Working Mom Guilt

This podcast was transcribed using Descript. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Brittany : Hi friends. Welcome to Life. with Loverly. I'm your host, Brittany Sjogren. I'm excited to share my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds we get on Instagram, grab an iced coffee, and let's do life together. 

Hello friends. How are y'all happy Friday? I guess by the time he listened to this, it will be Tuesday.

We are recording on a Friday wrapping up. I feel like a really good work week. It's been Nichelle's here too. 

Nichelle: Yeah, it doesn't feel like Friday. We were just sitting here like Friday. All right. I feel like I can see that Friday. Gotta get down.

Brittany : Okay. We always get very sing-songy on Friday. And so here we are, a singing episode, but how are y'all?

It's been a minute. I feel like we haven't recorded in the studio. And so long we usually try to record weekly, but sometimes we record like a few episodes in a week, or if we have a special guest coming in, we might, our recording schedule changes. And then we were out of town. We recorded our last episode with Shay

while we were in the Beverly Hills hotel. So that was our first. Out of studio recording that we did, 

Nichelle: it was, and it actually sounded so good. Like you didn't even know that we were like sitting in a hotel combining around a microphone. 

Brittany : It was so much fun. So that was just, it's been a busy few weeks, but glad to be back, we'll be in town for a little while.

And that before, like the craziness of like summer and everything that is to come. In the upcoming months, but if you little like fun updates before we get into today's podcast, I have something fun that I'm like waiting. Like I've been waiting for this to finally arrive for so long, but I'm getting a new wedding band.

Nichelle: So beautiful.

Brittany : Chris and I got married seven years ago and my engagement ring and my wedding band that he gave me, I have always loved. And then about. Maybe two years after we got married, I got this infinity style band. This brand at the time, like wanted to send me a, like one of their 14 karat gold bands that was with Moissanite stones.

And they wanted me to just review it and try it. And so I did, and I literally haven't taken it off since. That time, I guess it's been five years now. And I've loved it. It's held up so great. I had never really heard much about Moissanite before trying this one. And I feel like it's a great diamond alternative or like an addition and the price points a little bit different.

But anyway I would say like year Chris has been what are your thoughts on maybe like a new band I've really loved my engagement ring. Have any desire to change that anytime soon or ever? I don't really know, but I wanted a band that felt a little bit more like unique to him and I, since this infinity band.

It was more of a me thing. So we started looking at some options and there's a jeweler out of New York who two of my friends have used and all of the stuff that he's done, I probably started following him on Instagram maybe a year ago. All of the stuff that he's done has always been like so beautiful custom pieces.

So when we started like thinking of. Getting a new ring. I was like, why don't we reach out to Abraham? Because he does everything like virtually. So while he's in New York, everything can be done like over FaceTime or zoom or email. And so we started working with him on designing a ring and he sent it to me to try on.

And then we'd like, we sent it back to get like the final sizing and everything. So hopefully it will be back soon, but I did a little sneak peek of it on Instagram and I can't I like, can't wait to have it back on my finger, 

Nichelle: it's gorgeous. It really is gorgeous. It just gives your set just a whole different look.

Brittany : Yeah. And that's, I love the infinity band and I feel like that's, I feel like a lot of people who follow me on Instagram. Been inspired to get an infinity band with their set. And it's something I will always love, but I feel like this new band and like the stones, they're like oval stones. There's eight of them and they just, it's just so beautiful.

I feel like it just kinda compliments, like she just wanted something a little different. 

Nichelle: Yeah. And it's definitely different. Just gives it a totally different vibe. The infinity ring is so gorgeous and I think your followers are like, why are you getting rid of it?

Brittany : And I think like the real reason is just, it's so much more personal for Chris and I to, and that's what this ring stack is like.

It is personal for him and I, and so I wanted to bring up. Element back into it. So that's something fun coming soon. I, if you are in the market for a new ring and want to check out Abraham, his jewelry company is L and L jewelry will tag their Instagram. So you can see I'll share more like details about it on stories, but I wanted to give you guys a little behind the scenes of what I'm excited for.

Nichelle: The process has been super. Quick, once you decided what you wanted, like you've made it so easy. 

Brittany : Yeah. So I did some of the FaceTime calls here in the office. And so the girls were like behind the scenes of the call. So they overheard the process and I really thought it was cool how he, had a few options to show me.

I sent him like a bunch of inspiration at first. Cause I knew what I wanted, but I feel like if somebody maybe didn't fully know what they would want. Be a really good person to brainstorm with and he can show you some options and he can make anything. So the process was really cool. He showed me different sizes, different settings, different like color options.

And then it was very seamless. Like once. Okay. Let's make it, he made it, send it here. We were able to like, look at it. We needed to resize it. So we sent it back and everything has been very seamless. So I would definitely recommend him. And it's been cool to see, like some of my other friends who've worked with them and they did like actual, like bigger stone rings

different options. They're like both of their rings are completely different, but he designed both of them. So I don't know. I would definitely check him out if you guys are, if you know anybody who's looking to upgrade or get a different ring. So he's a fun thing to do so 

Nichelle: for sure. Yes please.

Brittany : You and I were even talking the other day about how even different bands can change the look of your ring altogether. There's like a few. And Nichelle, and I've been like, Ooh, look at this. And I'd be like, do we need to take a picture of that and send it to Robert 

tuck that away 

Nichelle: for the next little holiday, 

Brittany : Maybe you don't want to like, change your like engagement ring, but adding a band can shifted and then you fall back in love with it all over again, fall back in love with like, why you have it.

Just as like the spiral effect of like your husband doesn't even know all the great things to come. I know. I just making a little change on the finger. Love it anyway. So yeah. How have you been?

Nichelle: Good. Dealing with life, with teens in the house. 

Brittany : Yeah. Nichelle has had fun things happen.

So for those of you guys who might be new listeners Nichelle has two daughters, one just turned 11 last weekend and 16. So we are in different stages of life. Like mom life, my little girls are three and almost two, but I feel. So often we both are like, okay, what do we do? Or this is a situation for sure, this past week, I've been like, I don't have teenagers, but like here's maybe what my advice would be.

So we kinda thought we might get into a little bit of some like mom related content. 

Nichelle: Mom guilt work-life balance. Yeah, that how you balance it 

Brittany : and just like conversations. I don't know. I always think about how. You guys know Shay now, since she's been on the podcast that I'm like, I feel like I lean into her.

She has kids that are the same age as me. And so I'm like, what do we do about this? Or what are you feeling about this? I think it's important to have just somebody to talk to. Yeah. A lot of requests have been to talk about like mom guilt and just like working and how to prioritize yourself, but be a good mom still.

And while we're no experts, but we're both moms. So we figured. Maybe we can share some advice on what we do, how we handle these types of situations. So let's get started. 

Nichelle: Oh yes. There's so many lessons. I think that all of us learn along the way we go into it. Whenever you bring a child home and we have no foundation of knowing where to start, we literally are learning as we go.

Creatures who have to learn as we go and you adapt really quickly. And I think that's a lot of what happens with work-life balance, being a mom in this, generation of I'm working, but I also want to be a mom, but I really want, what I do is so important. And I didn't know when I was going to have kids, you think, oh, I'm going to have kids once I'm, settled and this is going to happen.

And I had a kid at 22. Yeah. And then one at 28. And very different stages of my life and was still learning stuff. Twenties, you're still learning everything, but it's been crazy to see the different things that I know personally I've had to challenge myself with versus what my mom went through with us.

Brittany : Yeah. I also think too, like when you become a mom, you are taking. The only experience you might have. From your mom and being like, okay this is what we did. Not everybody grew up in a perfect setting where their mom was like the perfect like role model of what to do. And so sometimes there's a little bit of that to overcome, or I want to do things differently or.

Nichelle: You hear that so often, like I'm going to do things so different as a parent.

Brittany : And then you start parenting and it's you hear yourself talking to your child and you're like, that's my mother. Yes. But there's no like guide book. On this. And I think it just is you have to create this mindset about around like what your expectations are for yourself and what's going to work for your family.

I think that's like something that's really hard about parenting in and being a mom in this. Like generation and time that we're in is like social media. I feel like can be so helpful. Can, but can also be so like hurtful. 

Nichelle: We work in that. This is something that you build your life around.

It's social media, that's your job. And I'm in the industry with you as well. And I'm going home battling great social media right now with my kids. And. I think that's the most important thing that I'm trying to teach the girls right now is it's not all bad. You have to protect yourself though.

There's not going to be other people that are going to be out there protecting you for you. And that's not a place I necessarily always will be able to protect you. You have to know what's right. And what's wrong. There are so many good ways, like in fun things. That's where a scape in most cases.

Brittany : Yeah. And there's so many great resources, but then it's so easy to get sucked into this comparison trap that mom looks that way after she had a baby six weeks ago, that mom is already back to work and seems to be thriving. And it's that might only be like a small tidbit of what is being shown.

It's funny because I show my kids like, okay, and my platform is not about like family. It's more about like shopping, but I feel like over the years I've built, this community and have introduced my family to them. And so they are on there from time to time.

But. I would get messages when like Collins was younger being like, it just seems like you just have this all together and Collins seem so like great. And I just, my response sometimes is so I guess I'm just never going to, without my phone, when she's having a tantrum, like in a restaurant and show that.

I feel like everybody deals with that type of thing. And just because I don't show that doesn't make me like a good or a bad mom or anything.

Nichelle: How many times have we heard, like social media is a highlight reel of everyone's best moments, right? That's what it is. You're not going to see the negative or the hard or the ugly behind the scenes all the time.

And it's there. It lives there, but that's. Also smart. Don't put everything you have out there, but it is like, it started out as a way to like connect with people. Remember Facebook was like, oh, people from, high school or, an old church I used to go to you. And it was like a way to connect.

And you're like, thinking to yourself, let's show them some of the tidbits of our life. 

Brittany : Or like a recap from the weekend. I remember when I was in college, I used to like, this is when I have a digital camera take pictures of, and then on Sunday night when I was doing my laundry, I would upload the photos and think of a funny album name that was like maybe something that happened in the weekend load by 50 photos.

I took with all my friends and, that was like a recap of the weekend, and that's I feel like we're social media goes, but it's hard sometimes because this is my job and my career. And I want to share style, advice and outfits and but there has to be a balance of sharing that plus like being relatable and like showing enough of my personal life to make a connection of trust.

But I don't know. It's just an interesting place because I feel like. There's so much good, but then there can be so much bad. And as a mom, sometimes like you have to protect your heart and your head. And if you need to unfollow somebody, because every time you see them pop up, they're putting you in a negative place, then that's okay.

Maybe you just put them on pause for the time being as you work through what is going on. And then go back to following them. If you feel like there's a void, but. I don't know I feel like we just have to be like very cautious of what we're consuming.

Nichelle: That has a huge play in our generation. So you put two things together when it comes to, a lot of us who are between, let's just, I don't know, let's just say 30 and maybe 45 social media entered into our like teen years.

And then now we're having kids and we experienced it firsthand. I remember getting AOL dial-up, my space was really big, whenever I was in high school and then. Internet on the phone. Didn't start, I think until I was maybe closer to senior college. So I felt like I was older once that stuff started coming out.

Brittany : So you'd already been through high school, like a normal kid.

Nichelle: I had a normal conversation. There wasn't a ton of texts. There was, but remember it was like hard. I need to pay for every one and all of that stuff. It's just so different now. So taking it back to, being a mom right now, Think about our parents.

My, my parents worked, both of them did, but then their parents, like the woman didn't necessarily always work. It was always the man. So we're getting into generations now where it's like, women want to work. They want to be responsible. They want to be part of the household income and bringing in whatever it takes to provide for their family at the end of the day.

So we've added that into the mix on top of. This comparison trap that's been created on social media. It's made things so difficult. 

Brittany : Right. I also think there's so many more careers. Available to women that are like really fun. Yes. And so I think that's where women are also I want to do this and be a mom.

Like I want to keep this identity and be a mom. Whereas maybe that that wasn't necessarily the case like 40 or 50 years ago. 

Nichelle: There are women who are CEOs. They are presidents and vice presidents. Huge corporations. Women are in such high leadership positions right now. And it does take time and it can take time away from your family.

So this is where you and I have had these conversations about. We've had so many conversations about like working mom guilt and we'll get into it, but we are like I don't really feel that. Yeah. But I'll get to that. Cause it took a long time. I think, for me to personally get to that point.

It were all of these different situations are coming into play now with our generation. It is making it hard. And then that's when people start saying, okay, why don't you feel mom guilt? And I think it's about your mindset. You have to take it back and like, how are you thinking about your work, right?

And the time you spend with your family, are you creating those negative thoughts? Are you comparing yourself to other people that you think are spending more time with their family? And I think that is a lot of the cases,

Brittany : or I think too, like I know people who have like mom guilt, Maybe they aren't working outside of the home, but let's be real, like a stay at home.

Mom is also a full-time job place if even more. And so getting a babysitter or taking time away, there's also a mom guilt that comes with that too, because. Should I be doing that? I want to take this moment for myself. Is that a really good idea? So it's not just about working outside of the house, moms getting this guilt there.

It can come no matter, like what your specific role as like a mom and then some is, I think it just is like how you wrap your mind around that and how you like. Teaching yourself to think about that, 

Nichelle: reminding yourself your goals at the end of the day. So what do you see for yourself? In your mom role?

Like what do you want to be the end result? And then how can you make that happen? A lot for me was my career is very important to me. What I do to provide for my family. Like the work ethic that's behind. Anything that I do. I want my kids to see that and I want them to feel so empowered one day that they go out there and they kick life and it's, but they're like, let me take anything I need and anything I want out of life.

And I feel like for the most part, that message has come across along the way. Have I personally felt like I've missed out on something? Sure. Yeah, sure. But that's the sacrifice that's come with. Like what, I also, the other things that I want at the end of the day though, I have kids that know, I love them.

They know that everything I do outside of the house is for them. At the end of the day, it's for me too. And I'm very lucky where I have a husband that supports this.

Brittany : Yeah. That's the other thing everybody's like spouse situation is different, one major point. To start with is like giving yourself grace.

Absolutely. And realizing that everybody's situation is different. So while it might be easy to compare, it's also not really fair to do that because you don't know what the setup is or how others are making it work or something you might view as wow, that's so nice. Lucky. Then they view as a struggle.

I feel like we've made a lot of changes over the past three years, just within our household and like our family set up, Chris worked full time. When we lived in Atlanta, we both worked for the same, it staffing firms. He had gotten a few promotions, moved up in the company and. And then I left to do my blog full time and we were both doing these like full-time careers.

And then I had call-ins and I felt this okay, now how am I supposed to like, run a company and be a mom and. I remember like when, like my mom came to help me a little bit, but it still felt like I was drowning and I was like, this isn't fair. Like he gets to go to work, but I have to also work and take care of the baby, which I love doing.

But it was so like, there's so many emotions that are like happening after you have a baby trying to figure out like your. Where your role is? My job is just very like public. So I was navigating like, what do I share? What do I not share? And I remember when I, we decided to put her in a daycare. A few days a week, somebody messaged me and was like, I just don't understand why you would spend all this money to go through IVF.

And now you're going to put your child in daycare. That was just like, okay. I don't really see how, like any of that is related. At all. 

Nichelle: And it's just not fair. That's not fair.

Brittany : Like now I look back and I'm like, maybe that person wasn't in a good place. They clearly were dealing with something and they felt like they needed to lash out on me for it. But I'm like, what? Why are we as women even saying things like that, it's okay to love what you do and also love your kids and want to make both work. So I thought that was really interesting. But then as my career started to grow, we kinda got to a time where I was like, Chris, we either are going to have to hire somebody to do this role that he was already doing behind the scenes.

On top of his corporate job, or can you just leave your corporate job and come and help me do this full time? And so that's the decision that we made. And then two months later, the world shut down. And so for quarantining, we pull Collins out of daycare because I was pregnant at the time and we just weren't sure was being pregnant.

What does that mean? If I were to get COVID. Somebody around us, where to get COVID. We just didn't know at the time. So he turned into like daddy daycare, and I always felt bad because he left his job to help me run mine. And what he was going to be doing was like really exciting. And he was loving it, but then it was like, we needed like full-time childcare.

So I could continue to be the breadwinner and make a living for our family. And so things changed and it was tough for him to really realize like where his role was, because he was so used to just like leaving and coming home. And it was just so different. I feel like I was constantly like, are you okay with this?

Because historically, like that wasn't the norm. And he was like, Mr. Mom, it just became something he loves. To be for colleagues. And there are so many amazing parts of having her home with us. And then we had Hazel and I felt like I just needed like more help. My business was just continuing to grow, which I'm incredibly thankful for.

But now with two babies, it was just like, okay, I can't do all of this on my own, Chris and I have really had to like, restructure, like what our roles are in our family. I think also remembering it's okay to have these restructuring type conversations with your spouse

Nichelle: they're necessary. Yeah. 

Brittany : To the point where it was like, I can't do the laundry, can you help do the girls laundry?

Or I can't do this job and this job and be like good at all. Three of them I'm doing, I remember, I like constantly would say I'm doing like 25% of each of these and I'd just feel so drained. And that he didn't know some of that unless I was having that conversation with him, as much as I wish, like a trait in marriage was reading minds, it's not.

And so that was something that we really had to figure out and work through. But then one thing that. I think like really was a pivotal change for me was I had a friend who is in the same industry as I am, and she has three kids. Her husband worked full time. I messaged her and I was just like, how do you do it all?

I feel like you're doing really good, but what's the secret? What am I missing? Because I feel like I'm drowning in working. Full-time having young children, all the house responsibilities and she. Was very like open and honest with me. And she was like, I have help. I have a nanny. I have an assistant who helps me like run errands.

My nanny here, like responsibilities this person does. And I was just like, oh my gosh. You have help. Okay. That's okay to get? That's okay to do? And I think for so long, I was so afraid to do that because then it's what if, what are people going to think about me if I like need to ask for help or if I need help.

And now I would tell anybody. Get some help and your life will change. 

And 

Nichelle: I think that's where a lot of the questions come from. Let's be real. I feel like a lot of strong women. That is the one thing they don't want to do. We're not going to ask for help. Yeah. That's the last thing that we want to do.

Brittany : It's let me do it all. Like I can do it all. Yeah. But then it's, there's only so much that you can get done. And so we've really had prioritize, where can we accept help? Where can, what are Chris in my like individual roles who is handling this responsibility?

And that might not be forever. This might just be for the season that we're in. But once we really planned that out, I feel like it helped us to. Have these expectations and it was clear, and so for me, Chris is the one who does most all of the cooking. And so I get home from work at 5, 5 30 every day.

And I'm able to spend that two hours with the girls playing and sitting down on the floor with them and, just interacting with them for two solid hours while Chris is making dinner. And then we all sit down as family and eat dinner, and we do like our bath and bedtime routine together as a family.

And for me, that is what I need. Me knowing, like I'm being a good mom by spinning this like quality time, like phones are away. It is one-on-one. And I know my girls, like every time I walked through the door, they're like, mommy, they know they're about to get that one-on-one time with me. And then, the weekends, we.

Are mostly, always doing family stuff, but before we made that decision, that's how our evenings were going to go. It felt like I would get home. And it was so like, are you going tonight? No, I'm cooking that. Okay. Here, hold on. I need to answer email. Hold on. Like it was, there was no structure and for me, like that's, I needed a plan structured to.

Make it work. Yeah. I would encourage you to try that. I would encourage people who are like, not feeling like they have consistency or structure to nail down a plan and just see how that makes you feel. 

Nichelle: Yeah. Figure out what's important to you. I was eating dinner together at the table. Every night is something that's very important to us and something we've done for a very long time.

So we're all home or ready to eat. It's 6, 6 30, whenever he has an a Robert's the same way he does the cooking every now and then I will. But for the most part, he handles all of that, the grocery shopping, because he enjoys it. We've had that conversation. It's the same thing we have that time together.

And we catch up on the day while we're sitting there eating dinner together. And then, the girls go off and decompress from the day we decompress. We have, our alone time, it works for all of us. We have the weekends with the girls now, too. So it's that's we spend one day together.

We do housework together. Cause in some cases, maybe you can't have somebody come clean your house and maybe you don't have a nanny. There's going to be situations like that too. There's ways to work around it. If you work with your spouse or somebody else, the kids, I have kids now where I'm like, Hey, let's do laundry.

Come in here, help me fold. And we spend quality time together and we get chat. And that makes me happy. And I know that it's so important to them too, because they're getting one-on-one time or time with the family. And no matter how old they get that's, if they're in the house, we're going to have that time at well.

Brittany : And I think it's okay. Every situation. Going to be different, like none of the listeners listening to this are going to have the exact same setup and scenarios. So it's what you, as a family decide to make work for you, and however you need to overcome this, quote unquote, mom guilt is what you're gonna do.

I think trying something new, having a plan, talking with your spouse to make sure you guys are aligned. That was just a huge difference for me. And I realized too, like one other change. I feel like we may last year was. Getting this office space ever since I had my first employee, they were coming to my house and working out of like my office in the house.

And it was hard to separate being a mom in the house, being a boss in my same house, setting up boundaries. And that was something I feel was very stressful for me. And then once we had Hazel and once we had a nanny so that she. Was like taking care of, but we were still in the house doing work and it would be like the nanny would come to me with questions, but it was like, this is like work time.

And so then I felt like I was being a bad mom because. It was just so much, so many roles, like all in one plate, which I'm sure a lot of people can actually relate to who were at home during COVID and like your kids are there and maybe you didn't have another set of hands to help, or, you're trying to balance it all.

But once we were able to figure out an alternative solution, I feel like that freed up a lot of that, like mom guilt, I was holding because I needed separation. And as our team was growing, there's no way that all four of us who work full-time here in the office could be working all. Full-time like out of my house,

Nichelle: seeing the stress on your face, seeing Hazel crawling around the corner, you were like, I'm sorry.

Brittany : So yeah. And Nichelle's it's fine. Come on over and it was always great. They were around other people, but it was hard to stay in a constantly good like work Headspace. But so then we get this office and we have this other place to come and where I can have that separation so that when I'm home, I am like, mom.

Yeah. I am full on mom and I love that role so much. I worked really hard to get that role in the beginning. And it, I never want like the girls to feel like I'm half assing the role and the job, because it's something that I take so much pride in, but I needed to figure that out for myself. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

I think I'm a better mom because I have that separation. And then when I come back, I give a hundred percent. Okay. Can I tell you one other thing that I've done from time to time that I felt bad about at first, but then now I don't really is occasionally, especially if Chris is like going to play golf on like a Saturday or Sunday.

After church or something like that, I sometimes will schedule a babysitter for the same timeframe and go do something for myself. Go get my nails done, or just go decompress and walk around, target with a coffee. And I don't really feel bad about it anymore because. I needed the time to decompress from both being a mom.

And this is where I think any mom should give herself this time. I feel like we're a very good team. And that was something that when, before we even had kids, we always talked about wanting to be a team in this where we're aligned in the sense of. Okay, I'm going to do this, but when I get home I'll take the girls and you can go do this.

We'll like switch off or give each other, like a break if a break is needed. But I just go back to thinking, like, when my kids are with a babysitter, it's usually like somebody that we like love and trust and have known. That's just how it's worked out for us so far. And they love that time.

The babysitter. Like last night we went to our small group and then the day before I told Collins, when she was going to bed, I was like, Ms. Samantha's going to come over tomorrow night and is going to play with you. And she loves Samantha. And so I woke her up Thursday morning. I'm getting her out of the crib.

And the first thing she says to me is miss Samantha here yet? Oh she loves like that quality time and it's kinda different. So then I was like, okay. They are like thoroughly enjoying that. It would be one thing if they like were screaming and crying and it was like, I don't care. I'm going to pamper myself, but For us right now, if that's just what's working and that's not an every weekend situation, but I think it's okay to take time to decompress from like everything.

Nichelle: Absolutely. That's how I know. That's how I get, because you're fully on when you're at work and you're fully on when you're at home and sometimes it feels like you have no. Time to think to yourself, being your own thoughts, feel good about like maybe what's happened throughout the week plans coming up, whatever the target and Starbucks, peruse is definitely like my love language right there, but I've also learned like that hour car ride instead of dreading it, look forward to it.

That's an hour. I get to just be in my thoughts, have it to myself. I'm going to get my nails. By golly, I'm going to get my nails done because it's one hour of me just being able to be in my thoughts and I love to meditate. That's the other thing. And you can't do that with a house full of dogs and kids, and you just don't want to do that at work and it's just downtime your body needs it.

It needs it to be 100% to survive, to not feel that guilt 24 7, because like you said, you can be there for. When you are there. And I think too, like even refreshing your marriage and having a date night, I feel like we feel revived as parents. If we have a date night and then we come back so much stronger because we were.

And like that time connecting to each other and having adult conversation and not, not just the dinner table with the kids, trying to figure out who's going to get what, and what time when you want to go do bath. 

Brittany : Yeah, exactly. And that's also really important. If you can only do one of the two, maybe like during a week or over a two week span, prioritize, like what is more important for you and your person is that.

You to going to dinner or is that you guys like going to do something separate and coming back and being, like refreshed and strong to continue parenting? I don't know. There's so many ways to relieve this mom guilt. It takes. Work. It takes time. It takes a mindset change, which I know we've talked about a lot, but going back to doing things with intention.

I want to be intentional when I'm at home with my kids. I want to be intentional when I'm here at my job, but I need somewhere in there, like a moment to be like intentional with myself. 

Nichelle: Exactly. So one of the other things, cause a lot of people, when they say mom, They also include work. Like how do you balance everything? Work-life balance one of my biggest things, I would say it's, it took me years to get there, but I would say probably a decade ago, you have to decide it's not a work life balance. It's just life balance. It's part of life. We work to live, we live to work and it all comes together at the end of the day.

And again, that is a mindset shift that you're going to have with yourself. It's when you talk about it constantly being a work-life balance, that's exactly what you're making it. 

Brittany : And I think too, if you're not in a job that you absolutely love. 

Nichelle: Thank you for saying that, 

Brittany : like it's okay to go do something that you absolutely love society makes it seem like, got to go to work.

Yeah. Then I gotta go home. It doesn't have to be so unfortunate that's like what you have to do. 

Nichelle: I saw so many people and I like, I think of my grandparents and my parents they all have one job, right? Like entire life, their entire life. They retire from that job. And. There was a huge stigma around like leaving one job and going to another oh, I have three things on a resume.

That's okay. Now, if you're just job jumping to jump, like that's one thing. But if you are truly not having being fulfilled in what you do, guys, please take it from somebody who spent way too many years doing something they did not love. Okay. It's never too late. Yeah. It is never too late. Go find that path.

And I promise you, you will never think about work-life balance again.

Brittany : And maybe that's like why you had that kind of like change in mindset of it's just life balance because it wasn't about this like hard work job, it was like, this is just what I want my life to be. And here's how we're going to balance it all out.

And this is what it's going to work for my family or what isn't going to work for. My family. I don't know, maybe if anybody's listening and you're like looking for a sign, this is your sign, here's your son. I remember when I graduated college, I like got a job as a manager at a boutique. And then I worked there for two months and then I went to.

Law firm and worked as like a secretary at a law firm because had a communications degree, could really do a lot of, I just didn't really know what I wanted to do. I don't know. I feel like I just needed to figure that out. So I worked there for probably two months and then I left and I moved to Atlanta and worked for post properties as a leasing consultant, which was really fun.

I got to meet a lot of people. It was like, but not, there were sales goals and I worked there for six months and was just I don't know. I feel like I had to work weekends. Like the schedule was different and I felt like there wasn't a lot of upward mobility to get to this point.

I really saw myself. Being. And so then I left and I went to inside global, which is a staffing firm. And I stayed there for four years, but I remember right before I was going to leave, I was talking to my roommate and I was like, I think I'm going to leave like post and, take this other job. And she was like, I feel like you've bounced around a lot this year, since you graduated, like you've already had three jobs on your resume.

Are you sure you shouldn't just like, stay. For a little longer. And I was just I don't want to be complacent. I don't want to just stay because like my resume, like who told me I needed to do that, and, but like that was a stigma, like just think of that for no reason. She, her parents have like consistent same jobs and it was definitely something I was aware of and thought about, but.

I left. And then I went into this other role that was like challenging me. There was so much upward mobility. I've got promoted. I was doing well as earning good money in this role. I had the opportunity to really push myself in a sales job and I loved that. But then that background set me up for what I do now.

Nichelle: I think about that one moment, if you let that get to you, where would you be today? If you stayed at post. Not here. Don't let somebody else tell you or make you think you need to be something or do something a certain way. It just full circle right there.

I know. Don't take advice from everybody else on that. Nobody's life's perfect. 

Brittany : It's so true. Circling back to just like mom guilt. And if that's something that you're feeling, one thing I think that's like really helped even Nichelle and I is just like talking about it with a friend and sometimes it's hard to make friends as adults or have other mom friends or have other friends just like in the same like area of life.

But if you do have somebody. I would encourage you to share some of your thoughts and like what you're feeling. We have had conversations with each other recently, and while we're not in the same, like mom's stage of life, I feel like we both bring like different perspectives and it's okay I hadn't thought about that, but like that makes sense I want to incorporate that, or I don't want to incorporate that, but maybe that sparks a different thought in your mind, and then you try something new. So encourage you to just lean into somebody in your community or somebody around you, this talking it out is so important. Sometimes Nichelle and I both see therapists and that's another thing I highly encourage.

Nichelle is actually the one who encouraged me to talk with somebody. And after hearing her story of just like why she sought out therapy. And I was like, she's telling me about some, like a therapy session she'd been in. And I was just sitting there being like, I am so jealous that you had this feeling of relief after this conversation.

And so that encouraged me to talk to somebody. And then I feel like that has helped so many aspects of my life. Since having some of those conversations. And I know several people who feel the same way or who thought oh, talk therapy is so taboo. Like all of us have a problem if you need to go to therapy.

And it's that is absolutely not. 

Nichelle: And even if it is the case, it's free. It's between you and only you. The other thing is I feel like it, it made me more open to talk about. Things that I normally wouldn't have talked about. I'm like, I'm not going to put that on somebody else. And it's not, that's not the way it should be.

You shouldn't think of it that way. You're not putting it on someone else, like leaning into you this last week. Being able to just talk through knowing that your children are so small right now, you're not going to go through this anytime soon, but it was like an outside perspective, even though you don't have children, you had great points because you're outside of the box.

Brittany : Exactly. And I feel like that's been so helpful, just having those conversations. And I think it's probably even shifted the way that, like you might've handled some of the situations just because it's like a different perspective on oh, okay. I didn't think about it like that.

Nichelle: There's so many things different, but yes, for sure. It sparked so many different things doing research, like putting my head down and figuring it out. But yes, definitely lean on somebody. If it is your partner, if it is your friend a coworker know that they're strengthened that. 

Brittany : Yeah, for sure. So I feel like this episode has been like kind of deep, but I feel like so needed. So many people struggle with mom. Guilt helps you feel encouraged after listening to this, that's what I wanted to bring when I started life with Beverly was just, how can we encourage people? How can we share more detail beyond like the Instagram stories?

And sometimes I feel like we have like deep topics and cover deep conversation and things like that. Think it's necessary. Not enough people are talking about some of these things and in a way that it's okay, We all feel this 

Nichelle: and hearing everyone be so appreciative of knowing that they're not alone over the last I would say several episodes.

That's definitely, I think encouraged us to talk about stuff we really didn't plan on about, but then it's also come up in our life too. Time's right. Yeah.

Brittany : It's so true. So Life with Loverly is about to take a little bit of a break. Today's actually the last episode of season two, which is so wild that we've had two seasons so far.

But we're going to take a little break and we will be back at the beginning of may with some fresh content, some. Fun ideas. We have some awesome guests that are going to be joining us this summer. Really excited for what's to come, but truly just appreciate you guys taking time to listen to this podcast and show up with us.

We would absolutely love if you could rate and review. The podcast. That means so much to us. We truly appreciate every piece of feedback. And then of course, if you have any questions or anything you would love to see in next season, please feel free to email us. We will leave all of that information in the show notes, so you can easily access that.

But we love you guys so much, and we cannot wait to see you in season three of Life with Loverly.

Thanks for listening to today's episode. I can't wait to continue these conversations with you over on Instagram at Life with Loverly until next time.