I started a business with my stay-home mum. It's made me see and value her differently

My mother has never complained about being a stay-at-home wife and mum – not openly at least.

She shows her love every day in countless quiet acts: never cooking the same meals two days in a row so we don't get bored with eating at home, folding and putting away laundry in our closets, tidying up our rooms for us whenever they get messy.

Growing up, I thought it was all just "mum stuff". This was just how things were: Mothers are meant to be at home and daughters would eventually take up the same roles and responsibilities.

So I didn't pay attention to the small, throwaway comments Mum made now and then.

Her eyes would light up as she told me how she used to work long hours as an admin worker at a factory and still had the energy to party late into the night. Her smile would brighten when she talked about spending entire afternoons chasing butterflies back in Malaysia.

A special note of pride would enter her voice whenever she described being the "wildest one" in her family, the one who would climb trees, run barefoot and talk back to her elders.

She's a lot tamer now, more subdued. She calls herself a 黄脸婆 or "yellow-faced housewife", a derogatory phrase used to refer to women who've been married a long time and have visibly aged with the burdens of housework.

She laughs when she says this, like she's telling me a silly joke. But in hindsight, it tells me that once my brother and I came along, her life stopped being hers.

NO TIME FOR MUM

Once I became a rebellious teenager, I stopped appreciating the many things Mum did for us. Instead of thanking her, I often told her to "stop touching my things".

By the time I got to junior college, I was going to school early and staying out late almost every day, dealing with the many stresses of Singaporean education.

Having just completed National Service, my brother was busy with university. My dad was a ship engineer, so he often spent long stretches of time out at sea. More often than not, my mum was home alone cooking, cleaning and washing on repeat.

During this time, Mum started a small side business selling flower bouquets on e-marketplace Carousell, having always been interested in the art of floral arranging. Since she was less tech savvy, it was solely dependent on me to market it for her.

I helped, but it wasn't a priority for me then. I had "more important" things to focus on, like schoolwork and friends.

I was in my second year of university when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

My brother, a year older than me, almost instantly holed up in his room with his computer games, emerging only for food and drink. With my dad stuck at sea, it was just Mum and me, alone together in the house with nothing to do.

We started binge-watching movies together, from thrillers to tearjerkers. I've lost count of how many times she has seen her all-time favourite, Korean zombie film Train to Busan, but I know it's at least four.

As we spent more time together, we also started discussing the wave of small businesses we saw opening online every day.

I soon got inspired to start something for myself. I got into crocheting with the goal of selling my creations and even after the quarantine ended in June 2020, my focus remained on my business.

Once again, I had no time for Mum.

SHARING NEW PURPOSE WITH MUM

I started spending most of my days in my room with the door closed, crocheting away.

Now and then, Mum would peek in to check on me. She often asked if I wanted to watch a movie and I often declined. 

I even got impatient with her at times, feeling like she was distracting me from my immediate goals.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for entertaining her, she frequently posted Instagram stories of my business, getting her friends to follow my account and put in orders.

My friends often made remarks about my mum being my biggest supporter. Instead of feeling proud of this, I was embarrassed. My business wasn't really taking off then, so I felt like she was calling unnecessary attention to it. 

Also, I hadn't yet grown out of that "teenager" mindset, where kids don't want to be associated with their parents.

Then my dad lost his job and our family's stresses began mounting. I had student loans to take care of and I’d just spent what seemed like a ton of money on a business that might not work.

Seeing this, my mum asked me to help market her flowers again so that she could add to the household income.

That was when the idea hit me. We could sell crochet flowers and merge our business ambitions together. And so, San Yarns was born.

Initially, Mum was only in charge of wrapping the flowers. She was hesitant to learn crocheting because she was "just a primary school graduate" and "studying is not her forte".

Then one of our posts went viral. Orders came pouring in and Mum was quickly forced to step up her game.

Behind my back, she secretly picked up crocheting skills, learning from online tutorials. One day, she walked into my room to show me her newest creation: a purple rose.

The petals were slightly lopsided and the leaves looked like they had a mind of their own, but she held it up proudly like it was a masterpiece.

Perhaps it was the big grin on Mum's face or the joy in her voice. Whatever it was, I immediately realised that this was not just about money and profit for her.

It was my stay-at-home mum's way of reconnecting with herself and with others, in ways she had never really thought she could do again.

MUM FINALLY PUTTING HERSELF FIRST

Crocheting and San Yarns have given Mum much more than a hobby. They've given her a way back to herself – not as a wife or a mother, or as the manager of a household, but simply as a person with hopes and dreams.

When we do on-the-ground events like pop-ups and markets, she loves chatting with customers, picking up English vocabulary from my interactions with them.

As we've grown the business, I've seen my mum grow as well. She enjoys strangers appreciating her work, and feeling seen by others.

Mum was blossoming, becoming more than what she thought she could be.

Now, she's more confident and ambitious than ever. She updates me daily on her creations and ideas for new products we can introduce. She gives herself quarterly targets and key performance indicators, although they're mostly in the form of her talking excitedly about trips she wants to go on when we hit various milestones.

I used to think of my mum as the strongest person in the world. Always holding things together, never asking for much.

Now that I’ve grown older, I’ve come to see that strength can sometimes be a mask to cover up wounds left unattended. 

Just like me, my mother has an inner child, too, one that never truly got the space to play, rest or heal.

But spending time with her through our business has changed that. I've watched her soften, open up and reconnect with a part of herself she didn't even know was still waiting for her.

Truthfully, I regret not having spent more time with her earlier. Sometimes, I still think about how, in my early crocheting days, I rejected her attempts to show an interest in my business pursuits.

What could have happened if I'd let her in sooner? What if I had helped her discover her talents right away, given her the validation she was looking for?

I can't change the past, but I'm trying now to listen more closely and pay more attention to her, to stop fixating on doing things by myself and think of more ways we can work together.

Lately, Mum has been joking about how, when she's too old to crochet, she wants to run a cafe selling baked goods and coffee.

When I was little, we'd often talked casually about opening a bakery in the future, so I find it heartwarming that Mum remembers those childhood conversations even now. I'm hopeful we'll get to do this together someday.

I can't undo the years Mum spent putting herself last, but I hope the years ahead feel more like the life she truly deserves, not just the one she settled for.

Jasmine Ng is the founder of San Yarns, a crocheted flowers business she runs with her mother.

If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg (voices[at]mediacorp[dot]com[dot]sg) with your full name, address and phone number.