The Mommy Myth

She hired her first employee and asked her husband to help out more. "I didn't ask him for the first few years. I thought this was my role. I am the mom. The kids, the house were my responsibilities. But when I started earning more than he did, I said, 'Something is wrong with this picture.'"

Many women entrepreneurs who are also trying to be hands-on moms come to a tipping point.

I've been there gals, I admit it. When I started my freelance business I thought it would be a snap watching my newborn daughter and writing stories for The New York Times. HA! I realized how wrong I was when my daughter cried at the top of her lungs when I was on the phone interviewing a CEO from a Fortune 100 company. I quickly hired a college kid to watch my child for a few hours each day.

The big problem I had was underestimating how much I'd have to do early on while building my business, something Lauren Stiller Rikleen, executive director of the Bowditch Institute for Women's Success, says is not unusual. "When you do anything in start-up mode, the investment of time is extraordinary," she explains. "You have to realize it will be all-consuming."

Rikleen, who is also the author of "Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law," says entrepreneurship does give you more flexibility because you control the hours, however long they may be. "But you can't have illusions you're going to be a full-time mother creating a business. You have to treat it like a business and get child care assistance."

Women have to forget about being supermoms and ask for help, stresses Julie Lenzer Kirk, author of "The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business."

She offers some words of wisdom:

- Talk to your spouse about working as a team when it comes to child/home responsibilities.
- Get good child care, whether it's day care, a babysitter or a co-op with other entrepreneur moms.
- Find a place in the house for your business so you can shut the door, and set boundaries for children when it comes to interrupting Mommy.
- Join a mom entrepreneur networking group, such as Mompreneurs Online.

"Most of the mompreneurs I know have kids that feel loved but also realize the world doesn't revolve around them," Kirk notes.

It seems to be working for The Comfort Company's Wood, whose company brought in nearly $800,000 in sales last year and now employs two part-time workers.

"For women, it's a journey through the jungle on a mule," she says of building a successful business.

Known online as Careerdiva.net, Eve Tahmincioglu is the author of “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office,” an in-depth look at top U.S. CEOs and the lessons they learned on how to succeed in business, as well as a career columnist for MSNBC.com.