‘You know how a shop-owner is ultimately responsible for everything in the store – including the personnel? If the first-shift clerk doesn’t show up to open the shop, sweep the floor, and handle the first 8 hours of customers, the shop-owner rolls out of bed, cancels her plans for the day, and does it herself.

Why?

Because… it’s her store!

She’d be silly to complain about it or expect someone else to accept the extent of her responsibilities. Everyone knows that being the always-on-call, most-invested, go-to person is the privilege and responsibility of owning the store in the first place. And so, the shop-owner digs into the work so that the store will make it, do well, provide a return-of-investment.

I’ve discovered that motherhood is a store. And she’s the owner.