Calling Donna Reed!

I apologize to everyone in advance because I am not a techie.  But this clip from YouTube (which for the longest time I thought was  spelled “utube”) is so awesome I had to face my fear and give embedded URLing a try:   The World According to Bernadette

In this clip from “The Big Bang Theory” (which if you don’t watch you are totally missing out -  nerd humor rules!) Bernadette tells her fiancée that she has solved the problem of her not wanting kids.  He can be the stay at home dad and she’ll go out and live a rich and rewarding life among adults and he can be fulfilled by changing poopy diapers and picking Cheerios out of their child’s nose.  His lukewarm response says it all.

The only reason this clip is hilarious is because the whole episode gets you so focused on what issues Bernadette must have for not liking children.  Let’s face it, subconsciously we all think you must be really twisted if you are a chick and don’t want to have a couple of rugrats.  Even I was giggling at her meltdowns at the kid’s birthday party.  Whoo-hoo, isn’t it funny watching a grown professional woman crumble like a house of cards when confronted by a pack of smart-ass kids?

Isn’t it even mildly interesting that in our advanced day and age that the gender roles in this one particular area still seem so stuck in the 50′s.

I will give a shout out to my single full-time dads and stay at home dad (Matt and Ethan you guys rock).  But for the most part dads like these are unicorns.  Magical mythical creatures who you’ve heard stories about but never have actually seen with your own eyes.  I remember when I told one of my male colleagues that I wanted my husband to be a stay at home dad, he asked me if I wanted to marry him.  I told him I was pretty sure his wife wouldn’t be too thrilled. 

I’m just putting this out there – I really want to hear what you have to say and what you’ve experienced.  Because I’m willing to concede that I could be jaded from working in such a male dominated industry.  I think the percentage of female financial advisors is really embarrassing – like less than 10%.  

I don’t know about you, but I just get sick of defending my decision to have a career and a family.  There are too many people who act like I must be missing a critical mothering gene because I also happen to love what I do.  If I have one more 55-year-old guy give me the “sad eyes” when I tell him that I do indeed have children and work full-time I’m going to knock him into next week.

So here’s this week’s assignment:  Come up with some fun and outrageous ways to encourage people to embrace gender equality when it comes to being a stay at home parent.  I’d love to see a man or two quit his job to become a more fulfilled dad!  I want some big ideas people!  Surprise me, delight me, but above all inspire me!

Family, Inc.

As working moms we juggle a HUGE amount on a daily basis:  clients, meetings, making lunches, dropping off at school, picking up from basketball, doing the laundry, mopping the floors.  The list seems literally endless.  And somehow we all manage through.  But that is just it!  We shouldn’t just be “managing” through.  I’m incredibly guilty of this.  I’ll barely look up from the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’m making for the boys’ lunches to kiss my husband’s cheek when he walks through the door at night.  And he barely has time to take his jacket off before he is in the bathroom with the boys helping them get the soap out of their hair.  By the time we have the boys settled and in bed we have a brief window of “together” time which is spent whipping up something for us to eat before I’m off to bed.  It feels like this assembly line of “doing” from the moment we roll out of bed to the time we finally drag ourselves off to sleep at night. 

We’ve become the machine.  Welcome to Family Inc.

But I’ve heard from people who say this ends.  I know it seems unbelievable but I’ve been told by several reliable sources that there will come a time when the buys won’t want my help bathing and wouldn’t be caught dead with a homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich at school.  And then it will just be me and my husband every night with nothing to do but talk to each other. 

Scary, right?

It doesn’t have to be scary.  If we commit to carving out time our husbands and nurturing our relationships we don’t have to lose the connections we have with them – you know the reason we married them in the first place.  But we need to make a conscious effort and not let the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches get in the way.

So I challenge you to ask your husband out on a date this week.  He will probably think he missed your anniversary or birthday so don’t be put off by the initial look of panic that you are likely to see on his face.  The date doesn’t have to be fancy.  You can reconnect just as easily at Dairy Queen as you can at Flemming’s.  It’s simply a time where the two of you can spend time enjoying each other without interruptions.  Just do it and let me know how it goes!

Which is most likely to be broken: New Year’s Resolutions or Waterford Crystal in the hands of your three -year-old?

My favorite quote of the year so far was uttered by my friend January second. At a 7 a.m. meeting she plopped down on the seat next to me and declared: “It’s only been two days and I’ve already broken four of my New Year’s resolutions.” Actually it was a tie between that quote and one uttered by the body guards on the show “Pawn Stars” who said:  ”If you’re a pimp and you are in a pawn shop you need to get yourself some better bitches.” But that wasn’t really in keeping with the New Year’s theme I’m going for so I’ll stick to my original choice.

My point is that New Year’s is yet another chance for us to set a bunch of high standards which we know deep in our hearts we’re destined to never measure up to. So I have a few tricks I use to transform my resolutions into the kinder, gentler version of what they were intended to be.

I start with the word itself.   I mean the word “resolution” itself sounds slightly scary and anxiety provoking. So I skip using it altogether. I thought of going with “strong recommendations” or “deeply felt wishes” but my husband rolled his eyes and sighed deeply when I ran them by him. So instead I settled on “goals.”

Each year I spend the last week of December reflecting on what I want to accomplish in the new year. I write out a list of about a dozen goals.  Yes, you read it right – a dozen!  I find having a dozen is much less pressure than having just one resolution.  So when I break one or two – because I know I will – I can say things to myself like:  “Well, Nic, you’re still right on track with 80% of your goals.  good job!”  Instead of things like “You are such a loser!  You can’t even do one thing right this year!”  It’s all about perspective!

And speaking of perspective, I don’t view my goals as hard and fast, do or die, you’re either winning or losing propositions.  I feel I’ve succeeded with my New Year’s goals as long as I’ve moved the ball forward.  If I’ve improved by inches that is good enough for me.  So for instance, my number four goal for three years running is: maintain body weight of 129.  Now that hasn’t been a reality since I graduated high school.  I may have flirted with it when I’ve experienced a bad stomach bug but for the most part I’m a little north of that number.  But in my mind if I can stay within 5-10 pounds of that number I’m doing just fine.  And if I start the year off by getting a little closer to that magic 18-year-old body weight, that is a check in the win column as far as I’m concerned.

So cut yourself some slack this year and hop on my”slacker resolution”  bandwagon.  Perfection is just an illusion.  So stop beating yourself up for not being perfect.  Celebrate your forward progress instead and I guarantee you’ll be a happier person for your husband, your children, and most importantly for yourself.

Got any tricks of your own you’d care to share?  You know I’d love to hear them!

Happy New Year!

“Women Seeking Women”

 I had the most amazing experience two nights ago. My friend Kelli and I organized about 35 women for a night of activities designed to help us start off the New Year choosing happiness and kicking the general state of depression many of us have been experiencing for the last few years.

It started out as a typical girl talk between me and Kelli.  We have had our own struggles these past few years, but her being in real estate and me working in finance has given us a bird’s eye view of the misery faced by our clients, our neighbors, our friends, and our families.

And quite frankly, we decided we were totally sick of it.

So Kelli said that wouldn’t it be wonderful if we got together all of the fabulous women we know to do the one thing we do better than men – and let’s face it that most men are incapable of doing at all:  sharing feelings and talking.  And more than that we’d do silly things to encourage each other to leave the bad parts of 2011 in the past and focus on being positive and happy in 2012.

Three weeks later I’m at Kelli’s house with 35 women choosing guide words for 2012 (like strength, release, and harmony) , fortunes for 2012 (Kelli had saved all the good ones from fortune cookies over the years), and writing down our commitments to ourselves for the next year.  There was even a  pen and paper to write down what we wanted to leave in 2011 and a shredder next to it shred it – literally and symbolically!

The night featured the local head of Fresh Start talking about their mentoring program.  Fresh Start is an organization designed to help women who are struggling to get their lives back on track.  No better way to feel better about yourself than to give back to someone else who needs a helping hand!

And what would a girl’s night be without wine!  So of course, we ended the night with a wine tasting given by our local wine store owner, Laura of Vino 100.

It was a fun and festive night of empowerment that has made me look forward to rocking it in 2012!

I challenge each of you – men and women – to start your own positivity revolution.  Because let’s face it there’s not a politician out there who is going to lead us out of this crises of faith, we can’t count on the media to play to our better angels, and there is no magic that will pull us out of our national funk!

We have to recognize that WE are our own solution.

So start planning how you are going to choose happiness!  Become a self-rescuing princess.  And let me know how it goes!

If you’ve never been to a holiday leftover party you don’t know what you’re missing!  I always feel so guilty when I throw out all the leftover holiday food because I just can’t eat the same thing again.  So to keep my guilt at bay I started to throw a leftover party the day after Christmas starting about 4 years ago.  All I need to do is make sure I have enough paper plates and napkins and get the ovens are warming up about half an hour before folks show up.  It is amazing how tasty and wonderful everyone elses’ food seems!  This is the one holiday party every year that I spend strictly with people I want to see.  This is not just for those who celebrate Christmas.  In fact the favorite dish every year is brought by my friends who celebrate Hanukkah:  seared black pepper and sesame crusted ahi tuna with wasabi dipping sauce.  Mazel!

No love during the holidays

The holidays pretty much ensure that the little scraps of time we working moms carve out for romantic time with our husbands compeltely evaporates.  It’s difficult to get busy when every free minute is spent shopping or wrapping.  I’m not sure I’ve even bathed my children this week.  I’ve given them the sniff test and they’ve passed.  Which, really, in times like these (i.e. the holidays) is pretty much all that can be expected of us working moms.  In fact, I probably should have at least given my poor husband a quickie rather than updating this blog but the energy needed for such an endeavor escapes me.  No wonder suicides spike around the holidays.

About

I’m a self diagnosed workaholic who fiercely loves my two young sons, my husband of ten years, all my fabulous friends, and my two insane rescue dogs.  I struggle every single day to strike the right balance between all of them and it’s hard.  I mean really hard.  I’m hoping this blog will provide my sisters out there grinding it out every day with some commiseration to acompany their nightly glass of pinot noir!  Can I get an “Amen,” ladies!

Let’s Get a Few Things Straight

Every time I meet a career woman who is pregnant, I have this overwhelming desire to sit her down immediately and verbally vomit every single piece of advice that comes to mind.  So far I’ve been given just the abridged version of the advice I’d really like to give her, recommend a few books, make sure she has my email and phone number, and ask her to consider me a kind of 24-hour hotline. Amazingly the reaction from most women I accost is not to take out a restraining order but instead to say six words to me:  “Thank you, I feel so alone.”

Being a working mom is the most crazy, amazing, powerful, frustrating, loving experience you will ever have in your entire life.  And I am here to tell you that you can do this!  But you will never do it “perfectly.”  Throw “perfect” out of your vocabulary.  Just toss it out the window and keep on driving because, sister, it ain’t an option for you anymore.

We’ve been fed this huge pack of lies.  We’ve been told that we can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and feed our smiling happy family with it.  I am here to tell you that the quickest way to end up on a therapist’s couch or crying into your glass of pinot noir at your girlfriend’s house is to think that “perfect” and “working mother” belong in the same sentence.  They don’t.  No one has it all.  Save yourself the doctor’s bill and the AA meetings and just accept the fact that if you choose to work and be a mom, life will be far from perfect.