Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Celebrating IWD and conquering those limiting beliefs!

Happy (early) International Women’s Day! Or if you’re like the rest of social media, International Women’s Week?! 👶🏻📈☕️

What are you getting up to next week? If you’re looking for local events in Ottawa, start here.

In the spirit of transparency, camaraderie and hopefully to inspire you to #BYOBaby and/or pre-school age children into business settings, I’ll be attending a few events and meetings with and without my kids.

Yep, two under age three and the baby just started crawling…taking it up another level!

A Female Founder evening event solo (shocking!) and only if the kids don’t have a wild dinner/bed time once my husband gets home from work.

Then the whole family is hitting up a breakfast event about Angel Investing before I bring the boys to an event space tour to meet a new contact. My eldest went to his first Angel Investing talk when he was four months old…so it’s only fair for the new baby to be exposed as well. 🤓

I also plan to go to a lunchtime panel session later in the week but my husband may meet me to take the toddler for his own lunch one-on-one, so I’ll only have the baby with me.

Now I want you to know that out of the three events I am taking the kiddos to, I have so far spoken to two of the venues/hosts and the response has been ASTOUNDINGLY POSITIVE!

I will have a private training room for my husband and the kids to hang out in during the breakfast so we can have some space to play and I will actually get to focus on the presentation and network. At no extra cost or hassle to us, the venue offered it up as a solution when I initially asked if it was ok to bring them all with me due to the early start time. Game changing.

The next meeting host wrote back with a simple, “Kids are always welcome, see you next week.”

You see, it is amazing what can happen when you go ahead and register for something before questioning whether or not it’s really for you, if you’re ‘allowed’ to go or if you’ll be inconveniencing anyone.

Because when you disqualify yourself, you prevent yourself from having a potentially inspirational or educational experience.

When you expect the worst without asking first, you’re none the wiser.

When you don’t ask, you don’t get. Simple, huh?

In a completely unrelated to International Women’s Day/Week occurrence, I emailed a major tech conference coming to Canada this May to ask them about their policy when it comes to bringing children and their response was also delightful:

We don’t advise children to attend our conferences. However, if you are in a situation where you need to bring a child with you, please go to registration on the day. Here our team can give the child access to the conference free of charge. We also provide a parent and baby room at the venue. This will be clearly marked on our conference map when it’s released. It should be noted, our policy is for children under 3.

Otherwise, attendees under the age of 18 must have a valid ticket and be accompanied by an adult chaperone up until the point of conference registration/accreditation collection.

Then they also gave me a Women in Tech discount code so I plan to attend with another former colleague and friend and will bring the whole family with me to Toronto for a mixed vacation/business trip where I can alternate bringing the baby to sessions with me.

Learn more about Babies, Business + Breakfast™.

Get the FREE Babies + Business Mini Guide

Download my FREE Babies + Business Mini Guide To Navigating The Corporate Jungle (With Kids), to encourage parents to explore more, invest in themselves alongside their children, take up space and make room for positive change when it comes to the future of work.

To help other babies (and their primary caregivers) do the same, I have created a FREE resource based on my experiences attending over two dozen events with a baby and toddler (separately – are you crazy?!) in two different countries (England and Canada), with more planned for future!

For people who want to bring their kids into business settings with confidence. Feel more prepared and encouraged to try it out and keep trying if it doesn’t go as planned the first time!

Self-imposed and limiting beliefs are real but if you do some prep work, get comfortable with being a bit uncomfortable and decide to go for it, I promise it will be worth it. 👶🏻📈☕️

You’re not the only one who wants to do what you do, alongside the ones you love.