FWM: Share your experience with teaching working moms on how to go from conflicted to centered.
Almost every single working mom I meet feels pulled in all directions, all the time. She feels like she has to do it all but that she doesn’t do anything well. She feels tired, resentful, and conflicted.
I teach moms to build a life that is aligned and grounded so they can prioritize what is most important to them. I give them a way to differentiate the areas where they want to invest their time, energy, and focus from the distractions that threaten to steal their satisfaction and joy. We coach them to develop a framework that they can come back to time and time again, identifying their centered vision for their lives and establishing a pathway that allows them to achieve their personal and professional goals without burning out along the way.
FWM: What has the pandemic taught you?
The pandemic has reminded me how human I am — that at my core I am an individual person who needs rest, encouragement, and support from other like minded women. In order to be truly successful I have to commit to a continual practice of mindful self compassion and to a deeper understanding of others’ limitations, strengths, and needs.
Before the pandemic hit it was easy to act like I had it all together – even when I didn’t. The pandemic brought me and so many other working women I support back to the basics and back to vulnerability. It showed me that we needed to lean on each other for support more often and more readily. It showed me just how broken the working world is for women.
FWM: Tell us about your book, The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting without Losing yourself.
The Working Mom Blueprint is a guide for professional, career-oriented women who want to thrive, not just survive, in all aspects of their lives. The book teaches these women to take care of themselves and their children while honoring their ambition and professional goals at the same time. The book gives them permission to act as their own navigational beacon for their lives. This gives them the freedom to to lean in or to lean out of personal and professional obligations when it’s right for them as individuals so they can align their priorities and values throughout their entire working mom journey – Basically it helps work out what is important to you in your professional, personal and family life – how to achieve it and how to say no (or give an intentionally mediocre effort) to everything else!
FWM: You are a successful speaker. Where can we expect you in the next 6-months?
Due to the pandemic, there’s an increased urgency from Employee Resource Groups in Corporate America to better equip their working parents; in particular working moms; to return to the workplace. I am therefore spending a lot of my time partnering with large employee resource groups in a diverse array of fields across the country to help in those efforts. I am also speaking at various professional business women conferences and, naturally, talking directly to my followers at Modern Mommy Doc and in my newly launched Modern Mamas Club. The Club features all of my advice, but I also bring in other mental health, professional advancement, gender equity, and pediatric experts to collaborate with me so we can provide the best, evidence-based advice out there to Modern Working Moms in real-time.
FWM: Why did you write your recent book, The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting without Losing Yourself?
I wrote the Working Mom Blueprint so that other professional women would know they were not alone and so that they would give themselves permission to pursue a life that allows them satisfaction and contentment in the long run. I wrote it so parents could have guidance from a pediatrician who has been there in the trenches herself, raising two amazing (but challenging) daughters while having a successful career, and who has heard it all from her patients. The book is like having coffee with your best friend who just happens to be a Stanford-trained pediatrician and Mama Mindset Expert. There are so many other books out there that focus on how to make it as a mother OR how to make it as a working mother but rarely do they focus on how to make it as a working parent without losing YOURSELF – how do you find yourself or maintain the core of who you are as a person as a working mom.
FWM: Share a few key elements of the book.
The book dives deep into truly taking care of yourself as a working mom so you have more bandwidth to be efficient and productive in the workplace, how to build equity with your partner at home so you have space for professional and personal endeavors.
We talk extensively about childcare options for your children and highlight what the critical aspects of parenting are when you are a working parent.
Busy working moms don’t have time for all the fluff. They want to know the important aspects of raising children— eating, sleeping, behavior, school obligations — and of how to navigate the working world as a parent. I give straightforward advice on those topics as well as the actual support working moms need to make it all happen.
This is now more important than ever as working moms begin to return to the office after the pandemic. They need to know how to advocate for themselves at work with their employer and to navigate the “new normal” so that they can help to create mutually beneficial policies and practices for themselves but also for their employer.
FWM: What is next for you?
My goal for the next 6-12 months is to try and reach as many working mothers across the USA who have lost themselves during the pandemic and I will be doing this by working with Employee Resource Groups and my own club that I previously mentioned, the Modern Mamas Club. We’ve done the hard work already at Modern Mommy Doc putting together the resources and solutions that really work. We now have the information and the research at our fingertips to support these mamas from afar. Now it’s time to get closer and give them day to day support on a personal level. The struggle is SO real for professional women as this pandemic continues. We have to avoid a new wave of talented mamas leaving the workplace.
The world is changing rapidly so I wanted a space for moms to get immediate answers – vs one off DMs or 30 minutes in a doctors office. I am a mama on a mission to support every single working mother who feels like they have lost themselves due to this awful pandemic and needs help RIGHT NOW. It’s critical they know it’s not just OK to make time for yourself. The truth is, it’s necessary AND you have a whole network of support ready to lift you up and help you win at parenting without losing yourself.
Please share your social media handles.
https://modernmommydoc.com/modernmamasclub
