Rachel’s story 💌

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate Women’s Day than featuring moms who are juggling multiple roles and balancing multiple priorities, every day. Our founder, Aash had a candid, heart-to-heart chat with Rachel, one of the top supporters of MAMMA-MIYA.

 

Rachel is a full-time working mom of 2 girls.

They talked about the ups, downs and everything else that is the experience of motherhood.

Aash: Hi Rachel, thank you for agreeing to speak with us! You’re one of our top contributors and we’d love to know more about you as a person and your journey through motherhood so far.

Rachel: Hi there, it’s so great to talk to you too!
I’m a married mom from Florida with two awesome girls, working full-time in a leadership position, managing Learning and Development for a large non-profit. I also serve on my daughter’s school’s Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO).

Probably like most, my journey to motherhood was full of ups and downs. When I graduated in 2008, the US was in recession. I applied for 132 jobs, got 2 interviews and 1 offer, which turned out to be with the Federal Government.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it can be really unclear at that time!

In my very first job after college, I met people from every walk of life – young to old, poor to rich. They were there for good things like retirement claims, or tragic circumstances like disabilities or losing a spouse. It wasn’t my dream job and it was challenging in many ways, but it shaped my outlook on the world and made me value the little things.

Our two girls are aged 7 and 3. My husband and I met in high school, we’ve been together for 20 years.

People tell me, you’re so lucky to have known each other forever! Yes, but we’ve also had to learn to modify and grow together, to connect and communicate through major life transitions, from teenagers to where we are today.

 

Aash: I feel like as moms we all inherently know how fulfilling motherhood is but we don’t talk as much about the real, vulnerable challenges that come with it. How has your experience with motherhood been?

Rachel: After we got married we wanted to start a family. Being a mom was really important to me, but it didn’t happen. We kept trying, but it didn’t happen. It was a very difficult time.

About a year later I got diagnosed with PCOS.

I’m an outgoing person. I’m the person people come to talk to, but after the diagnosis, I retreated into myself completely. I felt like the one thing that women could do, I wasn’t able to do.

I felt broken, I didn’t know what my direction was.

At the same time, I was exceeding expectations at work. I was a manager, on a path to senior leadership and working 15-16 hour days. Then the doctor advised me to quit my job, that I needed to reduce the stress in my life. I took a $40,000 pay cut (which hurt!), taking a job completely focused on employee learning and development.

Becoming a mother meant shifting my professional aspirations.

Being vulnerable was another thing I didn’t even think about at that time.

A year before I got pregnant, people would ask me: you’re married, why don’t you have children?

I shared my story. And then others started to share. They said, I have had 3 miscarriages, I did IVF, and I have PCOS too. Listening to others’ stories made me feel less alone. I realized it was not just me, alone on an island. There’s nothing wrong with me.

It took 2 more years and some medication for me to get pregnant with my daughter. She was healthy all through, but it was such an emotional time for me. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire time.

 

Aash: Thank you for sharing so honestly. We rarely talk about the really challenging parts of motherhood. I had prenatal depression and I didn’t even know such a thing existed till it happened to me. I’ve heard so many new moms say, “I wish I knew that part.” It’s so important we share our experiences. You never know who else might be having a difficult time and needs to hear it.

Rachel: I agree with you 100%.

The first year after my daughter was born was difficult in many ways. Becoming parents changed the dynamic of my relationship with my husband.

I joke to him that instead of childbirth classes, first-time parents-to-be should get marriage counseling!

My father passed away the same year.

I had hit rock bottom. That’s when I started therapy. Most companies in the US offer EAP, an Employee Assistance Program. You can speak to a counselor on the phone. One night, I just called the number.

It’s so much easier to deal with the challenges that are put upon us if we don’t have to deal with them by ourselves.

Thanks to therapy, I’m going to be able to teach my daughter things today that took me till my 30s to overcome. I didn’t have the tools for them back then.

Then I had my second kid, and just like math, 2 kids are double the work!

A great piece of advice I got was: don’t give those closest to you the last 1% of yourself.

When you come home to family at the end of a long day you’re exhausted and drained so you end up giving them the worst version of yourself.

I’m still working on this part of myself. I try to manage my energy levels during the day so that when I go home to my husband and daughters I still have something of myself, some energy, empathy and emotion left to give to the people who matter most to me.

 

Aash: That’s so true. I feel like more than time management, moms need help with energy management, that’s something we’re all trying to figure out.
What are some of the things that have helped you manage your priorities?

Rachel: I’m a recovering perfectionist. I’m also the helper, the one who helps everyone.

In the beginning, I told myself, I have a kid, but I’m just going to try harder. I’m going to do better.

I’m a professional in the Learning & Development space, but my kids are key to my learning and development because they knock my perfectionism right off the shelf!

I’ve always been organized, so when someone asks me to do something, I’m like, I’ll put that in, I’ll make it work.

I used to do everything possible to avoid conflict. I wasn’t a fan of delivering hard messages. I’ll usually just do it myself, because it’s easier that way.

Therapy helped me learn to set boundaries. My family has always been my priority and that made setting boundaries easier for me because I knew that it wasn’t just about me, it would impact my daughters too. When you set boundaries with others, they might get angry. But it can mean that you’re doing it right. When people ask me, why won’t you do this for me? You have time. I no longer feel that I have to justify myself.

The second thing I did was meditation. I try to meditate once a day for 10 minutes.

Even stepping away from the situation for a while helps. Like if I’m in a meeting or a challenge that’s taking a lot of my energy, I’ll just step away and make myself a cup of coffee. And I focus on making that coffee. My brain just veers off in every direction, so spending these few minutes focusing mindfully on something is good.

On the first day I installed MAMMA-MIYA I was so excited! I love to find new organizational tools and new ways to make my life easier. But on Day 2, I was on the verge of panic because I realized how much I was doing in a day. My entire schedule was in one place, just staring at me.

In that same week, someone asked me to do something for them, and I should have said no, but I didn’t. So I decided to make a Hat for it.

I made a Personal Assistant Hat. For me, that’s like an audit of what I shouldn’t have taken on. My goal is to have 0 things in that Hat.

No matter how much you try and organize and are on top of things, you will still drop a ball.

Last week, I totally forgot that it was parent participation day for Drama at my daughter’s school. I found out when I picked her up. But then another mom in the school community jumped in and helped. You have to cultivate that community and then depend on it.

Everyone wants to be on time, no one wants to be stressed out. No one wakes up in the morning and says I’m going to drop the ball today.

But you can’t function at 100% capacity all the time either. You’re not going to be perfect, and that’s okay. And you’re showing that to your kids, and hopefully, they’ll grow up and not put that pressure on themselves to be perfect.

It’s a much cooler world when we can all be ourselves and be open and help each other.

Aash: What features do you enjoy or use the most in MAMMA-MIYA?

Rachel: I love that I can integrate my calendars and my routines, all of it in one place. Because that’s how our real life is, right? Work, family, kids, they all flow into each other.

Through this app, I have also found an order of things, a routine that works really well for me.

I even included commute time into my schedule, because after I added all my schedules – work, home, kids – into it I realized, I scheduled too many things!

My friend asked me the other day, you pay for an organizational app? I said, yes, I pay for it because I have to look at 18 different things, and it’s all in one place. It’s not just about the schedule or lists. It’s also the self-care. It’s the little touches, the prompts that ask if you want to add a follow-up thing when you finish a task, or if you want to take a breath.

The invisible load is real.

There’s so much on a mom’s plate, whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, full-time working mom, or part-time working mom.

Yesterday a sign at my younger daughter’s daycare said that there would be an Easter egg hunt on March 29 and that parents were invited.

That means I need to prepare for it. Buy the eggs, stuff them, and send them. Plan to be there for the event by moving meetings around, and taking time off work. Finally, I need to remember to turn up for the event!

Every day, while driving to work, I add all that I have to do to the Brain Dump through Siri. Once I get to work I sit down with the list. When do I buy the eggs, when can I stuff them, and so on?

The coolest thing about us moms is that we’re like the puppet masters of all the little things. We can handle so many things at the same time.

I really love the Brain Dump. I use it for all sorts of things. I have standard packing lists for weekend trips and car trips. I also use it for my grocery list. So when we need it I add it to My Day, and if my husband’s doing the pickup I shoot the list to him, and then add it back to my Brain Dump for the next time we’ll need it.

I think moms can delegate a lot more to technology than we’re doing right now.

To me, that’s what makes you different from other organizers is that other planners tell me, we want to make you and your life as close to perfect as possible. But MAMMA-MIYA is about wanting to get control over your life instead of your life controlling you.

The thing that makes you stand out is that you do care, and people feel that. There’s something about what you do that makes people want to reach out.

Aashika: Thank you for your precious time and mind space today, it was amazing to talk about and share our experiences. We have so much in common despite being continents apart – just because we’re mothers! Any parting message?

Rachel: Thank you for this, it’s a cool opportunity to share my journey through motherhood!

I want to tell other moms that they’re not alone and it’s normal. All those photos on Facebook are a result of 200 burst photos and 15 minutes to get, and the kids’ clothes probably had stains on them. It is so hard to be a mom and you’re doing a good job and it’s okay.

Having a tool like this makes it a little bit easier, and helps you keep your priorities where they belong.

Our reality is that we can no longer separate our work from our lives. It’s about how we can integrate the two. I think our generation is going to pave the way towards better work-life integration.

 

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The chat has been edited for clarity.