For some reason, I’ve had a lot of recent inquiries for coaching from moms. Moms who, for various reasons ranging from financial necessity to desire for a new or different challenge, are interested in working outside the home, and want some help working through that.
There’s a lot to work through. So many of us compare ourselves to each other. We struggle with feeling like we are consistently falling short of fulfilling our responsibilities. We never feel like we are doing everything equally well– more often, we fear that we are doing everything horribly inadequately. And talking about it with each other is the exception rather than the norm.
I thought more about this when I flew to Chicago last week. The movie shown on the plane was “Motherhood.” It followed a day in the life of the mother of two small children, and despite being billed as a comedy, it stressed me out so much I had to stop watching it. And by “stop watching it,” I mean, I was utterly riveted and couldn’t tear my eyes away. It wasn’t exactly like watching my own life on screen, but there were definitely specific parts that felt like they had been stolen from my journal, word-for-word. I couldn’t help thinking about my own struggles as well as those of some of my clients, and about how painful the process of self-definition can be.
At one part of the movie, the mom (played by Uma Thurman) is talking to her husband (played by Anthony Edwards) about the state of their crazy, pushed-to-the-margins life. Part of the genius of this scene is that the whole intense conversation takes place in a car, in hushed whispers, because they fear waking the two-year old napping in the backseat. They’re discussing why he never answers her calls to his cell phone, why it matters so much that he thanks her for her cooking, why they don’t look at each other the same way anymore, etc. Finally, Uma’s character says to her husband: “I want a better life.” There’s a long pause. Finally, he responds: “What would be a better life?”
This isn’t meant to be a “mommy blog”, specifically. This isn’t even a person blog; it’s more like a freedom blog. It’s for anyone who wants to be free; not from responsibility or privilege or hard work, but from fear and other people’s expectations. And that’s partly because I know how hard it can be hard to feel like one can still be a good mother despite one’s identity not being defined by it. But that also applies to being a good employee, spouse, friend, or student. This is about figuring out what would be a better life, and going after it.
Every year, I go away for a weekend with 6 close girlfriends. There’s always a point in the time together where we sit down and each of us shares about what has been going in our lives lately. We laugh, we cry, it’s like Beaches already. We talk about everything; marriages, finances, kids, in-laws, work, God, sex. And after each time, we stand in fresh awe at the gift that comes from sharing the deeper parts of our lives and hearts with each other. We vow to do this once a month. And that turns into drinks and dinner every second or third month, until a year goes by and we go away for the weekend again.
Despite the somewhat frightening accuracies in the movie, it’s not just moms who don’t talk to or support each other as much as we could. It’s women in general. We hold back, we doubt ourselves, we hesitate. We miss the opportunity to form something bigger together than whatever we could ever create alone. We miss the chance to stand in fresh awe at whatever happens when we come together in truth.
You certainly don’t have to sign up for this workshop to do that. But those of us that do, will.
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