18. Why JUST is a 4-letter word moms just need to stop saying.
Feb 14, 2024
This episode is being published on Valentine's Day, so of course we'll talk about love, but not the romantic kind. We'll be talking about the importance of nurturing and caring for ourselves in the same beautiful way we do for others in our role as a mom - yep, self-love. And we'll start by eliminating the word "just" when we describe ourselves, as in "I'm just a mom." (You meant supermom, right?) Did you know that according to salary.com the market price value of all the jobs moms perform is $184,820/year?! It's time to stop saying "I'm just a mom" and appreciate ourselves for all the incredible things we do.
This episode is being published on Valentine's Day, so of course we'll talk about love, but not the romantic kind. We'll be talking about the importance of nurturing and caring for ourselves in the same beautiful way we do for others in our role as a mom - yep, self-love. And we'll start by eliminating the word "just" when we describe ourselves, as in "I'm just a mom." (You meant supermom, right?) Did you know that according to salary.com the market price value of all the jobs moms perform is $184,820/year?! It's time to stop saying "I'm just a mom" and appreciate ourselves for all the incredible things we do.
Hi and welcome to her next chapter's podcast. I'm your host, christina Cole. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place, friend, let's get started.
Speaker 1:
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. So if you're listening in real time, this episode is being published on February 14th. So happy Valentine's Day. And on this episode today, I'm going to take a little detour.
Speaker 1:
I don't want to talk about romantic love, but instead I want to turn the focus to self-love and self-confidence. You see, as moms, we are so good at building others up and making sure everyone else's physical, social and emotional needs are met. But if you're like me, we're not always so good at taking care of ourselves and I'm not talking about the self-care things, like you know, taking a bubble bath or getting a pedicure. Of course those things are great, don't get me wrong. But I'm talking about something a bit deeper. What if we, as moms, were to parent ourselves? Hang with me here. I don't mean the self-discipline or anything like that. I mean the nurturing kind of parenting. Who is checking in to make sure we're eating well and that we're getting enough sleep and that we're making sure exercise is a priority? Are we connecting with our friends? Do we have a strong social circle? But how many times have you found yourself worried about your kid's social connections? Does he have enough friends? Is her friend group leaving or out? Oh, let's orchestrate some play dates, you know, for a young kid. Or let's host a pizza party after the game. Or even for the college student, let's treat the dorm suitemates to pizzas so they can all get to know each other. So we're so good at doing that and looking out for others. But what about our own connections and friendships? Are we tending to our social needs? And how many of us worry about our child's sense of self-worth and confidence, and how many ways do we try to build them up? This is simply what we as mothers do.
Speaker 1:
We mother others, but often without looking at our own welfare, and we might find ourselves feeling diminished, especially in the context of our identity or our careers. I might just speaking for myself here, but from my friends, my mom group friends, I think it's kind of a common theme. So, for example, in social situations, so often we are asked about our career. When we meet someone, you know the question what do you do? It's kind of like on automatic, like the generic how are you? I'm fine conversation, but when you hear the question, when you're a state-owned mom, what do you do? The answer that we give often shows a lack of self-confidence in what we're doing, and by that I mean using the word just so you hear the question. For me, I think of examples when I've been maybe at a work event of my husband's and meeting people there, or maybe we have friends or family over that we haven't seen in a while. What do you do? Is the common question and the way that I've answered that question and then I've heard lots of others answer it too. See if you can relate to this. But what do you do? Has an answer of oh, I'm just a mom, or oh, I just stay home with the kids.
Speaker 1:
I know I've got myself saying this countless times and I notice, at the same time feeling a diminished view of my own self-worth. You know I'm talking to someone who's an accountant or a marketing specialist or whatever job title you want to throw out there, and I come in and say, well, I'm just a mom and it is one of the most important jobs. We all know that. And I hear that and, oh my gosh, you do the hardest job of all. It just feels kind of dismissive, or at least it feels that way. It may not be meant that way at all, it's just kind of how I took it in and this sense of shame almost that's really too strong of a word for me personally, but maybe you can relate to that too of you know, I have a college degree, I had a career. I was in 10 years of a career and I was working my way up the corporate ladder, I was leading the team and I threw that all away because I wanted to be a full-time mommy.
Speaker 1:
And you know, when you're in the social situations and you hear yourself saying I'm just a mom, it just feels like, well, I'm not as good as everyone else, you know, because I don't have a job title because I don't have a paycheck, and it just kind of is a sucky feeling. And actually and I know it's not just me, because I've seen this feeling on others I want to tell a story here and I forget if I've shared this before in the podcast so you might have heard it before, but I was at a neighbor's house for a dinner party and they'd invited some other neighbors who we didn't really know very well, just had seen them out and about every now and then. So they kind of brought us all together and naturally, as we go around the table introducing ourselves, what do you do? Who are you? And at the time I had restarted my career and I was back in human resources, so I talked about that.
Speaker 1:
And then my husband, you know, gave his name and that he works in IT, and then the gentleman that we're meeting for the first time, you know oh, I'm an accountant. And then his wife. I saw her physically, her shoulders shrunk down, she looked down with her head and she said, oh, I just stay home with the girls, and I could just see her whole body transform into the best thing I can describe. It is as a lack of self-worth and immediately I was like oh, that's great, your girls are so lucky to have you home with them. I was home with my kids for 13 years and I've just been back to work for a few years now and it was such a blessing to be able to do that. And then I just kind of like engage on conversation and I could see her go from the small, diminished, hunched over kind of body language to her getting taller in her chair and her shoulders, coming back and feeling validated and maybe in a way that only we can do for each other. Because I know when I've heard other people say, oh you do, you have the hardest job. Being a stay-at-home mom, that's the hardest job. It just feels like platitudes. Anyway, in this situation I was able to really connect with this other mom and hopefully help instill some of that self-worth and confidence that I want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:
And really that big thing that I want us to do as moms is to stop saying the word just Just kind of like negates everything that comes after it, just like the word but oh, this is really pretty, but well, you just negated everything that came before, right? So when you say I'm just a mom, I'm just a saddle mom or I just have one kid, because sometimes people are like, oh, you really have one, like we're not one, you have more. So the word just can be very diminishing and it's a word that we moms just need to stop saying. See, oh, I wanted to talk about I found a little bit of research. If you get to know me, I do like to do some research.
Speaker 1:
So the typical stay-at-home mom with all of the duties, all of the things that we do, we're hired out. It would be a value in the marketplace of, let's see, it's $184,820 a year if we had to pay somebody else to do all the things that a full-time at-home mom does. And I'm getting this number from the most recent annual mom salary survey from salarycom. Let me say that number again $184,820 a year to pay people to do all the things that a full-time stay-at-home mom does and some of the job titles that this is based off of a chief financial officer. I know I manage our finances here in the coal household. I do our family taxes, do the manage all the banking and all that, and not to say that my husband isn't aware and involved, but it's something that I own and do.
Speaker 1:
And then we have chief operating officer, logistics analyst, housekeeper, laundry manager, van driver, private tutor, facilities manager, a meeting and event planner, kitchen manager, anyway, the list goes on and on. Staff nurse, a server, an interior designer, a driver's ed instructor for the older kids, a college admissions counselor. There are so many jobs that we do that they put actual real-time market prices on these jobs that moms perform. And that's not to say that working moms don't perform these jobs too. It's just that they are already outsourcing a lot of these tasks to begin with. So anyway, moms who stay home, I want you to throw your shoulders back, look people in the eye and say, yeah, I am a full-time caregiver to my kids and I do all the things. And, like I said, just some of those jobs that I just listed off, even a couple others a physical therapy supervisor, a nutrition director, conflicts manager. And think about this how much training did you get to do this job? Oh boy, probably not very much. You learn on the job, right.
Speaker 1:
So the other aspect about how moms are getting it all done is that we are working. This is the same survey from salarycom shows that stay-at-home moms work 106 hours per week on average. This is from a survey of 9,000 women who are stay-at-home moms. So that means that they are working an average of 15 hours a day, seven days a week. So let that sink in about your confidence and was to your contribution. When you are a stay-at-home mom, 106 hours a week, it's almost like 24-7, but that's staying at 15 hours a day. And whether you've been a long time stay-at-home mom or been a working mom, you have surely done amazing things and your kids and your family are better for it.
Speaker 1:
Because I want to kind of step back to the confidence in who we are and our identity and what we're contributing, what our daily efforts mean to our family. What I guess I want to say is be proud of your contributions and treat yourself the way that you treat others An and just know that your relationship with yourself you're the only one you're gonna be with every minute of every day of the rest of your life right, and that relationship is so important and just like they always say with the airlines, right Like put your oxygen mask on first before helping others, self love and taking care of yourself and checking in to make sure that your own needs are being met and meeting those needs on your own, not waiting for someone else to meet them. That is the best way you can take care of others right Is being the best that you can be and it's not selfish it is actually selfless to make sure that your needs are taken care of. Working 15 hours a day, seven days a week, you're gonna burn out. So take the time to put yourself first, check in and, as a mother, and check in with yourself to make sure that you are doing okay and that you are feeling valued and appreciated, and that you go take the bubble bath, go take the walk, take a rest, take a nap. But just really check in and make sure that you're okay and love yourself so that way you can love others better.
Speaker 1:
And if you are getting ready to restart your career, remember all of those skills and accomplishments that you have done during your time as an unpaid, around the clock primary caregiver and household manager. Those are all marketable skills. Take some time and start documenting those. You have done so much. You have to give yourself credit and find your confidence and stop saying the word just. You are amazing. You are a mom. You are a full-time caregiver to your kids and your family. You are a state-owned mom, superwoman. No more. Just.
Speaker 1:
If you're ready for a coach to help you identify your strengths and translate them to marketable skills, reach out to me at Christina at hernextchapterscom, or schedule a free strategy call. I'll put a link in the show notes. Happy to be your partner in helping get started. All right, everyone, happy Valentine's Day. I hope you celebrate the day with loved ones and that you celebrate you and how worthy you are to live the life of your dreams. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and if it didn't well go easy on me, I'm still figuring this all out. And if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own and your next chapters are ready to begin.