Hello, May.
Surprise me.
I love the mothers teaching their
toddlers Japanese while I’m over here
just trying to get mine to stop
licking the refrigerator.
Mother: Not a person to lean on but a person who makes leaning unnecessary, as defined by Dorothy Fisher.
I have held a job since I was fourteen years old and my father forged working papers for me. In the ’80s, I scooped ice cream at Friendly’s restaurant and sold tablecloths at Fortunoff department store. In the ’90s, I was the woman on the phone in the morning calling you to ask for your donation to your alma mater and serving you a beer and fries at the local college bar in the evening. Those were tough jobs, however, my work these days is much harder. I don’t like to complain, but my work environment is often hostile, and I have been met with disrespect and have even been told, “I hate you.” My work is so intense that it can rip apart my soul at times—just like lightning through a cloud—and then just as quickly as the storm comes, it passes and I’m met with a rainbow of love and gratitude from the people I work for. Seriously, my work environment is bipolar at best and psychotic at its worst. I don’t want to sound self-important, but in my job it is absolutely critical that I handle matters both delicately and firmly. I try to explain to my “bosses” (I have two) over and over that while I want to do everything for them, I simply can’t do everything for them. They don’t understand that while I would gladly be their “bridge” over each and every one of their troubles, it requires much more courage not to do so.
I am not speaking about my job as publisher of Natural Awakenings magazine. No, my real job—the one that keeps me up at night—is the job of being a parent.
Have you seen the “World’s Toughest Job Interview” on YouTube? It's a brilliant ad for Hallmark and is a video of a man interviewing multiple people for an operations manager job. An ad agency posted a classified ad for the “job,” then conducted interviews via Skype and recorded the candidates’ reactions to some truly inane job requirements.
“If you had a life, we’d ask you to . . . sort of give that life up,” the interviewer tells applicants. “No vacations. In fact, on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s—all holidays—the workload is going to go up, and we demand that.”
The interviewer continues with a litany of requirements, including:
- You are required to work standing up most or all of the time.
- You work twenty-four hours a day, no breaks.
- It would be excellent if you held a degree in medicine, finance, and culinary arts.
- You may need to stay up with your client throughout the night, and then comes the kicker . . .
- Oh, and no pay!
Reaction from the interviewees is priceless: “Is that even legal?” said one millennial. “That sounds twisted,” said another, “inhumane.”
The end of the video reveals this is really the job description for a twenty-first century mother. The mother who sacrifices her own needs and desires (and in my own case, often my sanity), juggling the demands of family in the role of mother. The mother who feels it is a badge of honor to give of herself until she breaks. The mother who, thanks to Google, knows the answers to all problems including, but not limited to, getting rid of lice, eating disorders, bullying, and ear infections. We mothers know everything. We give these kids everything. They are our everything, and perhaps subconsciously we want to be their everything.
This job is made even harder for some if they have a proclivity toward being a control freak like me. Allowing our children to fall, fight, fail, and feel pain is so much harder than just fixing every problem for them. Teaching our children to “build their own bridge” often feels cruel. Fueled by our never-ending love for them, we want to save them from their first broken heart. We want protect them from the meanness of other children and at the same time to protect our children from their own capacity for meanness; knowing that both can lead to pain and, even worse, regret.
Personally, I am blinded by my desire for my children’s unending happiness. But that isn’t real, is it? Unending happiness? Of course not. They must know the feeling of that very first heartbreak so that they know they can overcome it. They must experience a sports or academic failure (without a nosy parent calling the coach or teacher) so that they feel the desire to do better the next time.
In spite of our need to protect them from unpleasantness, they must experience disappointment, face pain, and, ultimately, build bridges so that they truly experience the opposite—success and happiness. I believe that my children are aware that their parents root for their success and love them unconditionally. And while I watch them navigate through life, I am comforted that my children know that if they were to get to a place where all seems absolutely lost, that I would move heaven and earth to save them. I hope that with that knowledge in their hearts, perhaps I may never have to.
The month of May is special because it has a day within it that is exclusively for honoring mothers. Can women be successful mothers and at the same time have their own success? I believe the answer is not only yes we can but also yes we must! I witnessed it firsthand with my own mother. In the 1970s, she began as a stay-at-home mom and yet managed to assist with my father’s company, play tennis, have three date nights a week (yes, always with my father), and she even vacationed at least twice a year without her children o (gasp). I didn’t realize it then, but she was balancing her roles. My mother had her own personal successes. She had her own friends (not friends she made because of the kids) and, honestly, her own beautiful life. I was lucky enough to be part of her universe but luckier still because I was not the center of that universe! As a child, I never doubted she loved me and that she would go to the ends of the earth for me, but she was not easily manipulated, and didn't hover like the “helicopter parents” we see so much of today.
My mother stressed independence, stronger than any other parent I have come into contact with until this day. Don’t believe me? Here’s an example: I attended sleep-away camp three states away, at the age of just six years old. Yup, at this young and tender age, I boarded a Greyhound bus leaving from the Port Authority Station in Times Square (yes, 1970’s Times Square!) and rode it to Massachusetts with about ten other children ages nine to sixteen. We didn’t have any chaperones, though the camp did tell Greyhound that we were minors traveling alone. It wasn’t even a direct bus, we actually had to transfer to a second bus once in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, and that bus would take us into Boston, Massachusetts, where a camp van would pick us up and take us to what would be our home for the next few weeks.
Looking back on this as an adult, it is almost funny, a running family joke told every holiday. Whenever the topic of my time at camp comes up, the conversation goes something like this:
- Mom: “Oh Kelly, you are exaggerating. I don’t think you were six!”
- Kelly: “Oh yes, Mom, I was.”
- Mom: “Well you enjoyed camp didn’t you?”
She’s right, I loved it, but no matter how much fun I had, I am 100 percent sure I would not have the balls to send my own kindergartener on the same adventure (which may be unfortunate for her). If you think my mother was detached, you are wrong. She was “there” so consistently that when I exited my tumultuous teens and successful twenties and it was time to pick my maid of honor for my wedding, she was my first choice. My mom is amazing. The perfect role model, happily engaging in her life and letting me be a part of it. She is a rock who faced terrible pain in her life, including the loss of not one but two daughters. She was an angel in her unwillingness to burden her remaining children with that pain. I am blessed and thankful every day for the way she raised me! To this day, I wish I had the courage to raise my own children in much the same way. I don’t but I wish I did.
Mothers are not only the women who birth us. “Mothers” are often the women who come into our lives unexpectedly. They are our teachers, mentors, coaches, and even in-laws! (Yup, I said it, IN-LAWS!) Imagine my shock when I won the “mother lottery” a second time around after marrying my husband. Everyone loves my mother-in-law (me included!). If you are reading this book, there is a nine out of ten chance that she gave you your copy! She champions her children’s successes. She travels around the country to see her grandchildren’s lacrosse games. She is warm and nurturing, and when we first got married sometimes I even liked to say, “Let’s go sleep at your parents’ house tonight.” I knew we'd wake to a wonderful hot breakfast. Yet with all this natural “mothering ability” she, too, has always had her own life. She was vice president of a bank in the 1980s, a career woman before that was in vogue! She loved her children and she doted on them and punished them when necessary (my husband was one that often needed a lot of punishing!), but she had her own life.
This was a rather long prose telling you about two amazing women and mothers, Marilyn McGrath and Elizabeth Martinsen. Why? Because they are uniquely different in their approach to womanhood and to motherhood, but they both insisted on living a rewarding life that was not centered on their children. Do you resemble them as women and mothers? Or are you honestly a bit more like me? So in love with these little creations (sometimes I call them creations, sometimes monsters) that you have brought into the world that you don’t want them to cry for even one minute. Do you hover over your child’s cell phone just to see if everyone is being nice? Do you contact your daughter’s school to tell the principal that your son or daughter is getting too much homework, or not enough homework . . . that one is always my favorite . . . you know that mom (please tell me you are not that mom). Are your children older now and do you find your Saturday nights are spent similar to that of an Uber driver, waiting to see where your next text will take you? Have your children left the nest? If so, do you find yourself slightly lacking the purpose that you had when they were home?
You may be reading this thinking, You’re right, it’s not fair to me to have given up my dreams and pursuits simply to help my children live their life. I will go one step further and tell you that it also isn’t fair to your children. It is too much pressure for them to be responsible for your every smile. They are happier when they see us working, or volunteering, or doing anything that takes the focus off them. We need to model self-sufficient, self-loving behavior. Sometimes, all it takes to do this is a simple “yes.” When your spouse says, “Let’s go away, just the two of us,” answer, “Yes.” When your friend says, “Let’s go to dinner,” answer, “Yes.” When a co-worker says, “Let’s try a new sport, enter a running race, take a hula-hoop class, find a tribe (a group of women you connect with),” answer, “YES!” Yes to yourself, yes to discovering what you can do at any age, and yes to keeping your children in your universe without actually rotating around them!
Reflections
WHAT ACTIVITY CAN YOU ADD TO YOUR LIFE THAT IS JUST FOR YOU AND NOT FOCUSED ON SOMEONE ELSE?
Lord, please give me patience because if you give me strength I’ll need bail money, too. . .
Patience: The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
Oh my goodness, my friend makes me crazy. Seriously, she drives me nuts. She is happy one minute and miserable the next. When I call her, I don’t know which person is going to pick up the phone! (So I don’t, call her that is. Not often.)
Oh my goodness, I have to be at work by 9 a.m. but my kids are leisurely crunching their cereal—and with an open mouth! I may strangle them.
Oh my goodness, I have been dieting for three weeks straight, and I’ve only lost three pounds. WTF?
It is evident as we age, our ability to institute patience into our lives becomes less and less likely. Not sure why, maybe it is hormones or previous life experiences, but whatever the reason, lately everything (including my own personality!) is getting on my nerves.
How are you with patience? Does it come to you readily? Or are you like me, taking large exaggerated breaths, grinding your teeth, or, worse, are you slowly losing your shit as you scream, “HURRY UP WE GOTTA GET TO SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!” at a pitch so high it may break glass.
If you are patient, all the time, with the needy friend or co-worker, the aging parents, the kids, the husband, and the asshole who cut you off on the road today, well then skip this. Seriously, don’t let me bring you into an impatient zone.
Still with me? I thought so. So let’s get at it. Patience. I was thinking so much about the word I almost lost mine. What keeps coming back to me is “kindness.” I thought, Kelly, change this and make this letter focus on kindness, seriously, who are you kidding? How can you talk about patience? It hit me that patience is a form of kindness. Kindness, the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. If we are friendly, generous, and considerate, then how can we be impatient? We gain patience by having these three attributes.
Friendly. That’s the act of being a friend, even to the most annoying and needy of friends. Generous. Well, be generous with people, with your time, and with your energy, with your kind words, and with your smile. Considerate. The time that it takes to consider another person’s feelings or life situation is critical to being able to offer someone patience.
I have a friend who is elderly, close to ninety years old. He is a family friend and I see him at family celebrations. He had been sick and I hadn’t seen him in a while. At a family gathering recently, I saw him sitting alone on the couch watching a hockey game. “Hey, where’s Kevin?” he asked.
“He is skiing out west in Lake Tahoe with my son Dylan,” was my reply.
He proceeded to tell me a bit about his time in California, and how great it was—until his wife showed up. He chuckled, “That’s when all the fun stopped!” We laughed, then there was silence, and he looked up and said, “Hey, where’s Kevin?” My heart stopped. I had recently heard he had been suffering from early Alzheimer’s but had no idea how bad it had gotten. I didn’t know what to do, I mean I just told him “Lake Tahoe.” Would he remember once I said it again? Would he feel embarrassed? Honestly, would I hear the exact same story ending with, “that’s when the fun stopped”? I am being honest and I am not proud of this, but my first wish was that someone would come over and sit with us and I could get out of this uncomfortable situation. No one was in the vicinity, so instead of “Lake Tahoe” I said, “He is out West,” thinking maybe it would trigger a different memory.
He spoke about his time out West (again) and ended with laughter and, “That’s when the fun stopped!” We both looked at the game. I could have gotten up then, someone else was in the vicinity that I had wanted to speak to about something, but instead I sat with him in what for me was an uncomfortable silence. He turned toward me and asked, “Hey, where’s Kevin?” We spent about twenty minutes having the same conversation while my heart was slowly breaking for him, for his children, and for the realization that there is absolutely no reason that I should not be this patient with every single person I meet—including myself.
There are times, whether it’s when we are dealing with toddlers or dealing with the elderly, that require a lot of patience. That makes sense. Running late? A paper or project due for work? Someone cuts you off or you cheat on your diet for the billionth time? In those situations, an impatient reaction just doesn’t make sense, it’s too extreme, it’s wasted energy, it’s . . . silly.
Exhibiting patience is a kindness. Patience with our friends, our children, our spouse, strangers, and, yes, patience with our own imperfections.
This letter and the actions requested of you are incredibly difficult. Trust me, I have been trying to exhibit more patience this entire week and it was hard. It was only when I switched that word in my head from “patience” to “kindness” that my task became more doable. And honestly it is doable. Be just a little bit kinder than is your norm. It will bring you a bit of calm, too. You will discover, like I did, that when you offer someone else the kindness of patience, you suck the crazy right out of a situation. The difficult or chaotic feeling that could envelop you is replaced with a calm feeling and, dare I say, when you offer that kindness and the gift of patience you also feel proud of yourself. You trust that you are being exactly who you want to be. You are “publishing” the authentic self that you want the world to see. So let’s refrain from yelling when our kids are late, or a guy cuts us off on the road (I use this one a lot; perhaps the next book should be a self-help road-rage book H), or when work deadlines have us crawling out of our skin. And yes, answer repeat questions as often as you can because life is short and unpredictable, and you never know when you will hear for the last time, “Hey, where’s Kevin?” 
Don’t ever let anyone
dull your sparkle.
Shine: To give out a bright light.
Who Am I to Be Brilliant? “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
—Marianne Williamson
The other day I had my hair cut. You got it! My hair looked goooooood! I had taken a day off to run some errands, one of which was to finally dye my hair (a little vainglory never hurt anyone), and I also bought a new top. I felt great as I went to pick up my kids from school. I ran into my friend Christine who said, “You look so pretty!” Someone thought I looked great: mission accomplished. But then more moms came around, and while they were all beautifully kind in their compliments, there were some questions thrown in. “What’s the occasion?” “Are you going somewhere?” I wasn’t insulted, exactly, these women were being nice; so why didn’t I feel comfortable? I think it was because they didn’t feel comfortable. They joked about their sweats and their yoga pants. Then I reached for my old standard, self-effacing humor to put them at ease, “Oh you know me, ladies. While I rock my ‘homeless look’ most of the time, I have a work event tonight and that’s why I look like this.” Working from home every day as a writer/publisher, I usually wear stained sweatpants and my husband’s old flannel shirt, so my self-effacing “homeless look” comment was true, but my remark about having a “work thing” was absolutely not. My hair blown out and new outfit made them uncomfortable, which then made me uncomfortable, so I hid behind self-deprecating humor and a little white lie.
Why does it make others feel uncomfortable when someone changes up the silently agreed-upon rule of “you and I, we wear sweats”? Most of the time, I have to admit, this is an awesome rule. But when we break it, do we really need to hear, “Why are you so dressed up?” As women we need to stop asking each other that question. We don’t need a reason to shine. We don’t need an excuse to throw on a beautiful dress, great shoes, or even, in my case, sometimes just a dab of blush.
What I should have said was, “Yeah I had a great day, I got things done just for me and the hair is one of those things.” By saying that, I would have given unwritten approval for these other women to do the same!
How about sharing your talents? Some are easier to share than others. I have two friends who both have amazing voices. First, there’s my friend who I’ll call Beth. I know about her beautiful voice because I overheard her singing once in college, while she was cooking dinner. I asked her, “Do you sing anywhere else, a club, a church?”
She smiled and said, “Yeah, sometimes I sing in the shower.”
The other friend—I will call her Olivia—is a new friend. We are “Facebook friends,” which is fun! Once in a while she puts up a video of herself singing. She shines! Listening to her God-given talent makes me smile. I also admire her guts for putting it out there for people to judge.
Are you friend Beth or are you friend Olivia? I bet 90 percent of people reading this are Beth. You are someone who hides their light. Don’t wait for a major opportunity or worse, a crisis, to show you are brilliant, talented, and wise beyond what anyone sees. Live your life shining. Every day, be the same gorgeous “selfie” that you post (or the selfie that you take and don’t post).
The truth is that everything has a domino effect. If you shine, you give someone else permission to shine. It is compounding. When I see my friend singing on Facebook, it makes me happy and proud of her light. It makes me think, I can’t sing (I am able to, but trust me, you would not want to hear it!), but I can stand-up paddle surf in head-high waves; maybe I should share that. When I do, I believe I subconsciously give others that same permission that Olivia gave me—permission to shine!
We need to let go of crippling thoughts about what the “haters” may think, and focus on the fact that if we shine, if we share our brilliance, others will do the same. Could you imagine a world in which everyone—and I mean everyone—caught the contagious virus called “shining”? What a bright and beautiful world that would be. The guitar you want to play, the screenplay in your computer that you want to finish, the coaching you want to be involved in, the garden you want to start, the modeling you want to do, the art you want to bring to the world, the joke you want to tell, or the story you want to share—do it! Share it with the world! Shine. Shine. Shine. What are you waiting for? When you do allow yourself to shine, the universe will react in return with even more awesomeness from other women (and men). You can then bask in the glory of what you started. Because deep down you must know that “playing small does not serve the world.” The truth is that perhaps the woman next to you on the train, or the friend that you have coffee with, or sit with at PTA meetings, is simply waiting for you to show your light before she is able to show hers. Come on, help her out, dress up to leave the house, even if it is just to go get eggs, sing publically, share your hidden talents . . . SHINE, and watch the domino effect.
Reflections
WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT THAT YOU CAN SHARE WITH THE WORLD?