The Invisible Hustle: How motherhood shapes creativity, career paths & the fight for flexibility in 2025

The creative industries love a hustle story, whether they’re tales of founders grinding late into the night, passionate freelancers juggling side gigs, or studio heads making magic on tight deadlines. But for many creative women, particularly mothers, there’s a quieter, more complex hustle happening behind the scenes.

It’s the constant balancing act between parenting and pitching, between nurturing new ideas and small humans, and between building careers and building Lego towers. It’s an invisible hustle that’s rarely talked about in the glossy narratives of creative success and one that fundamentally shapes how creative mothers work, lead, and define success on their own terms.

This International Women’s Day, Creative Boom asked creative mothers — from freelancers to founders to creative directors — how motherhood has shaped their careers, creativity, and views on what real flexibility in the creative industries should look like. Their stories are messy, inspiring, frustrating, and real, but most of all, they challenge the idea that motherhood is something to work around. Instead, it’s a creative force to be reckoned with.

Motherhood as Creative Fuel: Fresh Perspectives and Unexpected Inspiration

For many creative mothers, having children isn’t just a logistical shift; it’s a creative awakening. From seeing the world through a child’s eyes to having to think faster, adapt better and embrace chaos, parenthood rewires the creative brain.

Product designer and illustrator Gaëlle Bernard felt her creativity evolve the moment she became a parent. “Motherhood triggered something in my designer mind, and on top of working full time and having a newborn baby, I started designing cards, birthday kits, and personalised apparel for my daughter,” she explained. “That passion grew into my own brand and eventually shaped my entire career, focusing on the children’s industry.”

Future by Design founder and CEO Mirjana Arlaud feels the same and views Motherhood not as a limitation but as “a powerful force that fuels our creativity and resilience and gives us a fresh way of thinking and feeling”. She adds: “I strongly believe it has made me a better and more empathetic leader.”

Sonder & Tell co-founder Kate Hamilton‘s experience was a little different. She admits that the early days of motherhood were creatively disorienting and that she struggled to relate to posts about how motherhood made people more productive with “super ninja time management skills”. She says, “It scrambled my brain—but it also shifted my priorities. Now I’m less interested in working with the biggest brands and more interested in working with good people.”

What emerges from these stories is a more nuanced — and far more honest — picture of creativity after motherhood. It’s not all lightning-bolt inspiration or magically enhanced productivity. Sometimes, it’s a jolt of creative energy sparked by seeing the world through fresh eyes. Other times, it’s a slower recalibration, where priorities shift, and creativity finds new outlets and rhythms. What’s clear is that motherhood doesn’t dim creative ambition — if anything, it brings sharper focus to what kind of work feels meaningful, who you want to work with, and how you want to show up as both a creative and a parent.

The Flexibility Myth: What Real Flexibility Looks Like in Creative Workplaces

Flexibility is the creative industry’s favourite buzzword, but what does it actually mean for mothers who must balance deadlines and daycare pickups?

20(SOMETHING) strategy partner Lucinda Gosling found that real flexibility came when her employer asked her what her ideal setup would be, and (drum roll please) actually listened. “I’m in London every other week for three days, staying with friends, then I’m home for 11 days with my family,” she explains. “This is what flexibility looks like — listening to what people need and supporting that.”

Keane brand and experience strategist Louise Salisbury had similar revelations after maternity leave when she realised that creativity isn’t restricted to a 9-5 schedule. “Flexibility hasn’t just worked — it’s transformed the way I work – and some of my biggest creative breakthroughs happen while driving between the office and nursery.”

Others have felt that they couldn’t have a truly fulfilling career until their kids got a bit older. This was true for The Colour Suite founder Louise Lucas, who remembers how limited her options were with young children. “When I had my kids, working from home wasn’t the norm. I took on less creative, more production-heavy roles just to stay in the industry, and only when my kids reached school age could I finally reclaim my creative career.”

These experiences highlight a crucial truth: flexibility isn’t just about remote work or compressed hours — it’s about building trust, asking the right questions, and understanding that creativity thrives when people aren’t forced to choose between their professional ambitions and their personal responsibilities. For mothers in the creative industry, real flexibility acknowledges that work and life aren’t competing forces but constantly overlapping, evolving elements.

When employers value outcomes over optics — and trust people to design their own rhythms — they unlock not just loyalty but sharper, more innovative creative thinking born from lived experience.

The Career Cost: Motherhood’s Impact on Creative Progression

Many mothers spoke about the tension between ambition and caregiving and how creative industries still treat motherhood as a detour rather than part of a creative career.
Designer Nathalia Harris sees it play out among her peers. “Of my friendship group of five girls from uni, I’m the only one still in full-time design employment — and I suspect it’s because I’m the only one who hasn’t had kids.”

Multi-disciplinary designer Anna Afzal-Gould is grappling with the same reality as a primary caregiver to her disabled daughter. “My options are severely limited because so many creative jobs require on-site attendance. It’s deflating to be almost 40, stuck at the bottom of the career ladder, and not even given a chance to prove myself.”

Others, like writer and business owner Kendra Futcher, found their own path by stepping away from traditional agency life altogether. “I set up my business because I had no option,” she explains. “Freelancing let me work to my own rhythm, be present for my kids, and build a career I love.”

It’s clear from these experiences that there is a fundamental flaw in how the creative industry still frames motherhood. The reality is that creative mothers aren’t any less ambitious; they’re just working within systems that haven’t caught up with the complexity of their lives.

Whether employers make outdated assumptions about their commitment or rigid working models shut them out entirely, the creative sector is losing out on a vast pool of talent and insight—all because it still struggles to see caregiving and creative careers as anything other than opposing forces.

The Mental Load and Invisible Labour Behind Every Success

Motherhood adds a hidden layer of labour to every creative career, yet the logistics, planning, and emotional management rarely get acknowledged in creative success stories.

Beardwood&Co co-CEO Sarah Williams captured this perfectly: “As much as I knew I wanted to become a Mom, I was also absolutely terrified. Previously, I felt that most of my success came from “outworking” the competition, so how could I possibly handle that plus 24/7 mom-hood?”

However, she soon realised that motherhood helping her add new skills to her repertoire, like the art of accomplishing micro-tasks and knowing when to stop. “Delegating can also empower others to make the work better or recognise how to leverage each other’s strengths among teammates,” she adds.

OurCreative’s managing director, Kim Van Elkan, reflected on the sacrifices she made when her son was young. She had him in 1994, which she describes as an age where agencies expected their people to work really long hours, late into the evening, no matter what their circumstances. She explains: “My experience was that I couldn’t have it all; something had to give, particularly as I wasn’t in a couple. It really wasn’t ideal, but now I have a 31 year old son running his own business with a really strong work ethic and whom I’m very proud of.”

The bottom line is that creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and for many mothers, the most impressive work happens not despite the invisible hustle but because of it. Forging resilience, creative problem-solving, and an ability to navigate complexity can enrich any creative team if only they were acknowledged.

“I’d like to think the industry has become less demanding and more accommodating of people’s lives and responsibilities, whether that be a child or taking care of an ill relative or partner,” Van Elkan adds. “It’s one of the great things about now owning my own business; I can make the right choices to help our team when they need it.”

Motherhood as Leadership Training: Empathy, Prioritisation & Resilience

Many creative mothers spoke about the unexpected leadership skills they gained through parenting, from negotiation to patience to adaptability.

Lucky Generals CEO Cressida Holmes-Smith sees motherhood as invaluable training. “If you can negotiate to get the kids dressed and out the door on time, the most stressful part of your day is done. It gives you empathy — a crucial leadership skill — and a confidence that comes from knowing you’ve literally brought life into the world.”

Wondering Forward founder Jessica Walker also sees motherhood as a creative and leadership reset. “We are wired to nurture and get things done — but not always in a straight line. The more women who create new ways of working that sustain creativity and care, the more checks and balances we bring to hustle culture.”

Motherhood, Creativity & The Future of Work

The creative mothers in this piece aren’t looking for handouts—they’re looking for an industry that recognises the value they bring precisely because of their caregiving experience. They want meaningful, not performative, flexibility. They want leadership paths that don’t come at the cost of family life. And they want to see parenthood recognised not as a career sidestep but as a crucible for creativity, empathy, and innovation.

As Make Create founder Helen Holden puts it: “After nearly two decades of balancing motherhood with my creative practice, I know firsthand how crucial it is to anticipate and adapt — not just to creative industry trends, but to the realities of working parenthood itself.”

As we look to this year’s International Women’s Day, perhaps the most radical act the creative industries can do is not to ask working mothers how they juggle it all but to recognise that they already are. There’s no doubt that creative workplaces will be better for everyone when that invisible hustle is made visible, valued, and shared.