Striking the Balance: Giving Motherhood a Makeover

Ahhhh…. motherhood.

Picture a sun-filled nursery, curtains blowing in the breeze, a laughing cherub of a baby bouncing on his mother’s knee. That’s how it is for everyone, right?

Sure, maybe in a detergent commercial.

In the real world, the baby cries and the toddler breaks the vase and the middle schooler fights you over his homework and the teenager… well… raising kids doesn’t ever seem to get any easier.

While it’s natural to lose yourself in your child’s world, that laser-beam focus can come at a price. As time goes on, motherhood often obscures the very person that existed before the children came along. No longer the account executive or the personal chef. Not much to talk about with your childless friends. Maybe the neighbors are strangers and the extended family is miles away. Many women find themselves changing the umpteenth diaper or watching yet another episode of SpongeBob and wondering if they’re even parenting their children correctly.

How do I do this? How do I answer that question? Why do I feel so isolated and where exactly are all of the other mams out there?

Ultimate Mom’s Club

Turns out, those women are everywhere. Maybe you meet them in the occasional playgroup or a once-a-week music class. But it’s not enough. The interaction is fleeting, and you return to an empty house filled with dirty laundry and cluttered with kids’ toys. That’s what happened to Helena Marriott. She was one of those women who imagined blissful days of parenthood, while her perfectly clean home sparkled in the background. Complete personal and emotional fulfillment. But it didn’t happen.

For years, she looked for that support community, the one that would help her cope with parenthood and give her an outlet for both her frustrations and her accomplishments. But she never found it. So, over the past summer, she stopped searching and decided to create that community herself. She bought a house in Cedar Park and began transforming it into the Ultimate Moms Club, or UMC, a cooperative that bridges the gap for women exploring the realms of motherhood, but who still crave the social life they knew before they had children.

“The idea is that it kind of replaces work and school. I had a vision and I found this amazing property, and kind of jumped into it,” says Ms. Marriott. “This is somewhere for moms to come and you get to know each other. You get to know each other’s children. Basically it’s got all the comforts of home. It’s like being at home, really, but with a bunch of friends.”

That’s the key behind the cooperative. This is not a daycare. It’s a place for moms to become, and act like, family.

Here’s how it works. Instead of whiling away the hours at home during the weekday, women take their children to the “Clubhouse.” The kids get to play, the moms get to visit, or work out, or take a nap. You name it, the house has it all, from oversized washing machines and exercise equipment to vegetable gardens and a pool. The large glassed-in porch is now a playroom. The backyard is fenced, shaded and filled with swings, toys and a big brand new sandbox. The home’s many rooms have been converted into specific spaces that now hold items like gym equipment, beds for napping, a massage table, and a moms-only space for crafting or computer time. There’s a swap room for exchanging used clothes and other items on the cheap, a large kitchen and a wraparound couch for hanging out in the sunken living room. Future plans for the five acres include a hike and bike trail, perhaps a petting zoo or chicken coop, and teasing an art barn out of the old woodshop.

Ms. Marriott doesn’t live in the house. Right now, she considers it a private club, but hopes to have the property rezoned some day so the Ultimate Moms Club can become an official business.

Co-op member, Anna Miller, loved the concept from the beginning and sees it as a new model that could really take hold and spread.

“I’d love to see something like this in every neighborhood,” she says. “It could be a new generation of lifestyle business for families.”

Ms. Miller is doing what she can to help the Ultimate Moms Club get off the ground. She began a moms-only discussion group, underscoring the fact that all the women bring a hidden talent to the co-op. That, in turn, allows the UMC to offer classes in various disciplines like Suzuki violin and yoga for kids. She believes that, ultimately, the co-op will help its members live a more integrated life, one that blurs the line between work, play and family.

“Helping moms to learn how to take care of themselves, it’s kind of a big deal,” Ms. Miller says. “It’s a real exploration in motherhood, like the best of it.”

More than 250 people have taken advantage of the home’s space and its class offerings since the doors opened in October. On any given day, there may be more than a dozen moms at the house, enjoying each other’s company and watching each other’s children. Right now, there are almost 20 official members on the books. Each pays a nominal monthly fee with the expectation that she’ll pitch in where needed and keeping the operation running smoothly.

Gorgeous Millie

Those kinds of numbers are encouraging for another playgroup co-op opening its doors in Austin this month. Modeled after similar businesses in Washington, D.C., Gorgeous Millie hopes to be a place for caregivers to socialize with other parents while their children make lasting friendships of their own.

Co-founder J.C. Conklin saw a need to provide new mothers, who lack a support system and daily structure, with social interaction for themselves and their children.

“I think there’s really a need and a desire for a place to connect with other moms, and a place to take your kids that feels like a community,” she says. “I think it used to be much more common for moms in the neighborhood to see other moms in the neighborhood and to form a community that way. But kids don’t play out in the street anymore. We don’t really do that anymore. This is sort of taking the place of that.”

At Gorgeous Millie, parents sign up their kids for the length of a school year – September through May. That’s intentional. A shorter time frame would automatically mean more turnover; people would come and go. That’s exactly what the owners are trying to avoid.

“I go to (other playgroups) and they’re great, but I feel like, from quarter to quarter, the people I see changes and our classes change,” Ms. Conklin points out. “My kids don’t have the regular playmates I would like them to have as toddlers, to develop friendships, and that’s the kind of stuff we provide.”

Like other playgroups, caregivers stay for the duration of the program — three hours, in this case. They look on while an instructor guides the children, ages three and younger, through art, music or dramatic play, each week focusing on a different theme. Meanwhile, parents get the luxury of taking a step back, pouring a cup of coffee or tea, and settling into a cushy, oversized chair. There, they get to chat with other parents. Ms. Conklin calls it the “Mom connection.” Much better than trying to carry on a conversation from a plastic chair across a cold, tiled waiting room. And best of all, parents can show up three times a week if the mood strikes. No need to plan ahead. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Mom Corps

Taking the flexible work and family concept one step further is the national staffing and recruiting firm Mom Corps. Laura Stich and her husband began the Austin franchise nearly a year ago after losing their jobs in Boston and jumping at the chance to move to Texas to open a branch here.

“The whole Mom Corps concept I can completely get behind because I lived it,” Ms. Stitch says. “My husband and I were both working full time jobs, I had a horrific commute and the whole bit. So it’s been a great move and it’s a great concept, and we’re just building it here in Austin and trying to get further traction.”

Mom Corps helps business professionals juggle their work lives with the demands of their families — whether or not those families include children— by finding jobs for people who would like a more flexible work schedule. And despite the name, even Dads are welcome.

Mom Corps targets progressive companies that are willing to think outside the box when it comes to fulfilling their hiring needs. Available jobs run the gamut from short-term to permanent, telecommuting to in-office.

“It can be permanent placement for a part-time job or permanent placement for a full-time job,” says Ms. Stich. “And then there’s also the contract work, [which] could be anywhere from two weeks to six to 12 months.”

The majority of people who find work through Mom Corps are highly-trained professionals like accountants, lawyers, and executives in financing and advertising; they generally haven’t been out of the work force for very long, if at all. It’s an innovative business model that seems to be a perfect fit for people who cherish their familial roles, but still have the drive to succeed in the professional world.

“Typically it’s the moms that end up taking care of the kids or wanting to take care of the kids,” Ms. Stitch says, “and so this enables them to keep a foot in their career while also balancing their family priorities.”

Finding the Balance

The common theme uniting all these endeavors is balance — finding the equity between the demands of family and those of the individual to make a hectic or lonely parenting life better for yourself, and in turn, everyone in your household.

But that can be a hard pill to swallow for some 21st Century moms who endlessly dote on their kids or who burn the candle at both ends by trying to please employers, spouses, children, in-laws — even the pets and the neighbors.

Lora Ferguson, a licensed professional counselor in Austin, points out that when parents are stressed, it trickles down to everyone else in the house. “Taking care of yourself does influence your kids,” she says. “And if mom is happy, then the family’s happy.”

That’s why it’s essential to divert some of your attention away from the kids and onto yourself. It can be a job that fulfills you or a massage that relaxes you. Whatever it is, Ms. Ferguson says, you have to make time for it.

“What I recommend is that parents start to pay more attention to themselves, particularly at-home moms. That they seek new hobbies, classes, go back to school, they do things to kind of empower themselves and have an identity outside of their mom hat.” This is key, she says, because it “models to the kids that it’s important to take care of yourself, versus this idea that as parents we’re supposed to sacrifice all the time and put our kids first at every moment.”

And that kind of modeling will have a lasting impact on children of any age.