what is a good mom that's most of the
question that I started asking myself
the day I found out that I was pregnant
I had just finished an MBA from a top 10
business school that year got married
the month after and started in a
leadership role in Silicon Valley so
getting pregnant was not quite the
conventional start to an accelerated
career path that I had worked so hard
for but I was that ambitious
overachiever I felt confident about
embarking on motherhood having been a
management consultant I'm used to
juggling multiple things at once and
under pressure
I was also mentally preparing myself for
the potential pangs that I might
encounter and birthing breastfeeding
right but I've done the marathons and
the ironmans I mean aside from this
weird need for self torture it also
means that I have a really high
tolerance for pain I also felt
resourceful this day and age we've got
tons of baby books on the market and
thank God for the internet right I can
always look up anything I didn't know so
let me just pause here and cringe for a
minute now standing in front of you as a
mom of three the creator of
award-winning emotional intelligence
games for families and a harvard-trained
researcher I cringe because of my naive
oversimplification of motherhood so you
know this I'm not going to turn out as I
thought so I do not realize that the
minute you become a parent as the minute
that you get strapped onto this
emotional roller coaster that you just
can't seem to get office my confidence
quickly dwindled into delts and
overwhelm gel so if I'll ever be able to
push out this nighthound baby when I'm
already on the 40th hour of my labor
after Tyler are not
a little bundle of joy was born I very
quickly learned something that no one no
one has told me about babies are like
magnifying glasses and when you
introduce a baby into a family a
marriage you're essentially shining down
this big ol magnifying glass amplifying
all of the personality differences and
flaws between you and your significant
other when Tyler was about a couple of
months old he was embarking in this
cooing face you know it's like when
babies start to make the vowel sounds
the oohs and the ahhs and I was
absolutely mesmerised I would just stare
into his crib and gently COO back and
forth at him and very quickly I realized
that my Turner over there
spoke no cool language exactly did no
clue whatsoever and so you so you have
to remember so my by trade I'm an
executive coach so I'm like okay this is
gonna take some time for behavior change
right so I'm gonna drop some hand
sprinkles and pans ask some rhetorical
questions and do some nice role modeling
couple of weeks pass by that cooing
milestone never came and feeling so
peeped and frustrated finally screamed I
him going what's wrong with you can't
you talk to the baby and it was at that
moment I had this al-abadi experience
where my old self was watching over this
new self that was becoming and I just
remember thinking holy I just
screamed at a grown-ass man for not
cooing at this baby that doesn't even
know how to talk I mean like what is
wrong with me is this normal and these
two questions will be they come the
questions that I will ask myself over
and over again especially during times
when I felt so inadequate and lost and
by the way what do I do when I'm lost
I consult the internet so I will look up
things like okay so what is a good mom
to tell me about it and I love all the
images and articles even books that I've
read if I could sum it up with one word
what do you think that is and it is this
word selfless a good mom is someone who
is selfless who places the needs of her
child and her significant other before
her own needs right and it's no wonder
that mother is spelled MA and what's the
other word other right and you know what
else it's really interesting it's not
quite explicitly stated but I certainly
got it as a take away a good mom a
selfless mom as someone who loves her
child who loves being a mom she is kind
patient and caring right except my
emotions are just a little bit more
complicated than that
in fact you know I kind of have a
confession to make
I sometimes don't really like my
children because they kind of make me
feel embarrassed
pede sad annoying and just downright to
feed it I mean maybe I'm just not a
natural mom material am i even a good
enough mom and so this will become my
source of insecurity and I would ask
that question and a measuring against
what is the selfless mom right and in
striving to be the selfless mom remember
the optimist in my head quickly faded my
optimism for that work life arrangement
disappeared and very quickly a
transition from a working mom to a
part-time mom to a work from home mom
into a stay-at-home mom and I want to
clarify something having done sort of
the tours of all sites of work life
arrangements right the grass my friends
is not greener
on the other side in fact it's exactly
the same shade and that we're all
strapped again on this emotional roller
coaster that seems to psycho and bods
through the tunnels of guilt shame self
bling and self blame and resentment and
you know when I was a working mom I
constantly battled with the mommy guilt
right the mommy guilt of am I putting my
career before my child but yet I felt
this huge sense of obligation that I
needed to show the world right to pave
the way for women that we can rock it at
work and we can rock it at home but the
honest reality is that with the
work/life arrangement set up it is right
now I see hands shake up head shaking
right I was downright exhausted and I
was constantly battling with this
imposter syndrome wondering am i doing a
good enough job at work am I the right
person for the work yet am I being a
good enough wife a good enough mom at
home and so then I transitioned to a
work from home mom guess what the
judgment follow I still remember to this
day the look on a relative space when
she had heard that both my partner and I
worked from home but yet our Tyler was
in a half-day preschool yes yes there
left so she was like really baffle she
had this look you know she's like wait
wait let me get this you both work
you're you're home during middle of the
day but your child is booted out of the
house and being outsourced and care
right so then of course I transition
into a stay-at-home mom and let me just
tell you this is one of the hardest jobs
I've ever had hands down right and yet I
felt so ashamed to ask for help because
after all it was my choice and it was a
financial luxury and slowly instead I
became resentful of the people who are
like me who have marginal I
the responsibilities of a stay-at-home
mom and with each of these transitions I
felt like I have lost pieces of myself
who am i anymore right but I told myself
to get rid of these unproductive
feelings to suck it up and to tough it
out and soon we're pregnant again and
you know how I mentioned that I was an
overachiever I was not lying well this
time my uterus apparently wanted to go
above and beyond and we're pregnant with
twins thank you yes so it's amazing
blessing but I had such a difficult twin
pregnancy one of our twin had a
defective umbilical cord and Borum via
emergency c-section at 35 weeks
our twin daughter weighed less than 3
pounds and our son cannot breathe on his
own so you can imagine raising preemies
going through rounds of doctors
appointments and collectively having
three under three all in diapers
wasn't saying yes but a third a third as
a turning point for me after yet another
belt of feeling so helpless I realized
something I realized that you know what
I am NOT normal that I just don't fit
into those normal selfless mom mode of
say to two kids and a dog right and
somehow this gave me the permission to
let go to let go of myself from my own
grip of needing to be that selfless mom
and slowly I began to learn to put on
the oxygen mask first without feeling
guilty and I began to witness how this
has benefited not only myself but also
my family and once the kids are healthy
and thriving I worked up the courage to
reinvent my career and so I decided I'm
gonna repurpose my expertise in people
development and the boardrooms to little
people development in the classrooms so
I got a job as a
director at a network of monetary
schools and that experience and turn
inspire me to go back to school myself
and learn the science behind child
development so I did my graduate work at
Harvard University and developmental
cognitive neuroscience and education and
you know it's really funny so
interestingly my years of working in the
schools doing research and interviewing
families ironically brought me back it's
almost like serendipitously brought me
back to my own struggles as a mom and
what I found in my research is that
there is this one differentiating factor
between the moms who were genuinely
happy and fulfilled and the moms who
were nervous stressed and lost one
differentiating factor and it is then on
how mom's to find selfish versus
selfless so the moms who are feeling
genuinely stressed and nervous define it
as a zero-sum game so what it means is
that they believe that a good mom is a
selfish mom Southwest mom who needs to
uphold the needs of their children and
others before their needs and not
anything other than that is considered
selfish and certainly today we have
heard it come up a couple of contacts in
a very negative way right selfish equals
bad and at my interviews I often hear
from these moms say something to the
effects of my child is my life think
about that my child is my life and while
this is something that we as a society
admire value and celebrate what I found
is that it quickly becomes a slippery
slope when these selfless mama bears
begin to increasingly judge their sense
of self-worth by the yardsticks of their
children's happiness and success and
research and psychological and
biological sciences have found that we
human beings feel much happier and
healthier when we have a strong sense of
control over our own us so let me ask
you what happened
then if day after day these selfless
mama bears begin continue to give away
their sense of self control their needs
and their purpose right so two things
tend to emerge two themes the first one
I found is that moms will begin to feel
increasingly trapped and helpless by
this need to please
yet they suffer and bitter silence and
you know what the irony is they feel
guilty for feeling this way in the first
place
now the second theme is what we see a
lot in today's modern-day parenting
parents myself included or outfall at
this week overcompensate by gaining more
control over our children's daily
activities their lives and honestly as
sure beats getting strapped onto that
emotional roller coaster right so we
become the drivers of that helicopter
that hovers over our children's daily
activities right or the lawnmowers that
proactively paved the obstacles
disappointments barriers and risks that
our children might be confronted with
and this is what I call the selfish
selfless syndrome and to be fair it's
not only moms it's really mom and dad's
parents in general right and so and my
parent workshops I often ask parents to
think of a simple household task or a
schoolwork that you're currently doing
for your child and I ask who are you
doing this for are you perhaps voting
your son's laundry tidying up your
daughter's room so you can feel better
by having a Marie Connaught house or you
know or are you doing that science fair
project so that you can look better at
school or are you doing this so that
your child can truly become independent
compassionate and confident adult one
day right now on the other hand the moms
and my interviews who appear genuinely
happy and fulfilled seem to have found a
way to fill up their own cups without
pouring out from
others they're not afraid of setting
boundaries and expectations for
themselves and for others and they're
keenly aware of their strengths and
weakness you know what instead of
dwelling on what they cannot do and
feeling ashamed about it these moms are
not afraid to be seeing as the imperfect
moms they're not afraid to ask for help
and something that I found quite
liberating to me is that these moms have
learned that just because you can't use
something for your child your loved ones
doesn't necessarily mean that you should
instead they have learned to back off
step aside to let go and to empower and
trust others with the responsibilities
even if it's not done perfectly or the
outcome the pace that is not how they
would have liked these are the moms that
have inspired me to rewrite the script
to motherhood
instead of asking am i a good enough mom
the more important question we should be
asking is what is my child need and what
do I need and interestingly in my
research I found that we actually need
the same things which are love
acceptance and respect for exactly who
we are at this moment right now today
instead of the people that we need to
become thank you
[Applause]