below; it’s incredibly inspiring.

Julia's Story

I was 29 and a career girl who loved my job. Children weren’t part of the picture. Pregnancy wasn’t something I had planned.

As soon as my baby was born, I realised I couldn’t go back to my job, full-time, for the same amount of money. By the time I paid the nursery fees, I was earning almost nothing, which devalued what I was doing. I was already giving 120% to my job, working evenings and weekends.

Before having children, my purpose had been to help the company I worked for succeed (while being paid enough money to live a certain lifestyle). But the reality was I was barely living at all outside of work. This was about 13 years ago; people at the time weren’t striving for a work-life balance; we weren’t thinking about our mental health, caring about mindfulness, or investing time in hobbies. We were giving our whole selves to work.

My request to move to part-time was turned down. I realised the world was a much bigger place and that no one else would look after me. I had to look after myself and my family.

My choice was to leave or essentially work for nothing.

I had a bit of an extreme reaction and, possibly fuelled by hormones, pheromones, biology - who knows! - I decided to get pregnant again quickly. I needed to buy myself more time to decide what to do if I couldn’t do the job I had dedicated myself to for the past six years.

That was probably not the most sensible way to decide to have another child. I feel fortunate I was even able to make that decision - I should have perhaps involved my husband a little bit more in it!

However, it did buy me time, and it enabled us to transform our lives completely.

Up until this point, I had let life happen to me. Having children made me question everything - which I needed to do.

I had given my whole self to my career—more than I should have done. Now I needed to do what was best for my family and me.

My employer wanted my old self back - I just couldn’t give that. 

When I returned to work a year later, I could no longer give my entire self to the job. I just didn’t have the time.

I had to leave at 5.15pm to rush across Putney Bridge to pick up my baby from the adequate but extremely expensive nursery. Then I’d have to struggle onto a packed commuter bus with my buggy to go home.

I was pregnant with number two, feeling inadequate in my job (because I couldn’t give as much time as before). I found myself making excuses for myself to new people coming into the company, telling them, “I used to be really good”. I was still good! I simply didn’t have the luxury of time.

I needed a blended, flexible working environment, which was not the norm at the time.

Even just Fridays off could have worked - I mean, there’s so much washing with a baby! And there was no sleeping. My firstborn had reflux. I’m a perfectionist, so I tried to do everything by the book. Everything had to be organic and home-cooked, and I tried to do that while commuting, working and hardly sleeping at all.

Possibly driven by hormones, more than anything else, we decided to relocate.

When we first took out our mortgage, we didn’t realise how having children might affect renewing it. We were forced to sell the house.

We decided to move to Cornwall to be closer to family. Had we interrogated that decision more, we would have realised that we were moving to a place with even less of a support network.

I drove my three-day-old and my 18-month-old to my parents' house in Cornwall. It wasn’t remotely baby or toddler-proofed. I don’t think my mum changed a single nappy when we lived there for four months. My husband stayed working in London and eventually we bought a place of our own.

While I was trying to set up a perfect home, I realised I needed to go back to work for financial and mental health reasons.

There weren’t options for wrap-around nursery care where I lived, so I had to get a nanny. I did everything by the book and employed her.

I successfully interviewed for a full-time job and managed to negotiate it down to four days a week.

It was a huge step down in my career. I was meant to be employed as a marketing manager, but I was actually a glorified admin. Things didn’t go well. I lost my confidence. It was a very negative work environment. I was marketing a hotel with no repeat customers because there were huge flaws in running it.

I got fired. I was asked to return to my desk, pick up my things, not touch the computer, and never return to the workplace again. I was given a month’s pay. This meant I could carry on paying the nanny. She only had seven weeks until her next job started.

I went out and I networked. 

I met some wonderful groups of women - a lot of them mums - and remembered I had a life before children. I met people who were interested in what I had done before. It reminded me of who I was. After such a confidence knock, I remembered I was a good person; I was good at what I do. There was no judgement from these brilliant women.

I called my old boss from London and told him how his ‘star employee’ had just been fired. He was brilliant. He reminded me who I was and made me see that it wasn’t the right job for me.

A previous manager at the place that fired me introduced me to his new boss. He told me he didn’t want to employ me but that instead, he wanted to be my first client, of many.

I carried on paying my nanny, even though this meant going on the dole for a short time.

I was able to set up on my own.

Initially, I made about £5 a day after deducting childcare and expenses. I needed to work out how I could boost this figure. I could see that Google Ads was something I could do at any time of the day or night, and I could charge more for it because it was a skill fewer people had. I paid to retrain and specialise in Google Ads.

This enabled me, over time, to start building an agency.

I realised I couldn’t be a working mother anymore.

It doesn’t get easier when the kids go to school because finding wrap around care is challenging. I realised I couldn’t do my work part-time anymore. I was gaining more clients, and I chose to carry on growing. I couldn’t be responsible for school runs and getting the kids to after school clubs. On Fridays, the kids finish school at 2pm!

The business was thriving, and I needed to make sure the kids were thriving too.

Rather than carrying on competing over who was the busiest or who had the most important meeting, we needed to make a change. My husband gave up his job to look after the children. I became the traditional working dad that comes home and gets his dinner on the table. However, I’m not quite as demanding as that!

The business was thriving because of all the experiences I’d had up until this point that made me a more compassionate business person.

I have a better agency because I understand that everyone is human. That people have stuff going on in their lives. I probably listen to that more. I think my business relations are probably more in-depth than most. I think I am a better person to do business with, and a better employer because of what I’ve experienced and the challenges I’ve faced.

My goal isn’t financial. Of course, I need the finances to work, but I haven’t been driven by being bigger, better, faster, stronger. I am driven by doing right by people.

My advice is to be savvy about finances.

Even if you’re not planning to start a family soon, find out what impact having a family will have on your mortgage, your insurance. Be in the know, ask the questions.

Also, choose where you live carefully because moving house is costly. We didn’t have many childcare options because we were so rural.

I want to prove the world wrong that it doesn’t always have to be the mum raising the children.

But it’s tough. It’s not the easy path.

The world isn’t ready for it. It’s getting better, and I’m helping that process. But it’s really hard because of social expectation, our upbringing, the simple fact that girls are raised to be multi-taskers and helpers, while most boys aren’t, makes the transition difficult.

As a partnership, my husband and I constantly reassess and communicate. We’re continually growing and evolving. We’re separate individuals on different paths but moving in the same direction. We just need to make sure our paths stay parallel. There may occasionally be a bump in the road or some wrong turns, but we need to keep checking the compass to see if we’re going in the right direction, side by side.

What next?

I feel my husband and I will find a better balance over the next few years, and our roles will become less defined and separate.

I had cancer last year. I try not to plan too far in advance because I don’t know what’s around the corner. I’ve learnt that there is no point working my arse off for another year to achieve X, Y and Z. It’s about living in the now, focusing on how happy everyone is today because no one can be sure what will happen next.

I also want to keep growing a business that functions not just to make money but to do some good too.

I felt so wronged by the company, all those years ago in London, for not allowing any flexibility. I’ve gone out of my way to prove that I can run a successful, profitable business, still doing right by people.