I Felt Like 'Just a Mom' Until I Began My Career at 50

I was born in New Jersey, but always had the desire to cross over the bridge to New York City. From a young age, it was a goal of mine to move to the city and raise a family there.

Turns out you don't need a visa to move across the river but an Amex platinum. Seriously though, I worked in New York and lived at home for years. Then, finally, I was able to move to NYC with a variety of roommates making the movie Single White Female seem mild.

But alas, I finally found the perfect roommate—my husband.

I graduated from college with a degree in chemistry and a minor in marketing so all I was qualified to do was sell drugs. I was pre-med and three-quarters of the way through college when I decided medicine wasn't the right path for me—this was before women realized they could have a career and a family successfully.

Becoming a doctor and having a family at the time didn't seem plausible, so I chose family and a career in marketing. I never really had a good female mentor. In fact, most of my interactions with female bosses were quite horrifying.

Because of this lack of guidance from the community as well as from my own parents, I wandered in and out of many petty, meaningless, and unsatisfying careers.

Eventually, I found myself pregnant and fired by a client—female—who was mad that I stated my opinion in a meeting.

Unemployed and pregnant, I began my career in motherhood. I did enjoy it most of the time, but it left me with a nagging feeling that something was missing.

My kids were born in 1995, 1998, and 2002. I was a stay-at-home mom until my youngest turned 13. Life as a stay-at-home mom has its plusses and minuses. I can probably write a novel on the experience but will sum it up by saying that nothing is perfect.

The sad thing is that even though I stayed home with my youngest for 13 years, if you ask her now, she only has a recollection of me working and no memory of the years I stayed home with her.

Stay-at-home moms feel like they are missing something, and working moms think they are missing something: There is no perfect solution.

I loved being able to be there for my kids. I loved watching them grow and attend to their every need. It has given me great pleasure and joy, more than anything I have done, to watch them grow into the adults they are today.

But I always felt like something was missing, that I could be doing more with my life, that there was more to what I could accomplish than being "just a mom".

When people would ask me what I did, I'd reply, "I'm just a mom" and the ignorant comment that came after was, "Oh, that's the best job in the world." I think that if it were the best job in the world, a man would have it.

As for financing myself, I was lucky to have a wonderful husband who genuinely believed that being a stay-at-home mom was the most important thing, and he was more than happy to finance anything that my heart desired—or almost anything.

When I was 50, I had a friend who did stand-up, and I always told him that I wanted to try it. So finally, one day I decided to give it a whirl and took a class on his recommendation.

My first performance was so much fun and it gave me such a thrill. From that moment, I was hooked. From there, I did what most new comedians do, performing in what the industry calls bringer shows—meaning you must bring four people to a club and get five minutes of stage time.

After a while, it became difficult for me to get my friends to travel downtown late at night, so I needed a better option.

That is how I came up with lunchtime comedy shows. The desire to create daytime opportunities for myself and others also led to a daytime mic, which snowballed into producing nighttime shows, which then led to me overseeing and booking new talent and running a comedy club and school.

I always enjoyed and had a knack for helping young comedians. Many of the younger comedians call me their momager—watch out Kris Jenner.

I was always very frustrated with the model for comedians in terms of class, gender, and diversity, so, I created my own "bringer" program which was the first phase of my comedy school that I formed seven years ago called F Comedy Club. Thankfully, F Comedy Club eventually morphed into a full-fledged school.

One of the comedians that I helped get her start, Zarna Garg, always prodded me to get more involved with teaching. She would say: "Felicia, you should do this. It has always been your passion to help other comedians." I kept hearing that in the back of my mind and one day, I just decided to go for it.

I hired an associate director and found three other founding partners who were successful in their fields—and either already teaching—or wanting to teach comedy. Together, we created a multi-tiered program with a comprehensive curriculum covering everything from basic skills to advanced techniques.

The idea was to make sure all students were learning the basics, and everyone had the opportunity—if they had the talent and drive—to move up the ladder from 101 to 201 to 300-level seminars and workshops, and eventually to residencies with weekly writing intensives and stage time at the club.

Stand-up is a very isolating career and with no guild or unions, there is no place for comedians to feel welcome and converse with others. I also wanted to create a safe, friendly environment for comedians to come hang out, learn, and take care of themselves.

I created, in addition to the school, a support group with #samehere_global a charity dedicated to raising awareness about mental health, as well as a comedy label, FUNYrecords.

Recordings are very popular and a great way for comedians to reach new audiences and make money. I want to reach out to comedians who are on the verge of being discovered, who may not have a full hour—or are between hours—and put together niche compilation albums where comedians perform ten minutes on a specific topic. I'm hoping this helps promote comedians and provide comedy in topics that may be underrepresented now.

I love what I do, but have always felt that starting so late, I couldn't make up for lost time and I was fighting for stage time with people just like me who have been doing stand-up for decades.

I remember in one instance, early on in my career, I'd just come off stage and a man told me that I shouldn't tell people that I was 50, as men don't like to hear from older women.

So, I took his advice and told everyone I was 40 instead. It didn't make a difference, I felt that the world wanted to hear from younger, 20 to 30-year-old comedians.

But now, I feel that the entertainment industry really has come a long way and I am thrilled to see many older women just starting to emerge in the world of comedy. This has given me a jolt of confidence and a new belief that I can get somewhere with my comedy and my story.

Let's see if people do want to hear from a woman over 50!

Felicia Madison is a New York-based comedian and entrepreneur. The stay-at-home mother of three is having a renaissance period in her life after jumping into a comedy career after the age of 50.

Felicia has recently opened a comedy school, FUNY Standup, as well as a comedy record label titled FUNY Records. She has also just released her first Stand-Up special which is now available to watch on her YouTube channel.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at myturn@newsweek.com.