Balancing work and family can be a challenge.  When I first started my small business I left my young children, Derron, age 13 and Qion, age 7, at home alone much of the time.  Now I may have had a few more problems percolating than you.  Besides living on welfare, I had drug and alcohol issues.  Nevertheless I stayed focused on making a better life for myself and my children by starting and growing a business.  My entrepreneurial journey had a rough start as you will see in the following excerpt from my book, “From the Pits to the Palace,” but my children became my greatest allies and champions and played a key role in the success of my company that went from a three person cleaning service to a company that supported 165 employees.

 
"From the Pits to the Palace" (Excerpt) 

When I got home and was going in, my heel caught in the doorway.  I lost my balance and stumbled into the living room where the kids were watching television.   I considered that I was more intoxicated than I thought as I straightened up, embarrassed that Derron and Qion might think I was drunk.

Qion did not move a muscle or even look at me.  He just sat with his legs folded Indian style.  His head rested against the back of the couch.  When he spoke, his voice scratched my ears like a nail across a blackboard.

“Some kind of mother you are.” Qion spit out at me.  He was seven-years-old.

I wanted to crawl inside myself and disappear from the face of God’s good earth.   And then I was angry, angry that he had judged me so harshly when I was running as fast as I could to make a life for him.  Or was I?  I sobered in that instant and snatched him up by the collar of his shirt, struggling to keep myself in check.  I could see Derron out of the corner of my eye get up from the couch and move out-of-the-way, not too far, as though he was ready to move in, if necessary, and keep me from killing his little brother.

“You little shit!  Who do you think you are talking to me like that?  I put food in your mouth, clothes on your back and a roof over your head!  Don’t you ever talk to me like that again!”  I dragged him to the stairs and told him to go to his room and not to come out unless he wanted to apologize.  Maybe it was me who owed him an apology, but I wouldn’t let myself walk in that direction.  Not then.

My body shook as I stood at the staircase watching him stomp his way to the top and turn the corner.  The silence that followed was deafening.  Then I felt Derron’s hand on my shoulder.  He turned me around and gave me a hug. 

“He’s a little jerk,” he assured me.  “I fixed chicken pot pies for dinner.  He sucked it up, so don’t worry about that knucklehead.”  He lead me to the kitchen, sat me at the table, and set a plate with a chicken pot pie and a side of cranberry sauce in front of me.  That had to be the best meal I had in years.

 While I ate, I listened.  Derron talked about his school and how he was struggling with his classes.  He talked about his friends, everything he knew about the dangers of taking drugs and drinking and how he would never smoke because he hated it and wished I would stop.  Then Qion came down.

“I’m sorry, mommy.  I didn’t mean it,” he said putting his head on my shoulder and wrapping his arms around my neck.  “I just didn’t want to eat D’s cookin’.”

“You whine too much,” Derron told Qion as he flicked his head.

“So what, you always think you’re big!” Qion rubbed his head with one hand and poked at Derron with the other. 

“I don’t like you drinkin’ all the time,” Qion said.  “You scare me when you’re always walkin’ and talkin’ funny and you smell.” 

“Shut up, Qion.”

“Leave him alone,” I whispered, stunned.

“Look, Ma,” Derron started.  “Never mind, let’s just go to bed.”

“No, son.  Say what you have to say.”

“You drink too much.  You drive when you’ve had too much to drink.  One of these days you’re not going to make it home and then we’ll be without a mother.  Is that what you want?”

“Yeah, Mommy.  I don’t want you to leave us.  Then I’d have to eat D’s cookin’ all the time and he’d always be yellin’ at me and hittin’ me,” he finished by swatting the air in Derron’s direction.

I cried.  “I’m sorry guys.  I’ll do better,” was all I could manage. 

“You’re a good mom, we just don’t want anything to happen to you.  We’ll be okay.  We love you,” Derron said.

“Yeah, we love you.”

That night I lay in bed with the darkness wrapped around me like a straitjacket.  They had exposed me.  And while I hated what they saw in me, my sons, two little old men had sworn their love and devotion to me, no matter.  It did not matter what I did, just that I was their mother.  In the darkness, the tension in my body lessened.  I envisioned Sparkle as a million-dollar company.  I imagined the vacation I would take with Derron and Qion and the house I would buy. 

My sons had built a hedge around me with their love.  Not even I could defy that power.