I sat on the concept of “Momifesto” for years. YEARS.
My inner dialogue sounded a lot like it did when I sat on the concept of The Mom Whisperer for YEARS: “What is it? What good will it do in the world? What if it’s not enough/ too much? Who will buy this book? What do I have to say that’s not being said?”
But this time, because I was coaching moms, I had a different vantage point to view motherhood outside of my own experiences. Beyond coaching, I was blogging, reading other mom blogs, and social media sites. One thing was true: there was a disconnect happening online and what was happening in our homes.
There are really fun/ helpful/ honest mom blogs. Sometimes they inspire, let us know we’re not alone, and help us laugh through the season with our kids.
There are really great tips for tonight’s meal in 5 minutes or less, and how to declutter, and find time to have sex.
But then there’s real life- what I, friends and clients live. The ones that don’t fit neatly into a 5 Step Plan For Anything. The messy, yelling before dinner, can’t get my kids to clean their room, when are they going to college, they’re growing too fast, I need bed by 9pm life. There were points in my own life where I was going down harder than anyone else and I refused to believe the fate of moms was to hang on my finger bitten nails until 11pm every night.
Because of therapy, and dozens of self-help books, and hundreds of hours of praying and watching Oprah, I found concepts that gave me the ability to make my life my own beautiful, and not look like others. My mothering began to look like me.
In time, before coaching clients started to find me, I started blogging. I wanted to cry over the keyboard BECAUSE NO decluttering article or recipe really changed the life of moms (okay, maybe a great 5 minute lasagne could do that). It was like no one had any solid options or even possible answers.
And I blogged on life and a few thoughts on being a mom.
While everyone was reading parenting books, (that they were tossing), I kept researching to find studies that would back up the concepts I found to work for me- online, in a local university database finding the latest studies on self-efficacy, reading books on everything from goals, to happiness to brain research and meditation. And amazingly enough, there were strategies, concepts, broad roads of permission that worked for me – and then my clients (and my friends when they asked).
I realized that the bits of “things that worked” were like offerings on a plate. Nobody needed ALL of them, but we needed to know they existed and could use them the minute they were needed. No one wanted anything crammed in our faces to make us “good moms”. We ALL wanted tools to keep in our back pockets that could be used and pulled out in the moment we needed it, without the finger pointing “do this”. The concepts starting making sense to each mom I offered them to, empowering her own life with her own perspective.
The offerings became categories that became a “Momifesto” – helpful mottos that could be used when we feel we’re going crazy. They would point us in our most phenomenal direction. And no one would define that direction but us. And it could change daily. 😉
I stopped coaching and went into writing full time for a few months -finding what I most tell clients, using their stories anonymously, and adding in research that helps us trust directions we may feel led to change.
My deepest intention for this book is that it gives hope, motivation, and direction for any mom and for any change she is trying to make. Truthfully, I hope moms put it in the bathroom and find the chapter that fits on any given day. I hope the last chapter is dog eared and highlighted because when we believe we matter, we change the world.
And I want a million moms to change their worlds – one moment at a time.
Vikki
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