Mompreneurs past, present and fictional

We’re thinking about mom entrepreneurs a lot these days as we are knee-deep in a writing project on the subject. Nowadays it seems like the term mompreneur or mom entrepreneur is everywhere – but our generation certainly didn’t invent the concept. My grandmother ran a hotel while my dad and uncles tore the place apart. Amy’s grandmother ran a grocery store in the Ottawa market with four kids underfoot. Mompreneurs have been around forever and exist in all facets of life. Here is a list of some notable mompreneurs of the big and small screen.

JC Wiatt (Diane Keaton) – Baby Boom: Didn’t you love this movie? JC gives up her fancy job and huge shoulder pads for a money-pit of a house in Vermont and full-time mommyhood when she ‘inherits’ a baby girl. But she takes life’s lemons (apples) and makes lemonade (applesauce). Not only does she get the hunky town vet, but she also gets revenge on her former corporate colleagues. A mompreneur must see!

Elyse Keaton (Meredith Baxter Birney) – Family Ties: Oh Elyse – the mother we all wanted. She could draw up plans for a new house while strumming Dylan tunes on the guitar and imparting life lessons to her kids. And she did it all with never a hair out of place – a true mompreneur indeed!

Angela Bower (Judith Light) – Who’s the Boss: She gets the career and the hunky housekeeper. What else is there to say? (And don’t you dare judge me for calling Tony Danza a hunk, you were totally crushing on him in the 90’s too!)

Kate McCardle (Susan Saint James) & Allie Lowell (Jane Curtain) – Kate & Allie: These quick-witted mompreneurs not only worked together, but they also lived together and raised their children Emma, Chip & Jennie. It certainly couldn’t have been easy to spend all that time together, but more puzzling is how they afforded a brownstone in Greenwich Village on a start-up catering company’s earnings. Hmmm… perhaps they had the same real estate agent as the did kids on "Friends"….but I digress.

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) – Gilmore Girls: Lorelai Gilmore, beautiful mom to beautiful Rory. She quips, she caffeinates, she runs the Dragonfly – and raises a great kid, with time for romance too. It must be all that coffee.

Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) – Weeds: Selling dope may not be for every mom- but it pays the bills!

These are just a few famous mompreneurs. Send us your favourites!

Coming soon – mompreneurs in fiction!