LeaderMom: Resources for CEO's of Work, Home, and Family : Values

Check this Out!

Found this great leadership article this morning. Had to share!

Sep 15, 2014 10:15:09 AM | Great Resources!, Happy Monday, Inspiration, Leadership and Motherhood, Pay it Forward, Values, Work/Life Balance

Check this Out!

Here's a great article about focusing on what is in your control. Great information for the work and home front!

Enjoy!

May 28, 2014 1:16:11 PM | Great Resources!, Leadership and Motherhood, Values, Work/Life Balance

Lessons Remembered (Revisited)

On this Mother's Day weekend...I had to bring back one of my favorite posts.

Hope you all have a great Mother's Day!

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks at Casa Casey as we prepared for Courtney's First Communion and the grand family party that was celebrated with my niece the following week. Needless to say, these events have left me drained, uplifted, and so full of gratitude at the outpourings of love and support for our family.

Now on the heels of Mother's Day, I am swirling with the significance and impact of these past couple of weeks and the incredible gift and honor it is to be Courtney's Mom. (And no, I am not inviting 120 of my nearest and dearest to my house for dinner to celebrate).

My road to motherhood and my first few months as a mother were not easy (to say the least). But around this time of year - and on alternate Tuesdays - I am reminded of this beautiful tribute my mom wrote about her aunt, Sister Marion Duggan who was such a role model and rock in our lives.

I share and pass on her motherhood and leadership lessons as they have been passed to me and have shaped so much of my role as a LeaderMom. I hope you enjoy.

Sister Marion Duggan and the Art of Motherhood

I write this on Mother's Day 2004, a suitable time to remember my aunt, Sister Marion Duggan, in a specific role which she played with me as with so many others: instructor in the art of motherhood. Having procrastinated on this task due to the difficulty of condensing a long and complex relationship into a few pages, I am now prepared to record my impressions of my aunt's influence on my style as a mother.

Here are some of Aunt Marion's guidelines for the art of mothering.

1. When in doubt, take them out.

Sister Marion was a great exponent of the value of outdoor play for children, and felt that it was necessary for moms to schedule themselves to get the children outdoors as much as possible. She often reminisced about her own mother, Delia Feehan Duggan, whose habit it was to finish her household chores in the morning, then spend the rest of the day with her children in Central Park. Like her own mother, Sister Marion felt that this was time well spent; children eat better, sleep better, and are generally happier for having spent time outdoors. And speaking of time...

2. Child time must be measured in hours, not minutes; better still, it should be not measured at all.

While my aunt was far ahead of her time in the late 1960's in not only encouraging me to pursue a career but in providinf child care that I might do so, she also felt that moms must be available to their children most of the time. The "one-minute parent" or "quality (that is, brief) time" concepts were, in her mind, antithetical to the needs of the child. If tradeoffs in the world of work have to be made by a working mother (and they surely do), then so be it. She believed that child time cannot be sandwiched in between a multitude of other commitments, but rather should be the centering principle of a mom's life. Child time has a different quality than does work time, requiring an adult to set aside such workday notions as efficiency and productivity, to just forget the clock and just blow bubbles.

3. The rituals of childrearing constitute a liturgy of family life.

Aunt Marion believed that children thrive in an orderly environment, and moms must learn to thrive in it too. The predictability of childhood rituals help a child make sense of the world and feel safe in it. Moms may not go to Mass every day as Sister Marion did, but the rituals of family life are as central to the family as the Mass is to Church. Children may not remember the expensive toy they received for their birthday, but they will remember that mom squeezed their hands when it was safe to cross the street, or that Dad painted smiley faces when applying mercurochrome to hurts. And speaking of expensive things...

4. Money isn't everything; in fact it isn't anything. Period.

5. And finally, being a mom is hard, and no one should try to do it alone.

It is no surprise that Sister Marion's last job on earth involved creating a community of parents who would be available not only to their own children but to eachother...my aunt believed that a mom at her wit's end needed help, and many times she drove from Rye to Astoria or Flushing to guide me through a rough patch. I think Aunt Marion would advise my daughters as they become mothers that it is not only a mom's right to have the help she needs in doing the world's most important job, but also that it is a sign of strength in a mom to make sure that she gets that help. The tribe must gather around a mother; she must not be left alone, ever, in the inevitable difficulties of child rearing.

When Sister Marion planned her funeral, she told us that the only picture she wanted displayed at the wake was the one of herself in a swing, surrounded by children. She wanted all of us to remember her in that way: a woman happy in the company of children. The delight of that moment must have taken her back to her own childhood when Delia finished her housework and took the kids to the park.