Are you wondering what happened to the partner you knew? The one you thought would totally share 50/50 once you had a child. And you thought having a child wouldn’t impact your happy marriage…really?
Sometimes the universe conspires in your favor and takes its time doing so.
As my book was coming out over a year ago, my friend Beverly Schoff Belling, a life and creativity coach (Creativity on the Loose) connected me with Patty Lennon, a life coach and mother. Bev and Patty met as part of a Martha Beck coaching series and when Bev posted to Facebook about my book, apparently Patty “went nuts over it!!” Patty and I traded emails but weren’t able to meet in person on my book tour to the east coast back then. But we reconnected recently when she reached out to me to be part of the launch of her new online community Mom Gets a Life.
Beginning April 27 Life Design Coach and Mom Advocate Patty Lennon will be hosting a 3 week teleparty* for mothers. I’m thrilled to be the very first guest in this upcoming FREE event just for mothers.
Inspired by Seth Godin’s book Poke the Box, designed to be “a call to action about the initiative you’re taking – in your job or in your life,” The Domino Project encouraged submissions of “stories of passionate self-starters who regularly go above and beyond to make a difference by doing.”
I have recently admitted to myself that I am in the midst of a set of changes that are likely to be as difficult and challenging as those I went through nine years ago. Continue reading →
Since my book, This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today, was released, Twitter has connected me with a host of people I wouldn’t have connected with otherwise, or I wouldn’t have found them for months. Cali Yost at Work+Life Fit is one of them. Twitter even gave us the opportunity to meet in person – briefly – while I was swinging through the East Coast this past fall. (Sick kid at home, Cali came out to a book signing to introduce herself.)
I just wish I had stumbled across Cali’s book, Work+Life Fit: Finding the Fit That’s Right For You, and her blog before I finished my own because I would have included both in my book. (I’ve added them to my Remodeling Tools web page now!). In my book I talk about the importance of shifting our language away from terms and phrases that have come to embody outdated assumptions about mothers, fathers, money, marriage and work. To that end I suggest replacing “work-family balance” – which tends to reinforce the separation between work and family- with options like “work-life integration” or “career-family fit.” But frankly, I’ve found that Cali’s term, “work+life fit,” is the one that now rolls off my tongue most easily and busts all the cultural assumptions I’m interested in busting up. Her book is a great tool for challenging our own assumptions about “work” that can keep us from envisioning and then taking responsibility for crafting our own “work+life fit” plan.
And just for this Mother’s Day season, purchase a book for yourself or a friend and I’ll send you the link to download my FREEguide to making Mother’s Day Resolutions. Mother’s Day Resolutions are small steps you resolve to take to remodel motherhood for yourself AND to remodel the world around you so it works better for mothers, fathers and families.
My book also makes a perfect book club read for the months of May and June. Purchase 3 or more copies for your book club and I’ll send you the link to the FREE book club guide AND mail you personalized autographed bookplates to insert into each book.
A recent post to Mamapedia, “Does Motherhood Equal Identity Loss?” explored the identity changes that come with motherhood and quickly gathered over a hundred comments saying, “I am faced daily with the question of my own personhood. For weeks I’ve been milk maker, soother, diaper changer and occasionally ‘lady who showers and smells nice’… I stress ‘occasionally’ here.” I felt there was so much to say about identity that it is the only topic to have TWO chapters dedicated to it in my book, This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today, some of which is here in my Identity Pie blog post.
What we don’t often realize is that the same reasons we experience major shifts in our own identities are often the cause of a disconnect between us and our husbands. Continue reading →
I was tired, but tonight I dragged myself out to my favorite bookstore, Vroman’s, for a presentation on the social world of children – especially tween and teen girls. Ours is nine, but holy cow 4th grade seems to be when everything starts exploding socially.
So here’s the thing, the place was packed…with moms…and three dads. Continue reading →
Why I Hate the Mom Salary Survey
I hope the 10th Annual Survey is the last. Continue reading →
Share this:
Like this:
3 Comments
Filed under Assumptions about Mothers, Economy, Family Work, Fatherhood, Gender Issues, Motherhood, News & Commentary, Remodeling Motherhood
Tagged as Economy, families, fathers, Kristin Maschka, moms, Money, Mother's Day, Motherhood, Remodeling Motherhood, salary