CONFESSIONS OF A SUPER MOM WANNABE
Encouraging women to pursue the best version of themselves
It’s time to let you in on a little confession…or three or four. I’m talking about how I feel about loud eaters, cheesy Hallmark movies, and drivers who don’t give you that little courtesy wave on the highway. And, I opened it up to YOUR confessions on social media, picked a few, and we’re talking about them here on the show.
Attention moms: especially new moms or expecting moms. We all know it’s important to find the resources we need to be able to take care of our baby in the womb, or learn what to expect while giving birth, or even what to do when the new squishy baby, right out of the oven, comes home. But what about the mama? What happens to us? I think a lot of us were surprised about all the changes, fears, doubts, even anxiety that come after baby.
Today I’m talking with Saralyn Ward. Saralyn is a mom of two little girls, with another baby on the way, and she’s an award-winning writer, TV host, and wellness advocate whose passion is to inspire and empower women to live their best life. She’s the founder of the Better After Baby mobile app and the force behind The Mama Sagas: a media company using stories to break down stigmas, building a village of compassionate and purpose-driven mothers.
In June of 2018, Saralyn published Amazon’s #1 New Kindle Release in Babies and Toddlers: The Guide to Survive Motherhood: Newborn Edition – the first truly interactive and comprehensive digital resource for new moms. She writes for several publications including TODAY Parents, Thrive Global, Huff Post, Colorado Parent magazine, Dance magazine, elephant journal, 5280 Magazine, and Women of Denver magazine, and offers weekly tips to survive parenthood on live morning television. In 2017, Saralyn’s writing was honored with a Gold Medal by the Parenting Media Association.
Saralyn is a breath of fresh air. She’s bringing about change, and most of all, encouragement and empowerment for new moms. Even if you’re not a brand new mom, her platform, The Mama Sagas, will have something for you. Today we talk about Saralyn’s passion for helping moms, her Better After Baby app, and a shocker for me….women who have given birth do NOT have to pee their pants every time they laugh. What?
I love Saralyn’s energy, enthusiasm, and drive to help moms and create community. So without further ado, here’s our conversation.
One of the reasons Sara got into blogging and developing her app is to help moms. She was shocked by how blindsided she was by motherhood.We have expectations of what we think it might be, and it’s usually nothing at all like we thought. And we can get stuck in the thought of, “holy crap, I don’t know what I’m doing, this is so much harder than I thought, and I don’t know where to go for answers.”
Coupled with a lack of institutional resources, it can feel like motherhood is the ultimate sacrifice for women, and like we’re all alone. Saralyn’s mission is to take that feeling, and turn it around to give women resources to help them thrive, redefine who they want to be, and create a life that’s designed on their terms.
When Saralyn was 12 or 13, she always loved hearing people’s stories. She wanted to absorb “story” as much as she could. She asked her parents for a Dictaphone, with the intention of listening to people’s stories and writing a book about it. The idea for her blog, The Mama Sagas came when she was a new mom. She had many challenges with breastfeeding, with her career, and the closest family was 2,000 miles away. One night, she had the idea to create a community she could tap into from her phone that would give her ideas from other moms and experts. When Saralyn was pregnant with her second child, she started The Mama Sagas, wherein she tells the stories of other women.
So many impactful stories have come from The Mama Sagas. Saralyn has had plenty of times where she’s reading through a story in the wee hours of the morning and finds herself sobbing. The stories she really identifies with are the one that show us our true courage, our true strength, and our true resilience. These are stories of infant loss, miscarriage, and there was one story about the mother of a teenage African American boy that really got to the heart to Saralyn of what story telling is all about. We all have more in common than what set us apart. We all want the best for our kids, and we all want them to thrive.
In 2018, Saralyn decided she was going to publish a resource guide for new mothers. She thought of it as a ‘trail guide.’ It’s so helpful to have a handbook of sorts, to get the answers you need. She created a quick and easy resource guide for moms that focuses on postpartum care: things that deal with your physical recovery, postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, and all things mom care. The book is called “The Guide to Survive Motherhood, Newborn Edition.” Saralyn had around twenty five contributors who were Board Certified OB-GYN’s, mental health professionals, doulas, celebrity nannies, lactation consultants, experts with a full range of experience. It’s the first book of its kind, published on Amazon, with links from the question right to the answer, so you don’t have to read the whole book to find what you’re looking for. It’s a lot like a textbook for new moms.
Tune in to hear a MIND BLOWING revelation I learned about moms and incontinence! (Come on…you know what I’m talking about: Who else pees a little when you do jumping jacks?)
Saralyn had a career in fitness for 14 years, and has combined her resources with those of many experts, into an app, just for new moms. My favorite message from the app is Saralyn’s message to women: “Stop trying to bounce back.” We think we can just snap out of it, get it together, and bounce back after we give birth, and we’re so hard on ourselves when it doesn’t work the way we think it should. Saralyn believes that we need to think about the whole person when it comes to postpartum health. The identity shift is just as important as what’s happening physically.
The Better After Baby App includes nap time workouts with 3 different levels: Level 1 for someone who just got cleared to exercise postpartum, Level 2 is for moms 3-6 months postpartum, and Level 3 is for moms who are 6 months postpartum, on. This is centered around a condition that many moms postpartum have, called Diastasis Recti, which is the abdominal separation that often occurs during pregnancy. If a mom pushes too hard through her workouts, it could make this worse.
There are also mental health resources in the app, webinars with experts in the medical field. Saralyn recently interviewed a sleep expert, as well. She also talked with a formula feeding expert, among others, as she feels it’s important to talk about all the different facets and methods of mothering.
The best perspective that helped Saralyn personally with her postpartum health is that you should think of it as a blank slate. So many things have shifted, and it’s better to think that you’re starting from ground zero, with a new body. You’re not the same as you were before, and it’s important to learn who you are now, verses comparing to who you used to be.
The workouts in the app are applicable for any mom in the journey, but as the app moves forward, Saralyn will be adding more content that touches on career considerations, lifestyle material, and toddler mom life. Her book will also be a series. The next book in the series will be the toddler edition.
Saralyn also encourages us to check out The Mama Sagas for every stage of motherhood, like how to work with a shy child, mom hacks, back to school transitions, and more. Head to the blog to really get the heartbeat of these resources.
Tune in to find out the most valuable resources within Saralyn’s blog, the app, and her advice for mamas. You don’t want to miss hearing her heart and encouragement for moms!
I would love to see you guys download the Better After Baby App, or visit The Mama Sagas, to support Saralyn and the community she’s serving. There’s really something there for everyone!Until next time, Wannabes, keep living that best life, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Connect with Saralyn
Website: https://themamasagas.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themamasagas and https://www.facebook.com/saralyn.ward
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_mama_sagas/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/themamasagas
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/themamasagas/
Download the Better After Baby app in the Apple Store and on Google Play
Okay, so let’s talk family finances. Does just the thought, stress you out? Maybe you’re listening and thinking that you don’t even know where to start when it comes to saving, spending, or investing. Maybe you feel so deep into financial trouble and so overwhelmed that it’s having an impact on your marriage or even in your relationships. Enter Meghan Rabuse.
Meghan’s mission is to explain finances in a way that everyone can understand and practice in your own home, no matter what your financial situation is. She wants to help moms especially feel confident, informed and educated to be better financial decision makers for their family.
Meghan spent nearly a decade as a Financial Analyst, before spending the last 7+ as a SAHM to three little ones. After graduating summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Finance and Business Economics, she worked as an Investment Banking Analyst for Morgan Stanley, an Equity Research Analyst for a hedge fund, and ran Investor Relations and Product Development for quant funds. She now shares simple money tips and financial education to help your family reach your financial goals and build a financial plan you can LIVE with!
I LOVED talking with Meghan. If you’ve heard my own financial story in Episode 22, you’ll know how passionate I am about how financial freedom can change your LIFE. Meghan isn’t coming at this as someone who has never faced financial struggles, either. She and her husband went into their marriage with $60k in student loan debts…each. They lost six figures on their first home. She has been in stressful financial situations.
Together, we talk about navigating through building a budget with your partner and getting on the same page, figuring out the “Why” behind your personal family’s financial goals, common facts and mistakes made specifically by women when it comes to finances, and how we can protect our kids financially.
This episode is PACKED with valuable information and free resources from Meghan. So, I won’t keep you any longer. Here’s my conversation with Meghan Rabuse, the Family Finance Mom:
Growing up, Meghan was always into numbers. She has a finance degree, she worked on Wall Street, and fell in love with the world of markets and finance. She worked as an investment banking analyst, working as an analyst for a hedge fund.
Meghan never imagined that she would be a stay at home mom. When she had her first child, she had a nanny all lined up, but the nanny quit just a week before Meghan was scheduled to return to work. As a result, Meghan became a stay-at-home mom. As she spent time with other mom friends, she realized that she could empower families with the education and knowledge to make better financial decisions for their family, and thus the Family Finance Mom was born.
Meghan loved the financial independence that came from working. The thought of having to be accountable to someone else on how she spent her money, terrified her. Letting go of that idea and working through it was what helped her to be comfortable with the idea of staying at home.
She also feared loss of identity. Meghan was always the smart kid in school. If she didn’t have that anymore, she wondered who she would be. She feared that her brain would turn to mush.
For Meghan, being the Family Finance Mom was the best of both worlds: to be able to stay at home and still challenge herself with something she’s passionate about.
Meghan started as a blogger so she could keep her family updated with what was going on with her and her kids. Then she began to build a community on Instagram, addressing the everyday financial issues that women encounter. She noticed that financial institutions tend to give a template about how everyone should run their finances.
Financial advice isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. Personal finance needs to be, PERSONAL. So Meghan helps families to understand the “why” behind financial strategies.
When it comes to finances, families are in different stages of life: maybe they’re saving to buy their first home or trying to get out of debt. Maybe they’re trying to save for college for their kids, or trying to retire. Those things all look different for every family. The reality is that the tools are all the same, but the numbers (income, etc.) look different. What needs to stay the same is being on a budget. Most families aren’t aware of where their money is actually going.
Budgeting is like dieting or counting calories. It’s important to keep count, track, and have control over where your money is going. Once you start your budget, be realistic about where it needs to be. Not every area (needs, wants, debt, bills) has the same impact or importance for every family.
A budget tells you where you want your money to go every month, but its value comes in when you compare it with where your money actually went at the end of every month. Compare that to your budget, assess where your missteps were, and decide how you can change your behavior to improve going forward. That’s the learning curve where you see yourself getting closer to your goals.
When Meghan was first getting her blog set up, she surveyed her audience. The number one thing people communicated as their biggest financial struggle, was their spouse. Click here to go to Meghan’s questionnaire that you and your partner should both fill out and compare answers. The way you get on the same page is not to say, “My way is right and your way is wrong,” but in understanding one another, knowing where you’re both coming from, and finding ways you can both compromise. We all come from different levels of understanding, different backgrounds and upbringing. We all come from a different perspective. If you don’t get all of that out on the table with your partner, and coming to a shared understanding with shared goals, you’re never going to move forward with your financial goals.
Meghan wants to be clear that this doesn’t mean you HAVE to have a joint bank account. She and her husband still operate with different checking accounts. It DOES mean that you don’t want financial infidelity in your marriage. If you have separate banks accounts, it shouldn’t be to hide purchases from your spouse. Come to an agreement on what your spend threshold is. Have a mutually agreeable perspective.
Every household needs a household CFO. It usually becomes the woman. Most of the household expenditures are performed by women. However, you shouldn’t be doing it all on your own without input from your partner. Make sure you’re on the same page.
What if a family is up to their eyeballs in debt, has two or three small children, and they don’t know where to start?
When people get overwhelmed financially, it’s usually because they don’t have a clear view into what the big picture actually looks like. Her advice? Get it ALL on paper. This can take the fear out of finances and put control back in your hands.
Tune in to hear Meghan’s strategy for budgeting, common mistakes, and when you might need to make some big changes (hint: have you thought about how often you’re getting a $7 cup of coffee every day?)
In general, women earn less than men. Meghan believes a lot of that is by choice in terms of the careers we choose to pursue. Sometimes we choose careers that pay less because of life situations, like wanting a better balance between work and family. Because of this, we save and invest less, so we have less of a retirement fund. It becomes even more of a problem because women are outliving men, and are much more likely to live in poverty in their retirement age.
The good news is that women today are more educated than ever. We should be looking at higher paying jobs and closing the wage gap.
When it comes to saving, women are more afraid of taking risks when it comes to saving and investing.
Tune in to find out one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself financially!
Meghan makes it very clear that saving money doesn’t have to be time intensive. Clipping coupons does not have to be part of your everyday saving if that’s not your thing.
No matter what your schedule is, Meghan says to set up a budget. The first budget will take a little time, but Meghan has a simple, 5 step process that you follow every month that will take you just thirty minutes each month.
Make sure that the income you work so hard for, earns its value. Spend a little time each month to figure out how to make your money work best for you!
Whether you’re a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, be aware of not only where your money is going, but also where your time is going. Do you ever turn around and think, “Where has all the time gone?” Budget your time, break it up into pieces, block schedule, and use your time wisely so that you can also use your money better.
Meghan suggests the Artful Agenda App. It’s a digital planner that helps you meal plan, schedule to do’s, and more!
I hear from a lot of stay-at-home moms about how guilt-ridden they are over making financial decisions for the family, even though they aren’t bringing in any income themselves. Meghan had this same fear, and encourages you to shift your perspective on this. She says that if you added up all of the things a stay-at-home mom does and paid someone else to do it, it would cost over six figures in income. Even though you aren’t being paid, you’re doing things you would have to pay someone else to do. You are valuable.
You also need to recognize that If you step up to be the CFO of your home, you can create value. You can make the hard-earned money go farther. You can put more in savings account, invest, and earn passive income without physically working outside of the home.
Protect: You need a plan for what happens to your children in the event that the worst happens to you or your spouse. Many parents don’t want to think about this, but you need an estate plan. These aren’t just for the wealthy. Check out this post Meghan wrote as she interviewed an estate planning attorney, outlining the difference between a will and an estate plan, and why all families need an estate plan.
Teach and Empower: Talking about money can be a taboo subject in so many families. We need to change that perspective with our kids. It’s okay to talk about money with them! Start teaching them addition and subtraction when it comes to money. Show them price tags. Allow them to earn an allowance so they can work for and save their money. Use language like, “This isn’t in the budget,” versus, “We can’t afford that.”
Look out for more from Meghan, like a busy mom’s budgeting guide, coming soon!
Connect with Meghan:
Blog: familyfinancemom.com
IG: instagram.com/familyfinancemom
FB: facebook.com/familyfinancemom
Twitter: twitter.com/financemom1
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/familyfinancemom/
Kelli Raleigh is a personal friend of mine whom I’ve deeply admired as long as I’ve known her. She’s inspirational, fun, and has a deep love for the village of people she surrounds herself with. Kelli also has a chronic illness, and has been a single mom for most of her eight year old daughter Ruby’s life.
We can all agree that mom-ing is hard for everyone, but I keep trying to imagine what the added layer of a potentially life threatening illness AND being a single mom must be like for a woman, and it makes me admire Kelli even more.She’s sharing stories about making the decision to be a single mom, parenting a gifted child, and facts about her illness, Type 1 Diabetes and what she’s doing to advocate and fight against it.
My friends, reviews help to keep this show going. So can you help a sister out and hop over to your podcast app and leave one?
Kelli is a mom, advocate for people living with Chronic Diseases,, type 1 diabetes community leader, and full-time Community Engagement Manager for the non-profit organization, JDRF. Kelli offers a unique perspective on mom life as single mom, and also as a mother who lives with a chronic illness raising a child. You can read more of her backstory HERE.
Kelli works diligently within the Type 1 diabetes community to increase awareness, advocacy and support for the millions of people diagnosed with the disease. Kelli’s daughter is exceptionally gifted and she provides an honest, sometimes hilarious narrative on what it’s like mothering a daughter who is 8 going on 28. She lives in Denver, CO with her Fiance, Bart and their 3 girls and enjoys everything Colorado has to offer from the 350 days a year of sunshine to the romance of the snowy mountains.
First and foremost, Kelli says she’s a mom to a beautiful, talented, intellectually gifted eight-year old, Ruby. She’s a professional fundraiser for JDRF, a nonprofit, and she’s been a single mom for most of Ruby’s life, until recently when she just got engaged! There are so many moving pieces to Kelli’s life.
Ruby was born in 2010, and even then Kelli knew that her husband at the time was not a good situation for Kelli or Ruby. Kelli stayed because she thought that’s what she was “supposed” to do. When Ruby turned 2, Kelli knew that she needed to choose to show her daughter what love looks like and what her mom could look like when she had the freedom to be herself and not a scared, timid person.
By the time Ruby was 3, Kelli chose the life of a single mom
For a long time, Kelli told herself she wouldn’t be able to do this alone, and that she wouldn’t be capable of raising a daughter on her own. She was afraid of what everyone might think. They didn’t know about the abuse or the alcohol addiction her husband had. She didn’t even want to “crack the egg open” and show people what was really going on. It was scary at first, because Kelli lives with an autoimmune disease, Type 1 Diabetes, and she wondered how she would be able to pay for her healthcare on her own, work full time, and raise a daughter.
The first few months of going at it alone, she had to find her voice and herself, and that involved repeating that anything would be a healthier choice than going back to her old life. She ended up back in Colorado, where she would have a steady job, support.
It was challenging having a gifted three year old whom you really had to talk through and explain things. The conversation always included reason and metaphors! Kelli had to explain what Type 1 Diabetes is to Ruby, and she taught her what to do if something went wrong. Kelli never wanted to be the person to speak negatively about Ruby’s dad, so they always talked about being strong, healthy girls out on their own.
When Ruby started school, she started to have questions and wondered why her dad wasn’t around. Kelli went with Ruby to every ‘dad’ event, all the while explaining that every family looks different. Even if a family looks like one thing on the outside, everyone has different stories happening on the inside. Just because they’re a mom and daughter doesn’t mean there is any less love.
Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is an auto-immune disease. Someone with T1D’s body attacks their insulin producing cells, so their body cannot turn food into energy. One can be diagnosed at any age; younger or older, and they must take insulin essentially to stay alive. There is no specific cause or prevention for T1D. It’s not a metabolic disease, and can often be confused with Type 2 Diabetes, although they are not related.
In a healthy body that makes insulin, no matter what food you eat there is always enough insulin to use that food as energy. Your body can always regulate it. In a person with T1D, they don’t have that ability. If they eat too much food or go too long without insulin, their blood sugars can raise and it’s literally like syrup pumping through their veins. It can be very toxic and become deadly very fast. If their blood sugars become too low, it’s like the car’s out of gas and there isn’t enough sugar or energy to pump through the body. This results in passing out, seizures or comas.
It’s imperative for Kelli that someone is alerted if something is wrong; especially living alone. Fortunately, she has systems with alarms that alert her when her sugars get too low or too high, but she also has to teach Ruby what to do if an alarm ever beeps.
Kelli works full time as an advocate and professional fundraiser for JDRF, an organization that funds research for a cure for T1D.
How do you do it??
Kelli says it looks like community. Everywhere she’s lived, she’s had people she can lean on. She finds a tribe of people who will help out with Ruby, pick her up from school, who will be patient with Kelli when she can’t always make the social gatherings. She says Ruby’s early years were kind of a blur, but she was able to survive! She attributes this to so much help from friends and family, near and far.
Kelli also includes Ruby in her work. Although T1D isn’t completely genetic, there is a genetic component to it, and Kelli has been very honest with Ruby that they’re both fighting for a world where Ruby doesn’t have to worry about having the same illness that her mom does.
Kelli is teaching Ruby to help serve people and to be involved in your community. In a lot of ways, the T1D community has raised Ruby. Kelli hopes that as she grows, she feels emboldened to pursue helping people and fighting for a cause she believes in.
It’s important to know that 1 in every 5 adults has some kind of chronic illness. Whatever that illness looks like, finding your tribe is vital. Find people that understand what it’s like to live day to day. In some ways, living with a chronic illness isn’t unlike raising several kids with a husband who travels a lot. Understand that it’s important to ask for help, and that we need to be gentle with ourselves.
We are all moms who are trying our darnedest!
It’s important to remember that the person you know with a chronic illness might be the only person at school, at work, in their community fighting this battle. It’s important to have community and not to deal with your illness by yourself!
If you’d like to know more about Type 1 Diabetes and how you can help and support people like Kelli, visit the show notes at supermompodcast.com for more information. I hope you learned something new today, and I can’t wait to see you soon!