Luma Simms is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; her essays, articles, and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications including National Affairs, Law and Liberty, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, First Things, Public Discourse, the Institute for Family Studies, and others.

'The Best Of Both Worlds': Kids Were No Barrier To This Female Entrepreneur

When I became an at-home mom, I didn’t know how to be one. My mother had worked. In Iraq she was a math and physics high school teacher. When we came to America she had to take whatever job she could get given her poor language skills.

With no family around to watch us, my sister and I became the proverbial American latchkey kids. When my mother was growing up, her mother, my grandmother, was a nurse. In Iraq there were no daycares. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts, or great uncles—a whole host of family members—created a pool from which a mother could extract child-care help.

I had no example for the option I had chosen. I felt out of place in toddler play groups, and inept at public library craft time. The only two things I excelled at was playing tea party and reading to the kids.

The balance between work and motherhood takes on a variety of forms. An author, journalist, and now the CEO of a new business venture, Danielle Crittenden Frum took time out from her busy schedule to answer my questions about opting-out and back in.

Read the rest of the interview at The Federalist

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