Job Description: Just Mom?

How many professional women have become full-time moms and thought, “So what exactly is my job now? How will I know I’m successful at this? Am I no longer (insert previous career title here)?” If this is you, honey, you’re not alone! In fact, for women who have had relatively long professional careers before having children (and I’m one of them), questions of self-identity, direction and self-worth are entirely normal. I hear them often.

There are several keys to working through this which I’m planning to put into a short e-book for those of you who are interested. But one of them seems to be following me particularly closely, begging to be made into a workshop or seminar, demanding more in-depth attention: parenting with intention.

As professionals in the corporate world, we usually have clearly defined objectives and goals, receive feedback, and had a clear idea of what exactly our job was. Plop us down at home all day, with an infant or toddler (with no instruction manual!), no overriding vision or filtered-down objectives to meet, and even if we’re loving every minute of our time with our kids, it can be a bit disquieting at times.

But the reality is, your family does have a vision, a mission, and values, just like a corporation. And these filter down into the lessons, values, and characteristics that you hope to instill in your children by spending important time with them during formative years. But most of us know this a bit intuitively and then forge on with life, love and parenting without giving it much conscious thought.

What if, as focused-career-women-turned-mothers, we looked closely at the vision for our family and the values we wished to instill? What if our daily job then became intent on looking for ways to teach and model those characteristics to our children in a way that would help our children to see us as conscious models for them to emulate and learn from? We know our children learn by example, so think for a moment:
What values do you want your children to embody as they grow?
What small things might they do that would make you feel successful as a parent?
What can you do on a daily basis that will model these traits to your children so they make them a part of their everyday make-up?

By thinking about these questions (and hopefully acting upon them), you may have just changed the world in your own small way. What better way to find direction, purpose and intention in our everyday lives?