Four months after having my son, I started a business. It sounds simple when I put it that way, but those four months were anything but.
My son, Enzi, was born in March, and becoming a first-time mum changed my world almost overnight. My days suddenly revolved around feeds, naps, nappies and trying to understand the needs of this tiny person who depended on me for almost everything.
Somewhere between all of that though, I found myself thinking about work. Not because I wanted to escape motherhood. Quite the opposite. Becoming a mother made me think more seriously about the kind of working life I wanted to create around it.
I’d spent 12 years working across sales and marketing, building experience in how businesses communicate, how customers make decisions and how the right words can shape the way a brand is perceived. Copywriting felt like a natural way to bring those years of experience together by understanding people and the psychology behind their decisions, shaping messages and helping businesses communicate in a way that feels both human and purposeful.
But after having Enzi, returning to a conventional career path no longer felt like the only option. I wanted more autonomy, more ownership over my time, my work and what I was building. So in July, just four months postpartum, I launched Behrens Copy, a strategic copywriting studio based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
There was no glamorous entrepreneurial beginning. There were ideas scribbled down between feeds, work fitted around naps and moments when I’d switch from thinking about website copy and client projects to bottles and bedtime within minutes.
I’ve also been fortunate to have my husband Greg beside me through it all. His support has given me the space to pursue something of my own during a season of so much change.
There was also something I hadn’t anticipated: the vulnerability of starting from scratch. When you build a business, particularly a service business, you’re asking people to trust your expertise before you necessarily have years of business ownership behind you. You have to introduce yourself, talk about what you do, put your work in front of people and occasionally hear no. Sometimes, you hear nothing at all.
I’ve had to learn that building something requires being visible even when you don’t always feel confident. Motherhood has made that harder in some ways, but it has also given the work more meaning. I’m no longer pursuing success simply because it feels like the next professional milestone I’m supposed to reach. I’m thinking much more deliberately about what success looks like for our family and what I want my son to grow up seeing.
Behrens Copy is still young. I’m building my client portfolio, refining my services and learning what kind of founder I want to become. There are exciting moments when someone chooses to work with me and quieter moments when I wonder whether I’m doing enough.
I don’t have the perfectly packaged success story yet. And perhaps that’s the part of entrepreneurship we don’t talk about enough. We often hear women founders’ stories once their businesses are already successful, when the uncertainty and vulnerability of starting out can be easily glossed over.
I’m still right at the beginning of mine. I’m raising my first child while raising a business. I’m learning that ambition and motherhood don’t have to compete for my identity, and that building a career around my family doesn’t make me any less serious about what I want professionally. If anything, becoming Enzi’s mother has made me more intentional about it.
My ambition hasn’t disappeared. It has just changed shape. I want to build a business I’m proud of, while creating a working life that gives me space to be present for the family I’m building too.
For now, Enzi is six months old and Behrens Copy is only a couple of months old. We’re both still growing. And I’m learning to give us both the time to do exactly that.
Wairimu Behrens wrote this essay for the November 2026 issue of Mothered Magazine.
