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My mom was an entrepreneur and I didn’t even know it

My mom was the neighborhood “daycare lady.”

She fed, bathed, taught, nurtured and loved more than 200 children in her 37-year career as an in-home childcare provider.

a large part of me hated having a daycare at home

By second grade, I was already helping my mom change diapers. I was putting kids down for naps, wiping noses and taking them to the park down the street. The worst was when I had to sacrifice the privacy of my own bedroom to make space for a couple of playpens when the daycare hit its nine-child limit (conveniently around the same time I was going through my angsty pre-teen years).

But another part of me loved it

We had so many birthday parties, celebrated holidays, and much later, we watched some of our favorite children grow their way through high school, attend college and even get married.

I always got to go home for lunch during the school year, and although I sometimes missed recess with my friends, Mom’s daycare food was always better than the school’s. She made baked chicken and mashed potatoes with green beans, homemade pizza, spaghetti with meat sauce, tuna melts. Even the picky eaters usually finished their plates and awaited the fruit cocktail dessert and second cup of milk.

Mom’s Daycare was a selfless operation

Every Friday, parents would show up at the end of their work days to pick up their kids and cut my mom a check. Her rates were ridiculously low. I know this because I heard so many parents say, “Beth, you should really give yourself a raise,” many time throughout the years.

Around age 15 in 1994, Mom taped up a handwritten note on the cupboard facing the back door entrance that said, “Due to 20 years in service, I will be raising daycare rates to $75 a week. Thank you.”

Five years later, she did the same thing, this time raising her weekly rate to $100 a week. At the time, there were seven children in her care, which meant she earned $700 a week, or $2800 a month, though she was incredibly lenient on payments. Many of her clientele were young mothers or down-on-their-luck families who wouldn’t have been able to afford daycare otherwise. Some didn’t pay her for weeks at a time.

“I’ll get what I need,” Mom said when this was the case, meaning she’d take what she could get and forget her chart of accounts that showed she was making about $5 an hour at times.

it was business as usual … until it wasn’t

She made it 37 years as a “daycare lady” and raised many children to become amazing adults. Unfortunately, “Bethy,” as the families called her, started showing cognitive problems at age 58, three years before we had to shutter the daycare after she was formally diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2013.

For the past six years, I’ve been my mom’s primary caregiver. Long gone from her memory now is any recollection of what she did for a living and how much she cared for every child who came to her house.

And the really sad thing? Despite all the kids and snot and naps and weekly rates and Mom with her calculator, a ledger, a bank account and her continuing education courses, I not once - ever - realized my mother was an entrepreneur, a woman business owner who operated for almost four decades without the support female entrepreneurs have at their disposal today, like mentors and role models, book clubs and retreats.

She did it all on her own

From the accounting to complying with county regulations for private daycares to expense reports to marketing her services, Mom was a lone wolf with many cubs to look after on an island with very little resources to guide her.

She was an original. A strong, independent woman entrepreneur so many of us strive to be, and I was completely oblivious of this until I legally formed lonna.co in July 2019.

Unfortunately, there’s really no way for me to say “thanks” to my mom now and have it stick because her disease has taken away the ability to comprehend everything about who she was, what she did and how much she helped people grow, learn and live. Not understanding her pioneering role as a woman small-business owner in the 70s, 80s and 90s is something I’ll regret for a very long time.

But I’ll say thank you to her today when I go see her and bring her a cute new flannel top and some comfy sweats for lounging I bought as a tiny gift for the enormous contributions she provided to so many children and families.

She won’t remember I said anything. But I will. And that matters.

honor a woman Entrepreneur in your life

If you’ve found yourself in a similar position where you’ve known a female entrepreneur for decades but didn’t realize it (maybe you had an aunt with a crafting business you thought was just a hobby), please take time to say thank you.

And please thank those you’re aware of, admire or do business with regularly. My mom would have been tickled to know just how many and how much people appreciated her for her services and loving care.

Let’s not let go of how big a little thank you can really be.

#EndAlzheimers