Balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with the realities of parenting is no small feat. From juggling work deadlines to managing school pickups, parentpreneurs face challenges that require both creativity and resilience. It may feel impossible, but you can build a thriving business while prioritizing your family. How do successful parentpreneurs actually do it? What does this balance look like for entrepreneurs who live both at home and in business?
In a recent Lioness community event, “The Parentpreneur Panel: Navigate Business Growth & Family Life,” five business owners shared their systems for balancing business growth with family life. Read on for some takeaways from Navjot Gurm (entrepreneur and nonprofit leader), Lidia Varesco Racoma (long-time business owner and brand strategist), Marjie Hadad (communications entrepreneur), Robbie Samuels (speaker and business podcaster) and Elizabeth Munoz (creative entrepreneur), who each offered practical strategies from their lived experiences.
Family comes first
For Gurm, prioritizing family is not negotiable. “My daughter takes priority,” she explained, describing how her upbringing was, where she watched her parents work long hours, but always remained fully present during family time. Being fully present guides her now: once her daughter is home, work comes to an end for the day.
She structures her days around daycare drop-off and pickup, ensuring that once her daughter is home, work is paused. Her goal: to focus on her family with no distractions.
“I put away my phone, my laptop; everything stays in the office, and I do not touch it,” Gurm said.
By separating work and family, Gurm models for her daughter the boundaries she values, while also allowing herself the mental space to be a fully present parent.
Navigating the unexpected
Varesco-Racoma was in business for 11 years before having children. She thought the transition would be straightforward—until her newborn refused to sleep.
“I was very, very sleep-deprived,” she shared. “I was not prepared.”
Daycare and having a separate office helped her maintain her business while caring for young children, and now that her kids are nine and thirteen, Lidia is embracing a fuller work schedule again with more client projects and events.
“It’s been a gradual return, finding what balance looks like for each season,” she said.
Treating family as a team
Hadad left the corporate world for entrepreneurship specifically to align her schedule with her children’s needs, taking calls for the car if needed and integrating family into her business life.
“My kids would say, ‘Mommy’s on a call,’ and I would say, ‘Hello, this is Marjie. Please know there are seven kids in the car. If this is off the record, let’s do this later.”
While similar to Gurm’s family-first mindset, Hadad’s approach centers on building a family-team dynamic within her business, making sure her children understand that work and family coexist without competing for attention.
Block scheduling and invisible labor:
For Samuels, tools like Calendly have been lifesavers to manage client meetings and family responsibilities without endless back-and-forth emails.
“It’s been about mapping out time blocks on my calendar,” he said. He also holds Mondays, Fridays, and mornings for focused work while preserving flexibility for family.
Samuels also pointed out the importance of recognizing and verbalizing invisible labor within the household, a term referring to the mental and emotional effort of managing household tasks and family needs that often go unnoticed.
“You say it out loud, honestly… You point it out, you give them language for it,” helping them understand the responsibilities involved in running a household,” Samuels said, explaining how he helps his children recognize these efforts so they can share responsibility and awareness.
Involving kids in decision-making
Munoz focuses on reducing her ‘Mom guilt.’ She asks her kids for input on attending speaking engagements or events, essentially including them in her business decisions.
“When I get an invitation to speak or do something, I ask them, ‘Do you think it would be okay if I don’t volunteer and I attend?’” she said. When her children give her the green light, she feels empowered to attend without feeling like she’s done something wrong.
This approach models boundary-setting while ensuring that her growing business aligns with her family’s needs.
The real impact of structure:
All the parentpreneurs on this panel agreed: balancing business and family is not about perfection. It is more focused on creating structures and boundaries, empowering busy entrepreneurs to thrive. These systems, they noted, don’t have to be complex to be effective.
At the end of the day, children don’t wait for the perfect moment to need you. They get sick on launch days, need a hug during client calls, and ask big questions right before your keynote starts. Building systems, routines, and boundaries isn’t just about managing your business — it’s about ensuring you’re there when your children need you most, while still building the business you believe in.
Across their stories, these parentpreneurs prove that prioritizing family and building systems as well as staying flexible are essential for navigating the dual demands of entrepreneurship and parenting without burning out.
What does balance really look like for you, your family, and your business in this season? Do you have what it takes to be as successful in the office and at home as these parentpreneurs?
This conversation is just the beginning. How you build it is up to you.
Read Parenthood, the Wage Gap and How Workplaces Can Accommodate New Breastfeeding Workers.
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