A Call To Arms To Career Moms Everywhere

While delivering my first son, I experienced a 4th-degree tear. I was stitched up and “recovered,” but no longer have full control of what happens down there. I get by keeping an extra pair of underwear in my glove compartment and washing a lot of laundry…

Probably TMI, but there’s an important point to this story I want to make:

A lot of moms like me have body parts that don’t work or look the same as they did before we had children. We accept it and move on because the joy of our children far outweighs the shifts our bodies went through to birth them.

And while this acceptance of our bodies is important, I find that too many women approach their post-partum life with a resigned passivity they mistakenly call acceptance.

“This is just the way it is to be a mom,” they say. “Now, my life is for my family; not for my own desires.” Or they say, “There’s no way I can advance my career and be a good mom at the same time; I’ll get back to my dreams and goals after the kids are older.”

Too many women accept the stereotype of the frazzled working mom that I hate: a woman run ragged, surviving on coffee and wine with huge bags under her eyes and a three-day-old ponytail in her hair, balancing a baby in one arm and a laptop in the other, mashing her lips into a tight grimace like she’s a whitehead ready to pop.

This is nonsense.

Yes, motherhood demands a whole new level of responsibility and time commitment from us. Yes, we need to take motherhood dead seriously because our emotional maturity and level of consciousness directly impact the psychological wellbeing of our children. Yes, motherhood instigates our limiting beliefs and pokes at what I call our hurt armor.

All of these things are true.

But being a mother does not mean we must lose ourselves to the caring of our family. It does not mean our children’s needs are more important than our own. Motherhood is not an opportunity to finally prove that we are good enough or worthy enough at the expense of our children’s authenticity. It isn’t an excuse to neglect our bodies, our marriages, our friendships, our careers, or our dreams. Motherhood is not a way to fulfill our long-lost childhood dreams or to project our relationship insecurities onto our little humans that depend on us for their every basic need.

Instead, being a mother is about stepping more fully into our whole, authentic, purposeful selves to be the role model our children need to see in order to establish their own self-esteem and self-worth.

This is my call to arms to you. Will you join Joy Discovered’s fight against the frazzled working mom stereotype we see and accept too often? Will you believe that balance and success are possible? (Because they are!) Will you do the inner work to gain self-mastery and have it all? (Because you can!)

Our families, our businesses, and lots of hurting people on this planet need you to rise up and step into your full SHINE so you can make your unique contribution to the world.

Let’s do this!

#haveitall

Your coach, Sara

P.S. I am here for you if you need support. Our coaching program is here for you. It changes lives, marriages, careers, and families. 

If you are ready to do the work and stand in your authentic power, book a free 25-minute coaching consult with me to learn how to get started. I have room for two new clients this month and I would love for you to be one of them.

Abolish the frazzled working mom stereotype by taking this first simple step: book a 25-minute free coaching consultation with me here.