Female business owner calls out “critical” double standard for working moms

A woman’s post about the lack of maternity support in place for female business owners has gone viral.

Mom of two, Grace Carter, ignited the conversation on LinkedIn to highlight the insufficient maternity allowance available for mothers who run their own businesses in the U.K.

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As the founder and managing director of brand agency Aphra for seven years, Carter, 33, told Newsweek that she used to fear being discriminated against by the men she worked with if she spoke up about her journey, but has made a conscious decision at the start of the year to be more open with her experience.

“I’ve navigated my business through the pandemic, inflation, global recession, and the one thing that nearly broke me and made me give up on everything I’ve worked so hard for was having a child,” Carter said.

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In the post, she revealed what a typical day looks like for her as a mom who runs a business, waking at 5 a.m. and considering finishing work at midnight.

She described the intense pressure to balance professional ambitions with parental responsibilities, a task made significantly harder by the systemic lack of support for maternity leave and benefits in the U.K.

Carter explained to Newsweek that there’s a “wealth of support” if you’re employed on PAYE (pay as you earn) and you’re also protected under the Equality Act 2010 against discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy, maternity or childbirth.

However, unlike employees who might benefit from corporate maternity leave programs or government-mandated paid leave, many self-employed women find themselves without such safety nets.

Carter also addressed the meager maternity allowances available to self-employed mothers.

The allowances that exist are often minimal and insufficient to cover the basic costs of living because women who are self-employed have to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions for at least 13 of the 66 weeks before they are due to give birth to claim it.

“One of the challenges with the maternity allowance that’s in place is, if you accept it and you take that help, then you are not allowed to work in your business at all,” Carter told Newsweek.

She also shared her personal experience of navigating this financial strain, explaining how her business of 10 employees meant that she was not permitted to work at all, bar 10 keep in touch (KIT) days.

This, she said, is not enough time to complete payroll, rehire, conduct interviews or file tax returns to keep the business running.

“Most business owners would accept that they cannot take themselves out of their business for six to nine months; it’s just impossible,” Carter told Newsweek.

“So, in that situation, if you decline the pay on the basis that you can’t afford to do that, you are entitled to nothing. There is no pay, no maternity support, nothing,” she said.

In the U.S., self-employed women do not have access to traditional employer-based maternity leave benefits.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for childbirth but it only applies to employees of companies with 50 or more employees and does not cover those who are self-employed.

Carter also explained that there’s no protection against discrimination—for example, employees walking out on the business if they feel they can’t trust you as a boss who is pregnant.

From a business owner’s point of view, Carter told Newsweek that she’s allowed to expense luxuries such as a chauffeur or golf trips, “but the one thing I cannot put for as an expense is my childcare.”

“The system has been set up for male entrepreneurs on the basis that he doesn’t need childcare because his wife is at home,” she added.

Thousands resonated with Carter’s post which shed a light on the often over-looked challenges faced by entrepreneurial mothers.

Many fellow female entrepreneurs and small business owners chimed in, sharing their own stories and frustrations about the lack of support for maternity leave and allowances.

“I absolutely love this post. The reality of so many of us juggling our own businesses with being a mum (and this is when they’re at school, it’s even harder when it is the school holidays!),” one LinkedIn user wrote.

Another commented: “One of my sons was recently told that women have a better ‘work life balance because they leave the office on time.’ I told him it’s because we have a second shift that starts as soon as we get home. To call it ‘work life balance’ misses the mark that this post hits completely. And it’s why I write about both the critical need for women on boards and childcare as part of employment in my new book.”

Carter is calling for a reevaluation of these policies in the U.K. with her new campaign Business and Babies.

She’s advocating for urgent change to the law around the lack of infrastructure in place for female business owners that choose to have children.

“My plan is to change the law around all of this because I think it’s appalling that this is the way that women are treated,” she said.

“There’s a lot of conversation around creating investment funds and pots for women who have businesses, but there’s no conversation around how we actually create the correct infrastructure needed to support these women when they go on to have children.

“We are setting them up to fail if we give them all this money at the start of their business venture and help them believe they’ve got this amazing potential ahead, but then don’t actually support them with the realities.”

Speaking to the reaction she’s had from her LinkedIn post, Carter told Newsweek that she’s since had other women thank her for making their voices feel heard.

“Women in very senior roles have said how burnt out they are and how I validated their experience about what I’ve written,” she said.

“A lot of women have said that they’re not in a position where they can speak vocally about their experiences because they’re worried that clients might see what they’re saying on my profile.

“[The reaction has] given me the fuel to my fire to know that I’m doing the right thing.”