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Elizabeth Lyons discusses why women forget about their own goals when they become parents and provides tips for mothers to help them regain a sense of self outside of being a mom.
Elizabeth Lyons:
Hi, I am Elizabeth Lyons. I am the author of “You Cannot Be Serious: and 32 Other Rules that Sustain a (Mostly) Balanced Mom.”
I am a mom of five and an author and an inspirational entrepreneur. And I seek to help women remember that when they become a mom it doesn’t delude who they are as women.
It’s the one thing that nobody is ever prepared for, so you read about it and you think you know how you are going to handle it, but then they hand you this baby in the hospital and it’s like, good luck to you, and off you go.
And when in those 24 hours that you are feeding and changing diapers and trying to adjust to this new life do you have time to sit down and think about who you are and where you are going as a woman.
If you are a new mom who is struggling to remember your old self when you are in this new role, I have some tips and tricks that will help you to regain your sense of self and continue to move on in a way that makes sense for who you are, even outside of being a mom.
One thing that I tell moms to do a lot is sit down every few months and write down a list of 25 things about yourself that even those closest to you may not know.
So, these are things that may relate to you being a mom but pay attention to how many of them actually do relate to your being a mom.
If on that list you have a lot of items like, I am a mom of triplets, or I am president of the PTA, those are necessarily bad things.
But you want to make a notation by them because it will give you a clue as to how much of your identity is wrapped up in being a mom.
Another one of my tips for moms is go with your gut. Every mom remembers the first time that she went into Babies “R” Us and hit that first bottle aisle and it was like, do there need to be 45 different bottles here?
And a joke I kind of make often and I am making it about myself because I have done it is, if you spend more than 30 seconds trying to decide what kind of shampoo to buy, it’s a cry for help.
So women know intuitively what the right choice is for them and for their family, but we get so caught up in all of the experts and all of the resources and all of our neighbors and what the Joneses are doing, that we forget to go inside of ourselves and ask ourselves, what is the right choice for me? What is the right choice for my family?
And that often, just asking that one simple question will free women up in a hurry to make the right decision for them right there and then.
My third tip, and it’s one of my go-to rules, is break downs are normal and necessary.
And I think women typically feel so uncomfortable when they have to have a breakdown. Like they feel like that means that they are losing it or they feel guilty that they are having a breakdown because they just want some alone time.
And if you are not having breakdowns, I mean not every day, but if you are not having breakdowns occasionally, I am concerned about you because we all hit the breaking point and every once in a while, everyone just has to stop and have a little meltdown and then carry on with her life.
About Elizabeth Lyons:
Elizabeth Lyons is many things: mom, wife, friend, lunch maker, chauffeur, hostage negotiator, author, on-call plumber, tile layer, guitar student, window washer, product designer, and on and on. One thing she is not is Superwoman.
Elizabeth lives in Arizona with her husband, five kids, two dogs, two fish, four barely surviving organic gardens, and whatever (or whomever) else has taken up residence with them in the last five minutes. She is the author of “You Cannot Be Serious - and 32 Other Rules that Sustain a (Mostly) Balanced Mom.”
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