First of all I want to say thanks for the fascinating comments regarding personality types and motherhood in my first post about BlogHer. If my book wasn’t going to print, like, this week, I’d have been much more on top of responding to comments and visiting the blogs of all the new people whose cards are still sitting in my purse. As it is, I hope to get to it soon.
At BlogHer I met a lot of new people who’d had never seen this blog. “My blog is called The Happiest Mom,” I’d say, and their eyes would shift, or narrow, or appear to glaze over, or widen, “…but it’s not all about me being happy,” I’d continue. “It’s about all of us trying to enjoy motherhood more, even though it’s really really hard sometimes.”
And they’d look relieved.
I just want to reiterate—for long-time readers and new people alike—that I so, so so don’t think I have it all together. I’m in the trenches with all of you, and while time and experience have taught me a lot about how to be a happier mom, I’m definitely only “the happiest mom” I can be, not the happiest mom in the whole world. Or even the whole town. Or perhaps even the whole house. Depending on the day.
This was my fourth BlogHer, but my first since I’ve gotten much of an audience here. And while I meet new people every year, this year many of those meetings had a different tone. Time and again women came up to me and said that my blog had touched them because they want to be happy moms. And as the night got longer and the wine flowed faster, many of you confessed just how hard it is, how trapped you sometimes feel, how tired you get, how you snap in frustration or yell in anger—at your kids, at your spouses, at unwitting strangers who wait too long to merge on the highway. The common factor is that you all want to be happier. You wonder why it seems to come so naturally to some moms while you feel like a wolf in a trap, ready to chew off your own leg just to escape sometimes. I’m far-enough removed from early motherhood that sometimes I forget just how intense those feelings once were for me, so I thank you all for the reminder.
I don’t think you can keep yourself from experiencing all that frustration completely. Sometimes, the only way past is through. You can’t know what you don’t know; you can’t just decide to think happy thoughts one day and then magically “get over it”. All that said, I am putting out a book next spring that I truly hope will be helpful and inspiring and make you feel a little happier just reading it. My hope is that I can help you work through the negative stuff a little faster, to give you hope for the future (it really does get easier!), to help you tap into your instincts and build your confidence, to remind you of the stuff that’s really important and the stuff that’s just not, and to help you recognize the happiness you’re experiencing every day.
A very smart friend also gave me the great idea of helping women across the country set up The Happiest Mom book clubs. I think that would be awesome and am thinking about how to make that as easy as possible for you (hey, when you’ve got a toddler climbing into the toilet every four minutes, who has time to come up with discussion points?) I’d love to hear if this sounds like something you might be interested in, and what you think would make it really successful and helpful for you and your fellow mom friends so I can start putting together materials. Please leave me a comment or send me an email and we can discuss.
Thanks to everyone and please keep sharing your stories, your struggles, and your successes.
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