Meet Sarah at Better Way Moms

The Mom-Stuff Blog Tour welcomes you to Better Way Moms. Sarah and Amy are here to provide a source of honesty and humor about the true trials and emotions of being a mom. Nothing here is shunned, nothing is taboo, and all of it is true.There has to be a Better Way, and they are here to find it. Today I am going to share with you why they started Better Way Moms in their own words.

First of all, why we’re here:

Our mission is to provide a fun and easy place for moms to remember that none of us is alone, all of us hit tough spots and really high points. We’re here to be as honest as we can, sometimes embarrassingly so, because we’ve found that the more honest we are, the more moms tell us, “Finally! Someone is telling the truth! Other people go through this too. I thought I was alone!”

Meet Amy

I have been married for three and a half years and have a young toddler who currently rules my world. Other major world-rulers currently include my day job, for which I spend ten hours per day in the office and 90 minutes commuting. My husband works full-time as well, though luckily he has a traditional nine-to-five and bears many of the child-care responsibilities during the week. I’m very competent at what I do and have been working in my industry for almost ten years. My problem: doing my day job with the same level of dedication and motivation is becoming harder and harder, and I lose ground on this everyday.

Then, one day into motherhood, it dawned on me that this was in fact a new dawn. My old life was over; this was my new life and showed no signs of slowing or getting easier. My life is no longer going to adjust to me — I’m going to have to adjust to it. This is the part that scared the living daylights out of me! I always thought women could do it all and have it all. Now, I have come to embrace the opinion that it’s a big lie. I cannot have it all and do it all and look incredible and together and feel well-rested and have a dream marriage, a fast-track career and a perfectly well-adjusted child. Having all that happen simultaneously, for me, is just not a possibility.

After careful thought and consideration (and many, many conversations with Sarah about how the heck I was supposed to be able to do all this), I realized that while I can’t have it all at once, I can have EXACTLY what I want. But it has to start with me, and what’s important to me at that particular time. It can’t be about pleasing everyone else. So that was the big idea, the concrete plan I was going to follow hence forth. Now that I had figured that out, how do I execute this plan? Where do I start? That’s precisely what I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about.

Then…a light-bulb moment: If I feel this way, others must feel this way too. I can’t be the only mom on earth wanting to find a better balance and not having the first clue where to start. How come no one told me about this? Why does no one talk about it? Wouldn’t it be great if there was an entire website devoted to helping moms figure out the kind of life and balance they want, and provide the research, tools and support to execute it?

And out of those questions, www.BetterWayMoms.com was born. Because I can’t do this alone. Because although I may have many good ideas, others will have even more. Because two heads are better than one, and three are better than two — you get the picture. And, because I just can’t believe I’m supposed to accept living in this zombie-like state trying to fit into the picturesque idea of the “do it all really well super-mom,” whatever that is. I just want to be me, do what’s important to me and really be there for the people I love. And I want it for all of us!

Meet Sarah

Amy and I were chatting one day while both of us were at work. It was the usual list of complaints, er, um…I mean observations: “I can’t believe how much time we used to have” and “My son cried today when I left to go to work, and all I want to do is be home with him.”

Suddenly Amy said (I’m not kidding), “There has to be a better way.” There is no other way to explain that moment, except to call it a “brick-to-the-head” moment. A full on, no question, cartoon light bulb above my head moment. If we were going through this, a whole bunch of other women were going through it too. In fact, I knew that to be the case. I’ve heard people call it “the dark side of the moon” or the “secret no one tells you.” Motherhood in this day and age is hard, and no one tells you that. Sure, they complain here and there, or they say you have to learn to “juggle.” Um, that’s about as descriptive as calling a tsunami “wet.” No one ever tells you how hard this is. It’s completely worth it, more than anything I’ve ever done in my life, but if anyone would have ever told me that I would want to give up my career to be with my kids, I would have told that person they were completely insane.

Yet, that’s exactly what happened. And having to face this has caused a slight identity crisis for me. Who am I if I’m not on track in my career? Who am I if I’m not out there being politically active and changing the world? And then came the, “Who cares? I just want to be home with Jack.” Now, this would have been great, except that my family relies upon my income. So it started to occur to me that I didn’t have a choice. That realization was incredibly painful.

When the smaller love of my life was born, I was an executive. I had it all mapped out. I had always wanted to be a mom more than anything. I could do both, that’s “what women do” today. In fact, before I met my husband I was so sure that I wanted to be a mother that I was actually looking at sperm banks to do this by myself when I met him. Thank heaven for blind dates, right?

So, as we launch this site, I am seven months pregnant with our second child, a girl. I know that creating my own hours, and being with my children when I want, while bringing in money, is something I’m willing to give almost anything for. I remind myself of this as I’m up at 1:00 in the morning writing articles or working with our developer (we love her). I also think of all the other moms our there who will have somewhere to go to laugh, to not feel alone or just to say “thank heaven someone finally said that!” I want this site to be a huge success for everyone who visits it. My goal is to make a mom laugh every day. I know that if I can do that, their lives are better, their friends’ lives are better, their children’s lives are better and that’s about all we can ask for. Making one person laugh, making one person’s day brighter, I can think of very few things that are better than that.

The Mom-Stuff Blog Tour is really excited to visit Better Way Moms this week. We believe all of our moms will enjoy this week with Sarah.

We have added a new page at Mom-Stuff titled Rockin Boddie Pins. It is easy instructions for girls hair accessories. You can get some fun hair styles for your girls hair, to use the Rockin Bobbie Pins in at The Wright Hair.