Being a mom has inspired me. Not to be a better person, really–I’m less fun, less punctual, and probably a worse employee and friend than I used to be– but to be a more entrepreneurial person. If someone had asked me before my first kid was born for a business idea, I wouldn’t have had any. That’s because I didn’t have any major problems that needed solving. Now I have two.
Here’s my list of companies that cater to moms, in no particular order:
- Mobile playground snack carts: Wine for wine moms! Coffee for coffee moms! La Croix for La Croix moms (like me)! Pouches, string cheese, Goldfish, and those chocolate-chip granola bars from Trader Joe’s. Capri suns for the kids with parents who are too tired to restrict sugar, and those little juice-box-looking boxes of water for the kids with energetic parents and/or nannies who are paid to follow the parents’ rules. Babysitters offered by the hour at select playgrounds. Each parent gets a single Starburst per kid per visit, free of charge, as a bribe to get the kids to actually leave the playground when it’s time to go home and start making dinner.
- Summer camp for working moms, but there’s no sign-up deadline and the non-default-parent is in charge: Camp for school-aged children, open during summer break, winter break, mid-winter break, spring break, all other new breaks schools eventually come up with: Countless staff members, an array of outdoor activities that thoroughly tire your kids out, and unlimited space for every child who wants to attend. Parents can sign kids up any day, any time up until the night before camp starts! There’s just one rule: The dad must sign the kid(s) up and do dropoff and pickup every day. (Single moms get a waiver. For two-mom or nonbinary households, must prove that the person doing the sign up and dropoff/pickup is *not* the person who holds the family’s mental load.)
- Summer camp for moms: Located across town from the kids camp, the mom camp starts at exactly the same time–so even if the dad/non-default-parent tries to get out of dropoff, they can’t. “Sorry, I would drop them off if I could, but I’ll be late for my thing!” This camp doesn’t really have any activities, other than a booth with a doctor signing notes to get you out of work for the day and a fully-stocked bookshelf. You just do whatever you want but by yourself in a place that’s now your own house, where you’d get sucked into cleaning the counters or organizing the kids’ shoes.
- Drive-thru diaper store.
- A hiking trail for kids: It’s like a regular hiking trail, but there’s no incline and it’s never too hot or too cold. There are no bugs, no mud and while the weather is always beautiful, somehow there’s never sun in any child’s eyes. There’s no need to carry extra layers and no cause for weather-related whining (though sadly we can’t guarantee that your kid won’t find something to whine about). For an additional fee, hit the no-backpack-needed trail, which boasts a vendor every quarter mile offering water, popsicles, fruit snacks, mini bags of cheez-its and coloring-book break stations.
- A ski hill for kids: It’s like a bunny hill, except it never snows and it’s never too cold. Still, there’s somehow always the perfect amount of soft, fluffy snow. The chairlift is extremely close to the parking lot. Right next to the chairlift, there’s a stand with endless hot chocolate, extra mittens in case one of them falls off your kids’ hand, extra poles in case your kid manages to lose theirs on the short walk from the car, and child-sized Ugg boots for when your child starts complaining about their feet hurting. For an additional fee, hire a babysitting ski instructor for your kid, and get out of there.
- Indoor playground: The world–especially the soggy Seattle area, where I live!–needs more indoor playgrounds. We don’t need bounce houses, we don’t need 200 trampolines, we don’t need arcade games or bowling lanes. Give me a full-sized, state-of-the-art outdoor playground–but put a roof over it. With the snack cart mentioned above. And also maybe some pizza.
- Child-sized Peloton. I know this sounds bad but bear with me. A tiny little stationary bike to put next to yours, for those times when you’re with your kids alllll day and you simply cannot build one more Lego tower or play one more game of hide and seek in which the other person is extremely easy to find. You need a minute to focus on adult things. The little one gets to sit on their very own bike, with a little screen that shows Spidey & Friends or Paw Patrol, while you space out to 90s music. They feel cool because they’re doing the same thing as mom; you feel cool because you tricked your kid into doing what you want to do for 20 minutes.
- A vacuum store for moms. It only sells vacuums that can actually clean up the messes made by kids, including but not limited to: Stickers, peanuts, popcorn, broken crayons.
I’m not actually going to start any of these businesses, even the ones that are possible according to the laws of physics and practicality. I majored in communications, not something useful like “how to launch a company” or “how to make money.” But I’d definitely be a paying customer if someone else opened them!