I don’t want you to be a “Good Mom”.
???? Whoa, right? How does reading that make you feel? Offended? Relieved? Confused?
I don’t want you to be a “Good Mom” because I’m seeing a dilemma in the parenting model my visionary women clients subscribe to.
These women have meaningful, legacy-building businesses but are trapped by a parenting paradigm that keeps them feeling resentful, guilty, and exhausted.
This stops right now. With you, with me, with all of us.
THE AGE OF EXPANDER PARENTING™
Ladies, we’re in a consciousness revolution. The world is shifting. More women leaders and entrepreneurs are claiming space, building legacies, and becoming breadwinners.
We need a new parenting paradigm — particularly when it comes to “mom-ing.”
That’s why I created Expander Parenting™ and its underpinning truth: the highest way you can love and empower your children is to show them what is possible by becoming the fullest expression of yourself.
EXPANDER PARENTING™ CHANGES GENERATIONS
Where did this whole concept come from? It came out of a coaching moment inside my Mind Magic program with a legacy-building woman I’ll call Jane.
Jane is typical of the kind of client I work with: she’s highly conscious, recently passed a half a million dollars in revenue in her business, and is learning to generate holistic success.
And, something is still holding Jane back. It was during a fear of success discussion that she realized: mom guilt is keeping her from experiencing her next quantum leap.
Her mom guilt said: “what if you allow yourself to expand and grow to multi-millions in revenue, and you buy your gorgeous dream home, and it takes your kids out of their school district and away from their friends?”
This fear made Jane shrink and hedge. Can you relate?
But what if the measure of loving your kids and being a phenomenal mother is allowing yourself to access the heights of your limitless potential? To change generations by showing them what’s possible when you play big?
Expander Parenting is a generation-changing identity shift.
The tapestry of my identity includes: mother, sister, daughter, friend, empire-builder, CEO, world changer, divine soul, sensual lover, and on.
You can’t build your legacy without expanding your identity, because your identity dictates how you think and act.
TRUTH BOMB: BEING A “GOOD MOM” IS GOOD FOR NO ONE
A lot of women talk a good game about generational change. I see posts about smashing the patriarchy and creating a better world for our children and grandchildren. And I’m here for it! Unfortunately…
I see the talk, but I don’t see the walk.
What I see instead is you, a legacy-building mom, exhausted and resentful and depleted. The outdated “Good Mom” paradigm is sucking you dry. You beat yourself up because you’re doing everything you can to be a proud breadwinner, have a seat at the table, and lead a dynamite team and mission…
… While simultaneously acting out an unhealthy parenting paradigm that you must be a “Good Mom.” This is the problem:
We’ve been raised to believe that a “Good Mom” is everything to her kids. Their needs are first and foremost, so she sacrifices what she needs for them. She must consider her children before any and all of her own needs, and that’s how she shows that she loves them.
This is what was modeled to us. This is what our mothers, grandmothers, and culture taught us. And if you don’t change this model, your kids will follow it. Outdated, sacrificial parenting smashes no patriarchy and changes nothing for future generations.
Our deepest desire as mothers is that our children are safe, happy, and confident, contributing to the world, and wildly successful at whatever matters most to them.
Can we model that when we’re exhausted, resentful, depleted, and guilt ridden?
There’s NO WAY to build your empire, lead your team, take care of your energy, desire intimacy with your partner, and be enthusiastically present with your children, when you’re forcing yourself to be a “Good Mom”. When you “Good Mom”, you’re abdicating your sovereignty and what you know you need for some made-up “ideal” of motherhood that comes straight out of 1950s television.
What a gift you’ll give your children, your partner, and yourself if you embrace Expander Parenting™ instead.
4 PRINCIPLES OF EXPANDER PARENTING™
This universal truth bears repeating: children learn from who you are being, not what you are saying.
You want your children to thrive. You want them to take great care of their precious selves. You want them to succeed beyond their biggest dreams. You want them to scream with joy. You want them to love themselves without reservation.
They learn that from YOU. The influence you have on your children (and their children, and their children’s children) is most profound in how YOU show up.
That’s why it’s imperative that we flip the “Good Mom” parenting paradigm and its principles, and embody Expander Parenting™ instead:
1. PRIORITIZING YOURSELF OVER MARTYRDOM
“Good Mom” Parenting loooves a sacrifice.
How often have you thought — or said! — this: I skipped my workout class to cook you dinner/help you with the science project/drive you to your appointment and now you’re being difficult!?
There’s your child, ignoring you, throwing a tantrum, being a child. But because you chose to sacrifice your work out class, you resent them. You feel like a victim of their behavior. So you snap at them, and then you feel worse.
Martyrdom is a resentment breeding machine. Expander Parenting™ puts your wellness above any misplaced notions about sacrifice.
(Within reason, of course. If your child is bleeding you don’t say, “sorry, I’m taking a bath.” But an Expander Parent™ knows that she and her family thrive when she is a priority.)
Sacrificing what you need so your child gets your resentful, impatient “help” doesn’t support your child. And when your child witnesses you sacrificing yourself over and over, what does that model for them? Yup. Exactly.
No one wins when you ignore your needs for some made-up idea of what your child needs from you.
Everyone wins when you prioritize what you need to feel your most calm, healthy, and abundant.
2. ASKING FOR HELP OVER “DOING IT ALL”
A “Good Mom” is supposed to do it all. Look at me, I’ve got this, no worries! Cupcakes for her son’s classroom? Got it! Coaching her daughter’s soccer team? You bet! Slaying at work? Naturally!
Yet on the inside, this woman is barely holding it together. She’s overwhelmed, harried, wound tight. It’s infinitely harder to achieve success when you’re constricted like that.
An Expander Parent™ loves asking for and receiving help. It might be a cleaning service. It might be takeout. It might be a carpool. Maybe it’s simply a confident “no, I’m not going to volunteer for that field trip.”
When you embrace Expander Parenting™, you recognize you don’t have to be all the things to all people. You know what you’re available for — and what you need to say no to.
That’s how you model and normalize generational change: you walk the talk by asking for and receiving help.
3. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
“Good Mom” Parenting believes that if we’re not doing everything for and with our kids, we’re neglecting them:
- Girls trip? What about the kids?
- Retreat? What about the kids?
- Business opportunity that will take you away for a week. What about the kids?
Expander Parenting™ places quality over quantity. And I mean that: no tech, no multitasking – full, unadulterated presence for dedicated periods of time. That’s how you connect and let yourself and your kids be satiated.
I have three daughters, and we’ve been practicing quality over quantity for a while. We create pockets of uninterrupted time together, and it’s awesome. We put our phones away so we can be fully connected, talking and engaging.
Contrast that with making yourself be “present” with your kids when your attention is on work, your phone, making dinner, making a mental to-do list. Consider how often you make yourself “be there” with your children, without actually being there.
4. TRUST OVER GUILT
The “Good Mom” paradigm tells you that if you don’t have mom guilt, there must be something wrong with you.
If you put your needs first, you’re selfish. And you must not really love your kids. If you’re not making all decisions through the lens of your children? Then go ahead and rub yourself down in some good ole’ mom guilt!
This is so outdated and I can’t stand it. It’s GOT to go.
When you embrace and embody HER, mom guilt falls away. It doesn’t make sense. When you’re operating from your highest self, there’s no other possibility than that your kids will thrive. That’s trust.
You showing up in your limitlessness is a gift to your children. Your absolute confidence and trust will instill the same confidence and trust in them — thereby showing them how to embrace their limitlessness.
A HIGHLY CONSCIOUS, EMPOWERED MOM
You don’t have to be a “Good Mom” to be an empowered, loving, expansive mother.
Your children do not need you to be their only source of learning, nourishment, support, or companionship.
Your children need you to model and embody what it looks like to be a highly conscious, empowered mother who prioritizes herself, shows up in her fullest expression, and accesses her limitless potential. That is how we love our children.
This became so personally clear to me this year when I read my daughter’s college essay. She wrote, “I watched my single, unemployed mother ascend to a best-selling author, TED speaker, and CEO of her seven-figure empire. Watching her journey in entrepreneurship inspired me daily. Because of how she shows up and what she has modeled, I know and believe that I am strong, independent, magnetic, limitless.”
If I can be that kind of parent, so can you.
I give you permission to do all you are capable of in this world and lifetime. I give you permission to break the ties that bind you to the “Good Mom” paradigm.
I give you permission to nourish and cultivate your spaciousness and your soul’s fiery dreams and to fuel your children’s dreams and capability through example.
Ladies, you can’t build a 21st century empire with 20th century mom-ing. Welcome to Expander Parenting™.