Doing It For The Kids

“Hi Frankie & Steve, I've got a full-time product job in London, a 3 year old, an 11 year old stepdaughter, and a small iPhone app I've built alone in the evenings. It's been on the App Store for two months. It has a few paying customers and it earns nowhere near what my salary does. Everyone gives me one of two answers. Go all in, or drop it. I can't do either. Quitting a London salary with two kids is not a decision I get to make on optimism. Dropping it means the one thing I actually care about building quietly dies. So I keep going at about ten hours a week, mostly after bedtime, and I genuinely cannot tell whether that is discipline or a very slow way of failing. How do you work out whether a side thing is a business that hasn't started yet, or an expensive hobby you should be honest with yourself about? And is there a version of this where you never make the leap, you stay in the job forever, and that's actually a fine answer rather than a failure? Thanks, Stepan”

To celebrate DIFTK turning 10 years old this year, this episode is a little bit different! We’re taking NO questions. Instead, we’ve asked 10 DIFTKers to tell us 10 Truths about freelance parent life. Something they wish they’d known about freelancing with kids. Something they’ve learnt. Some ‘truth’ or realisation — positive or negative! Something they think you’d all benefit from knowing about. Because the absolute BEST bits of this podcast always come from all of you. So we are LITERALLY HANDING OVER THE MICROPHONE. Enjoy!

“I’m a freelance writer and have less work than I’ve had for the 6 years I’ve been freelance — but at the same time my youngest child has just started walking to school by himself. I’m struggling a bit with the fact I’m going to be needed less and less by my kids and don’t have the work to fill my time and give me that sense of purpose. I appreciate a lot of parents might want to scream at me for complaining about children being more independent 😬 but I’m having a whole new identity crisis with the combination of these two things. How do I navigate this new phase?? How do I regain a sense of purpose when I increasingly feel no longer needed?”

"I often see freelancers and creators sharing what they make money wise. I must admit I can’t help but read, listen or watch this stuff. I find myself wondering if I should do this? But then I worry… what if people think it’s just showing off. Is it? What if people start attacking me for when I do well? What if people think I suck when I don’t do so well? I feel like people might judge me for NOT posting what I earn. Am I just being too British about it — how dare we talk about money?"

“My best friend and I have a really good idea for an online membership 'club' for charity comms professionals. We want to build a community that's as engaging and supportive as DIFTK and Being Freelance. Where do we start? And what do you wish that you both knew before you started? My initial entry point before I joined was your amazing podcasts, as it feels like they’re really important for breaking down barriers to entry and building your brand?”