work life balance

Working Mom Drops Mic {contributor}
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Working Mom Drops Mic {contributor}

by Jill
written by Jill

I have a pretty important guest post today from great friend and regular contributor Stephanie. I think once you read it, you’ll understand why she can’t put it on her own blog, which we won’t name for many reasons, but you can follow this link to learn more about her and follow more of her working-mom journey.

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This whole working mom gig can be such a mind-fuck sometimes.

You can get to a point in your role as a mom where you’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re not going to be with your kids as much as you’d like to. You understand that you won’t make every school play. You’re okay with not being there to greet them as they hop off the bus. You’ve resigned to the fact that you might miss field trips or Mother’s Day lunch or volunteering for the Fall Festival.

You can get to a point in your role as a working mom where you can confidently maneuver past the judgmental naysayers. You know your kids are well cared for. You know they’re thriving in daycare or after-school programs. You know that they’re independent and smart and that one day, they’ll understand why you spent time working out of the home and towards your family’s financial goals.

You can get to a point in your career where you know you’ve made a smart choice, professionally. You enjoy your job. You like working towards something you’re proud of. You feel like you’re accomplishing something worthwhile and valuable for the company you put so many hours of your precious time towards.

And then, all of a sudden, you get sucker punched. It comes from out of nowhere and completely knocks you off balance and onto your ass. You’re left blinking into a bright light and thinking, “what the hell just happened here? I had this all figured out; why do I feel so unsure about all of my choices now?”

Because the sucker punch to your gut didn’t come from a snide family member’s remark. It didn’t come a ‘friend’ who sometimes lets her insecurities over her own choices show in the form a passive aggressive comment. It didn’t come your child crying when you explain why you won’t be able to make it to their school event.

It came from another professional. Someone who apparently sees you as a “mom” and not a peer. A peer who in a moment of insecurity decided to grab at the only leverage they thought they had to pull you down – your motherhood. Your family life. Your role as a parent. The “mommy” in you trumps the “professional” in you.

As a woman working out of the home, perhaps I was naïve to think that I would never encounter such blatant sexism in a professional setting (silly me – to think that we might have come further than that in year 2015). But it still does, apparently, and it knocked me flat on my ass. It knocked the wind out of me, and stole my self-confidence, and made me second-guess every choice I’ve made in the past seven years.

 And then I shook that shit off – because fuck them. Screw their own insecurities trying to pull me down with them. I will not have that negativity in my life, I just won’t. I know who I am, and I know who my family is, and while they are fused together with golden thread they are not the same thing.

 I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a professional. I am a woman. And I am damn proud of all of that.

::mic drop::

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I’m so damn proud of Stephanie. Seriously, she amazes me with her devotion to both her family and her career. I hate that she even had to write this.

You shake that shit off, girl.

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I Grew Up Thinking I Want To Be A SAHM. Then I Grew Out Of It. {Contributor}
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I Grew Up Thinking I Want To Be A SAHM. Then I Grew Out Of It. {Contributor}

by Jill
written by Jill

This gal- Stephanie Totty of FroggyAndTheMouse.com- who I’m honored to have contributing here, has seen me through this entire motherhood journey, mostly by way of online friendship. I’m thrilled to bring her fresh perspective here. I adore her honesty, and I know she brings a valuable voice to this blog, especially as she shares a little about her journey as a mom who (happily) works out of the home.

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Have you ever wanted something for so long, that one day you wake up and can’t remember why on earth you wanted it in the first place? That was me with kids and wanting to be a SAHM.

Wait, I can explain.

Lots of kids grow up thinking, ‘I want to be an astronaut’. Or, ‘I want to be a teacher’. Or, ‘I want to be a rodeo clown’ (whatever, it looks like a fun job). But not me.

I grew up thinking, “I want to be a mom.”

As I got older, and realized that money does not, in fact, just appear in your bank account or grow on trees, I I still wanted to be a ‘soccer mom’ … and that I would ‘find a husband who made enough money for me to stay home and be the most awesome mom ever’.

Ha. HAHAHAHAHAHLOLOMGHA.

When I eventually met the love of my life (who happens to be amazing, and who also works retail), reality set firmly in. As we were both art history majors we both had jobs that were just that – jobs.

But somehow, I still clung to this romantic idea of the ‘amazing full-time mom’ gig that would eventually happen. We would get married, he would get a promotion, we would buy a little house and have sweet babies that I would take care of full time. Then, life happened. The husband did get a promotion, and we did buy a house – but we were not making enough money for me to stop working.

Then we had a baby – and he was amazing. But you know what else came with him? Hemorrhoids. Sleep deprivation. Mood swings. Breast-feeding battles. It was like the husband I were thrown into a lake of ice water and all of a sudden knocked out of this rose-colored dream we were living, and reality set in.

The husband got exactly 2 minutes of leave once our son was born, so I was home all by myself for the bulk of my maternity leave. And while I was spared full blown PPD, there was a good case of baby blues thrown in for good measure, along with just being plain bored out of my skull. I sat at home all day with my sweet baby, and thought, ‘Oh GAWD, I can’t take one more hour of a crying baby all by myself’.

I wasn’t exactly excited to leave my three month old and go back to work, but I wasn’t crushed either.

Even though I didn’t like my job all that much, getting back into a routine was a GOOD THING for me. When my second was born – I felt the same way. I craved the adult interaction, I needed the routine, I missed my alone time. It was amazing to both my husband and myself how much of a better mood I was in once I started back to work and had the opportunity to miss my kids.

Just over six years into this whole ‘raising small humans’ thing – we’re probably at the point financially now where I could decide not to work if I didn’t want to. There would be some major sacrifices, but we could make it work.

Now, six years later I now have a legitimate career, and actually love my job – I look forward to getting up and going into work and contributing to a company that I care about. My oldest just started first grade, and the youngest is thriving in pre-k. They’re both smart, and happy, and let’s be honest, have a way better time at their respective schools than they would at home with a surly, and stressed-out me.

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I am a much better working parent than I ever would be if I was at home and with them 100% of the time. Are there times that I miss being away from them? Do I sometimes hate that I can’t be the ‘room mom’ or the field trip chaperone? Absolutely.

But me realizing that I’m doing both myself and them a favor by working out of the home is probably the best thing that ever happened to our entire family.

And sure, it’s hard. Getting kids up and out the door by 7am, a full day of work, 2 hours commute, kid pickup, dinner/baths/homework/family-time, and then bed to start it all over again the next day is HARD. It’s a freaking beating – but you know what, the end result (a happy family unit) is totally worth it.

My biggest piece of advice to all new families is not about baby gear, or parenting techniques, or old, stupid lamentations (“sleep when the baby sleeps!” – ugh), it’s this:

Figure out what works for you and your family, and then do that. Then ignore all the haters – because your kids? They don’t care what people on the interwebz or your mother in law thinks – they only care about YOU.

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BloggingPhotographyPregnancyThe Story

The Busy Life Cycle- Wash, Rinse, Repeat

by Jill
written by Jill

I’ve fallen out of the habit of blogging. Like exercise, it’s something that always makes me feel better when I’m done, but if I don’t keep up with it, it becomes daunting. Where do I start? What do I share? I’ve gone too long. I’ve been too silent.

The thing is, life balance is an increasing struggle for me lately. Work related to this blog is picking up, which is fabulous, but life with my kids is also speeding along, faster every day. Scott and I are both spinning in place, unable to find something to grab onto and make everything slow down. So instead, our world goes faster and faster until all the dishes have been flung from the cabinets and drawers, landing on cluttered counters. The centrifugal force of life has thrown clean and dirty laundry to every corner of this house. LEGOs are spinning around my head as I type this.

But none of this is new. It all feels very wash, rinse, repeat to me. Jill is overwhelmed. Jill has a messy house. Jill feels like her kids are growing up too fast. It’s all been blogged before.

I dream of the day I can come here and blog about solutions. I dream that one day I’ll be here with a magic formula to share with all of you. In my mind, I imagine it would be something like this:

Wake up EARLY.
Get dressed. No matter what.
Consult your to-do list that you religiously add to and cull.
Do the awful stuff first thing in the day.
Don’t check Facebook or Twitter until all the awful, boring stuff is done.
Always be cleaning something.
Only take breaks AFTER you clean something.
Respond to or delete emails the day you get them.
Keep your computer organized.
Keep your photos organized.
Take time to get outside every day.
Write the next day’s blog post by 5pm the day before and schedule it to publish.
Do the dishes.
Do the laundry.
GO TO BED EARLY.

That all sounds simple. It sounds like something most people who’ve got life under control do. I have been trying to put this in place for years.

It’s impossible.

My brain works best late at night. I crave social interaction throughout the day. I’m inspired by that social interaction to create, to collaborate. It feeds me. Sometimes… okay, lots of times, I would rather sit on the couch and snuggle with Leyna while Kendall shows off the newest level on his current favorite Wii game then fold or rinse off anything.

I’m growing a baby.

I wish I could be one of these routine people, the type who can “never sit still.” I wish I could approach my day methodically, to-do list in hand. I have a feeling it would drain me of my creativity, though. I do have a tendency of abandoning one project to start another when a flash of creativity hits me. I think this might be referred to as ADD in some circles. I’m just going to call it living in the moment.

The point of this blog post was, honestly, to just start blogging again. I opened my window and told myself to just write something. Anything. And this came out. Because one thing I’m learning in trying to figure out this balance thing is my worst enemy is doing nothing.

I don’t have to do everything methodically, by a schedule. I don’t have to cross off all my to-dos before I add new ones. I DO have to keep on doing stuff, though. So when I get paralyzed at the thought of how many emails I haven’t responded to yet, I get up and wash a few dishes. When I feel overwhelmed by how much laundry there is to catch up on, I take a few minutes to write down blog post ideas. That’s the only system that’s ever worked for me. That, along with a huge helping of self-forgiveness for the days that no system works.

So Self? I’m forgiving you for the last couple weeks of chaos, and starting fresh. Not that the last couple weeks of chaos weren’t worth it. Did I tell you all what I did? Oh that’s right. I forgot to blog.

Well, first there was California for the Mom 2.0 Summit, where I pitched HLN, took lovely pictures of my friend Morgan on the beach, and helped some dad bloggers make fun of the Wall Street Journal. You can see that picture in the NYT today. 

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And then there was Vegas, where I spoke on a panel at the ABC SEC about how brands can work with bloggers, alongside my good friend and baby gear superstar Jamie Grayson.

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Then Austin, where I had the honor (like the truest form of that word, seriously honored) to read my Letter To My 51 Year Old Self to an audience of hundreds as part of the Listen To Your Mother Show. Pregnancy only made it twice as hard not to weep through the whole thing. I’ll be sure to share the video with you all when it’s up on YouTube later this summer.

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Photo credit Alison Eden Photography

Finally, we landed at my mom’s in the country for Mothers Day. She got a new puppy. And I got to take pictures of my BFF since Jr. High and her two little cowboys.

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And now I’m craving a little normalcy, and lots of sleep. My to-do list, which obviously I will forget exists by the end of the week, includes stuff like “buy the baby a dresser,” and “stop living out of a suitcase.”

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Announcing My New Job Title, And Asking For Advice

by Jill
written by Jill

I don’t think I can call myself a Stay At Home Mom anymore. It’s not fair to me, and I think it sets me up to feel like a failure.

I’m officially a WORK (or Write) At Home Mom. I work on paid freelance writing projects for other websites up to 10 hours a week. I work on projects for myself up to another 10-20 hours a week. I have been for a long time. I used to think I didn’t deserve to call myself a WAHM until I was bringing in a substantial income, but I’ve come to realize that I’m at the point in my business where I’m investing in my future. I may not be making an enormous profit just yet, but the time I’m putting into it will pay off down the road.

The plan has always been for me to “go back to work” when all the children are in school. Depending on when we have a 3rd, that’s roughly 7 years from now. But, part of me is yearning to “work” now, and another part of me shudders to think of my future “work” being a job in an office doing who-knows-what. I didn’t feel like I had much direction before I became a SAHM. I wasn’t working my dream job (though it wasn’t a BAD job). I didn’t even know what my dream job was.

You know what? Since quitting the workforce and becoming a SAHM, I actually think I’m on the road to finding it. I think this blog and the myriad of opportunities it brings me will lead to my dream job someday. I’m not saying I’ll make my living off this blog, alone, but the connections I’ve made through it are starting to form a network that will take me further than any amount of time searching Monster.com.

When I got back from Blogher at the beginning of August, I shifted the way I approach things, like this blog and freelance projects. I’m giving myself permission to take all of this more seriously. I’m “dressing” for the job I want, not the one I have, in a sense.

So the 15 hours a week Kendall spends at preschool are now specifically set aside for me to work. Well, that and take care of Leyna. She will likely start going to Mother’s Day Out one day a week in January of next year so I can at least have a solid 5 hours to myself. Calling myself a WAHM makes me feel less guilty about juggling so much and neglecting things like the dishes and the laundry during the day.

It’s an interesting work/life balance that I’m striving to find, and I certainly haven’t perfected any techniques yet. So I’m interested to hear how other WAHMs do it. What is your cleaning routine like? How do you balance taking care of a baby and getting things done on a deadline? Do you ever sleep?

And, I’m not sure if this is just me, but sometimes I have SO MUCH to do, and I get so overwhelmed, that I just don’t do anything. I sit in the living room with my laptop up, my to-do list next to me, baby on the floor in front of me, and I spin my wheels until it’s time to change her diaper or feed her. How do you jump start your own engine and keep it going while multitasking?

Kendall is 3 years 4 months old and Leyna is 8 months old

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