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Listen to the latest podcast episodes
Ep. 123: Checking in with your goals
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Ep. 122: Cultivating the lovely in motherhood w/ MacKenzie Koopa
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Ep. 121: Un-martyring motherhood
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Ep. 120: How to clean like a professional house cleaner
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Ep. 119: Showing gratitude to our messes
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Ep. 118: 3 reasons your routines aren't working
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Ep. 117: Your words matter
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Ep 116: On-air coaching in the M-LAB w/ Kerri Grace
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Ep. 115: Silencing your biggest mom critic
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Ep. 114: An honest conversation about mommy judgement
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Why should kids have all the fun? Come join the mamas of the Mother Like a Boss™ Playground Facebook group. Why a playground? Well, aside from the obvious link to motherhood and kids, I find playgrounds to be some of the most enjoyable places on earth. You can swing, climb, run, jump, dig, chase, balance and slide, just like all moms do everyday. You can make friends, bring the ones you have or do both. You can feel free and unjudged, because everyone around you is enjoying the same place at the same time.

If you're looking for a fun, supportive and encouraging group of mothers helping one another and asking great questions, come to the playground. Plus, you'll receive tons of homemakerish help from yours truly.

Oh, and unlike most other playgrounds, a little adult conversation isn't frowned upon.

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Let’s be Insta-friends. Follow me over on Instagram for encouraging mom posts and stories that don’t take themselves too seriously.

This is the start of my shame spiral . . They say a picture says a thousand words, but here, a picture hides a thousand lies. . . It was moments after giving birth to my son (he's all cozy up on my chest covered in blankets) We all look exhausted, but ecstatic, they way you should look after welcoming a new member into the world and family. . ❌The truth about this photo is that it's only one of three I could find from the first 3 months of my son's life that I'm in. ❌The truth about this photo is that 36 hours later, I had the biggest and most guilt-ridden break down of my life. ❌The truth about this photo is that in the days after it was taken, I was convinced that having another baby was the worst mistake I had ever made. . . Saying that out loud is a recipe for judgment, because we live in a sanctimommy world, where moms feel compelled to give their opinions by hiding behind the anonymity of a computer. But the truth is, judgment of others will never compare to the judgment, shame and guilt I piled onto myself every day. . . I'd like to say that it was all postpartum related, but 6 years of hindsight and honesty has revealed that it wasn't. Sure, the anxiety and hormones were at their height and yes, having a baby wreaked havoc on my emotions, but the birth of my son wasn't the first straw of many that broke the camel's back, it was the last. . . I had been in a perfectionism loop for years without realizing it. For 6 years, I had been trying to fake it till I make it instead of believing it until I achieved it. On the outside, I looked like I had my ish together, but on the inside, I was a worried-filled, self-doubting, blame-everyone-else mess and the worst part was, I actually JUDGED other people who openly acted the same. Talk about holding up a mirror to my own garbage. . . CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS 👇🏼
Making your home isn't just a series of checkboxes on a list. . Making your home isn't about duty or burden. . Making your home isn't something you have to do on your own. . Making your home isn't outdated. . Making your home doesn't go out of style. . Making your home isn't a step back for women. . Homemaking isn't about what you do, it's about what you create. . . It's time to stop pretending that homemaking doesn't matter because as the successful CEO of my own company and all around booty kicking woman, cultivating a peaceful home community is arguably the only thing that matters to me. . What can you stop doing today and instead start creating?
I love haters. . . Haters aren't really haters. They are victims. They are judges. They are complainers. They are wishers. . . We're all dealing with more mommy judgement than ever before thanks to the social media universe we live in. We're surrounded by the unsolicited opinions from people who aren't in any way invested in our successes or failures. We're told we're wrong, while they are right. And vice versa, WE think we're right and THEY are wrong. . . Judgement is a two way street and if we're going to shut down the culture of sanctimommy-ing going on, we have to admit to ourselves how judgmental we've been of others and ourselves. Judgment feels good. It's feels righteous. It feels productive. If someone else is wrong, it means we get to be right. That FEELS good. . . The judgment from others may come to me in the form of a comment on a free class I have, but it may come to you via text or email, or a passive aggressive comment from Aunt Sally at Thanksgiving dinner. "Wow. You hired a house cleaner. Good for you. In my day, we didn't need help to run OUR homes..." . . Those comments, those texts, those sometimes mild, sometimes downright hateful things people think or say about you have nothing to do with you. They are a reflection of the hater. . . Because your life is bumping up against their own beliefs. Your decision to homeschool is reminding that mom that she wished she could spend more time with her kids. Your house cleaner is a reminder to Aunt Sally that she spent years of her life exhausted trying to do it all herself. Your resolve to go back to work is making your friend feel guilty because she feels stuck in the life she currently has. . . Haters aren't hating on us, they’re hating on themselves through us. And even if they don't like what we're doing or how we're doing it, the need to openly judge says more about the judger than the judg-ee. . . Today's episode of the Mother Like a Boss™ podcast is an honest and open conversation about mommy judgement because it's time we faced this head on and finally lay down our weapons in this pointless war on motherhood.
Moms need more than grace during the hard times. . . Everywhere I turn, we're telling moms that all they need to do is give themselves grace during the hard times. When things are a mess, just give yourself some grace and all will be well. As if providing mercy will somehow fix the underlying issue. . . Ya know the word I hear the most from my audience? Drowning. Moms feel like they are literally being pulled under the water, and they can't breathe. If you saw someone drowning, what would you do? Would you stand on a boat nearby and say, "Girl, it's fine. We all go through it. Just keep kicking. This is just the way things are in the water. It can't be helped. I've been there. Just give yourself grace and you'll be fine." . . No. You wouldn't. You'd paddle over to her, help her in, throw her a life raft or at the very least, find someone else that could help her. . . Grace won't save you when you're drowning. Grace is what we need after we're pulled up from the water, shaken and out of breath, feeling like a failure. Grace is what we need when we see other moms around us paddling along while we silently judge ourselves for those times we barely kept our heads above water. Grace is what we need to extend to ourselves while we're learning to change and navigating the exhaustion, the disempowerment, the loneliness. . . But the real power comes in learning to swim. When you finally realize that there is no shame in asking for help, you'll take it one day at a time, one stroke at a time until your Michael Phelps-ing this beast. . . Those that make their living off disempowering mothers make me sad. You don't have to drown. You don't have to be pulled under every day. There is a better way. Give yourself the grace of knowing you're allowed to learn a better way so that you don't have to spend everyday feeling like grace is your only way out.
Oh right, like you don’t read your favorite book while standing in a perfectly clean kitchen smiling candidly after having your makeup and hair done trying to look completely normal and natural. 📸 & 💄 by @by_shanglam 📖 by @jensincero
You're not a victim . . Read that again. Say it to yourself over and over if you have to. If you're triggered by it, good. That means you need the message more than anyone. If you're first inclination is to comment and defend your victim status, you're proving my point. . . I spent way too many years subtly believing I was the victim of my circumstances. I blamed my kids for why I couldn't take care of myself. I blamed my husband's long hours for why things weren't getting done. In my head, I was the victim that needed rescuing, because if only all of these other people and circumstances would be fixed, finally I would be happy. . . Self-empowerment is all about believing that you are in control of the way you feel and act in any given moment, no matter what has been done around you or to you. We can't always control the circumstances, the tragedies and the traumas we are forced to endure, but we have 100% of the power over how we act in the aftermath. . . We have a culture of mom victimhood. We blame the kids, we blame our own childhood, we blame society, Pinterest, social media, other moms, anyone we can. It doesn't have to be this way. . . It's no one else's job to make you happy. No one is going to show up at your door today with a package of happiness and force you to open it. Happiness is an inside job, as they say. Stop outsourcing it.
We got engaged 13 years ago on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t fancy. We don’t have it recorded on video or in photos. It was simple and sweet, but to be honest, it was just a formality because we already knew we wanted to get married. . We’d been friends for years, so when we finally woke up and realized we should be together, it was Jim and Pam-esque. There wasn’t any question. We knew this was it. We were young and naive, but not too naive to understand that this kind of relationship doesn’t come around often. . We’ve seen each other at our very best and very worst. We’ve seen each other celebrate and we’ve seen each other face failure. We’ve held one another while the other sobs. We’ve welcomed new life and said goodbye to some we love. We’ve been broke as a joke and we’ve been rich. Through it all, we’ve remained strong, unmoving by the things that tried to shake us. . I don’t have some secret for marriage success. I only know what works for us and what works for us is that we are a team, plain and simple. As parents, as a couple, against the world. We are a team and a team works together always. We trust one another like no other. I trust Adam with my life and I trust him to support me in everything I do. . At some point, my kids may find themselves in relationships, too if that’s what they choose. I think about something I told my daughter recently when she was jokingly telling me about girls in her grade that think they already have boyfriends. I said, “When the time is right for you, find someone that treats me the way that dad does.” She knew exactly what I meant. . Happy Valentine’s Day, sweeties.
"How would the person I want to become be acting today?" . . This is a question I journaled on over the past week. . . I can't possibly bring all the things I'm working toward into existence if I refuse to become a person that feels worthy of having them. Note I said FEELS worthy, not IS worthy. We're already worthy. We just don't feel it. . . You can't have what you want until you become the person that acts like they have what they want. . . You can't be a stressed-out, hot mess Negative Nancy everyday and expect to one day wake up in a shiny new life brimming with all the positive things you're craving. . . If you want to have something different, act differently. . . I'm going to say this loud for those in the back: your circumstances right now are either holding you back or propelling you forward. Those are your two choices and today, you get to choose. . . So, I ask you, how would the person YOU want to become be acting today?
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