Do you wake up everyday confident in your role as a mother? Do you know exactly what is expected of you? Are you NEVER frazzled? Never feel behind on anything?
Well, if so, congratulations! YOU’RE A MOM BOSS.
But for the REST of us: the tired, overwhelmed, in-over-our-heads, have NO idea what we’re doing most of the time mamas, we’re hanging by threads most days!
I remember staring into two beautiful brown eyes that were wide open in a dark living room. It was 3 a.m., and for a few minutes I held this squirming creature at arms length and wondered why on EARTH someone thought I could be a mother.
I became a mom for the first time 6 years ago. If you know that my oldest now is only 3 you can figure out that my first baby ended up not being a “for keeps” baby. He was a newborn foster placement we parented for 15 months, and he will always be the baby that made me a mama.
But I didn’t feel like a mom that first night. Maybe not even the second.
I spent my days googling things like “how to burp a baby” just to be sure I was doing it right. I felt ill-equipped and under-qualified. I have learned since that no one can make you feel like a mom- you just have to BE a mom.
Wouldn’t you like to wake up confident in understanding what is expected of you to be a good mother? To be able to work throughout your day like you actually knew what you were doing and what you were striving for?
ME TOO!
Since that first week of parenting I have been focused on how to be a more functional, productive, and confident mom.
SO.
Do you want to be a mom boss?
When I asked myself that question, I realized the first thing I had to do was this:
SET UP MY PARENTING LIKE A JOB
Often when getting a corporate job you are given the vision, mission and protocol for what it means to be an employee for that company. They want you psyched to work for them; they want you believing in their mission and to have a clear vision for what it means to be a part of their team. They want you to feel like you belong and that you believe in the goals of the company. There is nothing haphazard about the process.
Most of us roll into motherhood exhausted and sleep deprived with hormones off the charts; it’s the weirdest first day of work. Parenting is your personal life and work life combined. You can’t separate the two. Things should be structured for your planned outcomes.
Outcomes, you might ask? What outcomes?
You tell me!
Parenting is a job, right? But always special unto itself because it is unique to the family that is doing the parenting.
Yes, you will have no set hours because a mother’s work is never done.
Yes, there is a lot of “putting out fires” throughout the day and no day may ever look the same.
And yet, there is still a structure that can help make sense of the chaos of life with children.
You are the CEO of raising your children.
So, what is motherhood to you? What are your expectations for yourself and your children? What are you working for? What should everyone expect out of their day to day? What is the end game?
Looking at my motherhood journey with a more corporate structure gave me the freedom to define what was actually important to our family.
I’ve come a long way from that first night wondering how I was going to parent and what is was supposed to look like. I’ve learned that you don’t have to “feel” like a mom to be a good mom. I’ve learned that if you set core principles for your family, there are many ways you can live them out and still be authentic to those standards.
I’ve learned that you don’t have to be superwoman to be a #bossmom.
Join me in this series as we unpack how to set up your motherhood journey, and I share what has and has not been working.
