The Identity Crisis of the Working Mother
when i first told my family and friends
that i was having my baby
um they all said get your sleep now
because you’re not going to be getting
any once that baby comes so
this was entirely accurate but what they
didn’t tell me was
get your sleep now because there’s going
to be so many days in the future
where you will be on two hours of sleep
running late to work
struggling with your guilt because
you’re away from your baby
your productivity at work is going to
become virtually non-existent
and you’re going to spend moments locked
in your office
alternating between pumping milk and
crying your eyes out
that would have been a little more
accurate
you see prior to having my child my
entire identity could have been summed
up
in one word entrepreneur
i worked from when my eyes opened until
my eyes closed
seven days a week since i was running
three schools
a social media company and in the
process of buying a new
teeth whitening business see even women
who
aren’t entrepreneurs can relate to
defining themselves
whether that be through their jobs or
their careers
and whether they are doctors lawyers
engineers teachers
you know whatever we all define
ourselves through our careers or so many
of us do
and for me my work was everything and i
did not fully
understand this massive change that was
about to take place in my life
of course i had seen other women become
mothers
but it’s truly something that i feel you
have to go through to understand
and every woman’s journey to motherhood
looks
so different you see i actually lined a
signed a letter of intent to purchase
the teeth whitening business when i was
on the hospital bed shortly after being
given the medicine to induce
labor that is just an example of how
delusional i was
i told my husband i’ll have this baby
take two or three weeks to recover
and then i can come ramp this business
up i truly believed it and it would be
that simple and i actually did end up
going back to work in three weeks
it was however one of the biggest
mistakes of my life and put me into a
life threatening battle with postpartum
depression
i’d been warned about the baby blues but
once again
i had no idea what i was in for
see throughout high school and college i
had struggled on and off with anxiety
and depression
but postpartum depression was darker
than
anything i could have imagined it’s hard
to describe unless you’ve been through
it but
imagine treading waters for days my mind
body and soul had like reached this
point of exhaustion and despair
where all i wanted to do was give up i
did not want to be alive anymore
and there was one day where i dropped my
baby off at my mom’s house
and i drove off my sister end up ended
up having to call the police to ensure
that i returned home
safe and sound and i’m thankful for that
because i really didn’t know what was
going to happen that day
there was a loss that i was dealing with
at that time
my husband had recently been laid off
we’d purchased a teeth whitening
business for
a hundred and forty thousand dollars but
the owner had
provided us with fraudulent numbers so
we’d been scammed
we got into not one but two car
accidents
my baby had colic and would cry for two
to three hours a night
there was nothing i could do to console
her
and then my in-laws and i went from
having this perfect relationship to
barely speaking and i was diagnosed with
borderline personality disorder along
with postpartum depression
and along with all of that i didn’t know
who i was anymore
i felt like an imposter even trying to
call myself an entrepreneur
you see i no longer defined myself by my
work
but i didn’t want to be a stay-at-home
mom either
i was somewhere in between when i was at
work
i was thinking about my baby when i was
with my baby i was thinking about
work and so began the identity crisis
that
so many women can relate to so you might
be wondering
what happened to my businesses during
this time
well once i realized i’d been scammed
out of a hundred and forty thousand
dollars with the teeth whitening
business i had the option to try and
restructure the business
to save my investment but my mental
health was at the point where
like i physically and emotionally could
not continue
i put a sign on the door that said
closed and i walked away and i never
looked back
as for my schools i had a strong
management team in place that was able
to take over while i took time off to
recover
and i hit pause on my social media
company
my social media company had always been
more of a side hustle anyway
i built up my personal brand as sanya
kilchi
entrepreneur and social media expert and
i had used that to acquire clients whose
social media accounts
i ran like for their various businesses
and things of that sort
i ended up letting my clients go because
i needed
that time off like i knew i needed to
hit pause
for years i had posted every single day
about
entrepreneurship and social media
content on instagram
tick tock facebook but now i went
suddenly quiet
i didn’t even feel like an entrepreneur
anymore i had over a
million followers at this time but it
felt inauthentic to continue
posting on my personal brand until i
could process who this
new me was
during this time my family was my
absolute
lifeline they allowed me to take time
off and helped me care for my daughter
while i did some
much needed soul-searching and healing
it truly takes a village to raise a
child and that’s one of my biggest
pieces of advice
build that village because you really
can’t do it alone
too many women think that they have to
do it all and that they have to do it
all
by their self you don’t have to dress
like an influencer
run a successful company raise perfect
children
go on picture perfect date nights
maintain a super glam social life
keep a spotless home and healthy food on
the table
and travel the world to be good enough
you are good enough as you are even if
that means
unwashed hair a messy bun coffee stains
and spit up on your shirt
dishes that haven’t been done for days
and microwavable mac and cheese for
dinner
it’s time we normalize being real
instead of perfect because
perfect doesn’t exist and it’s time we
stop
holding ourselves to those standards
so after taking time away from my social
media
i made my return online the new
and improved sanya this time i shared
stories of my family
and from my life instead of social media
growth hacks like
how to gain 10 000 followers in a week
in entrepreneurship advice
at first everyone that knew me or
followed me was like extremely confused
i did lose thousands of followers at
this time
in fact believe it or not i completely
stopped posting on my facebook account
losers to legends which had over a
million followers
instead i built an account from scratch
on tick tock
where i shared with the world the new me
and it blew up instead of being
super niche specific as i had always
preached
i went from signia khilji entrepreneur
and social media expert
to just sign you killed you
and being myself was enough more than
enough actually
i shared stories from every single area
of my life
including mental health marriage
motherhood religion business
culture and more i didn’t hold back
and people loved it i rapidly
grew over 370 000 followers and created
new streams of income
online i was raw and unfiltered
i didn’t care what people thought of me
and i began to truly embrace
the beauty of intersectionality between
my personal and professional life
now i take my baby to work with me i
continue to manage my preschools while
running my personal brand on social
media
at signia khilji where i share stories
of what my day-to-day looks like as an
entrepreneur
as well as a mother a wife a daughter
a sister a muslim and a pakistani
american woman it really has come
together
so much more beautifully than i could
have ever imagined and now
i encourage others to do the same
so to the working mother i would like to
say this
stop feeling guilty when you are with
your child that you are not
working enough and stop feeling guilty
when you are
at work that you are not with your child
and to everyone whether you’re a mother
or not i’d like to say this
you are so much more than your job title
and your self-worth is so much more than
your income
find the real you at the intersection of
all these roles that you play and
embrace it
because the real you matters
thank you