How nice to be honored! Awesome. And, I like how well you explained the fluidity of multi-tasking. Can’t we mamas ever be doing just one thing at a time?
xoxo

It’s as if you read my mind when you wrote this one. I am now mid-thirties and you are totally right, so many thirty-somethings put ourselves in a club or if you’re lucky two or three clubs. I like you really like to be a part of different clubs, but it appears some are more welcoming than others, and I think why are some harder than others, it shouldn’t be this way.

Once upon a time was in a mom’s club, and it just wasn’t quite right. I felt like I was looked down upon because I a am a career mom and not a “stay at home and have your kids be your life” mom. Why do we do that? Why are we so judgmental of each other? Why aren’t we all just a bit easier on each other? This parenting gig is super hard! So now… I too have my own club. But it isn’t a club, because I truly just hate clubs. It’s an inner circle.. a circle of family, friends, neighbors, etc. We all just are here and want to have relationships with each other. We share produce, watch each others kids, dance & sweat, cry about sad times, laugh, garden, raise animals, travel, scrape by, want more for ourselves and our kids, …..and just live. xoxo

I am selective who I let into my club…the members are women who would do ANYTHING for me and I for them. The club is quite small in number but huge in love and support. It has taken 58 years to form my club & I cherish every member.

xoxo

So true, why do people think they have the right to look down on you for your choice (especially since they don’t know your situation).

I am of the “no kids” club and you’d be amazed at how many people have said some really horrible things to me about my choice to not have children. It’s amazing that people think they have the right to judge you when they don’t even know you. Needless to say, none of those people are in my club.

I choose to surround myself with people who could care less what I look like, whether I choose to have children, or whether I grow my own food. It’s not about surrounding yourself with people like you, but people who accept you for the individual you are. Those are the people that matter to me. My club is small, but mighty!

cool, nice people that are healthy and do interesting things. I guess that’s what kinds of people I want to hang out with.

Hey Nici,
It’s Lynne Avril, Skip and Deb and your mom’s friend. I saw this because your ma is bragging about you on FB, and well she should! I love your stufff! You are a girl after my own heart! I am in Paris right now, but I’ll be up in Montana all summer and I’d love to come see what you’re doing in Missoula if you have the time!
Best,
Lynne

Hey Nici,
It’s Lynne Avril, Skip and Deb and your mom’s friend. I saw this because your ma is bragging about you on FB, and well she should! I love your stufff! You are a girl after my own heart! I am in Paris right now, but I’ll be up in Montana all summer and I’d love to come see what you’re doing in Missoula if you have the time!
Best,
Lynne

Thanks Nici!

This mama needed to hear that today!

Suits are not so important anyway. Great post, as always, and congratulations on what seems like a wonderful opportunity to continue loving what you do, and doing what you love!

Hey! Love the article in the paper!!!

How lovely to be honored and so perfect to have little Ruby in your arms as you delivered your talk.
I gave a eulogy at my grandfather’s memorial last winter and suddenly there were two children flanking my sides as I talked. It was perfect.

The “mom clubs” are so weird. It must be so hard on new moms who think that if they don’t follow ALL the tenets say, of attachment parenting, then, they’ve failed.

Having my first child premature actually helped scatter so many of my parenting ideals. I had to stand by and watch as my child was given antibiotics, formula, blood transfusions. (And even though he received my breastmilk, it was through a tube or bottle for the first 3 months).

My Mama club includes Christians, athiests, breast-feeders for 6 months – 4 years, vaccinators and non-vax, home schoolers and full-time working mothers.
Maybe a prerequisite would be: can we laugh and communicate well together? Do we care about the same issues?

You rock, girlfriend. SO glad you are making it happen, making it happy and are a part of this little corner of the world wide web.

Sage: Yes, circle is much better!

Chiot’s: too bad for those horrible commenters! I think you seem very cool and those in your club are lucky.

6512: SO TRUE that a kid in the hospital scatters previous mama ideologies…survival, health, love. That’s it.

I am part of club dig

Nice Nicole. Really nice, very proud of you everyday

I love that you are just so happy with what YOU are doing. So many people are critics- they don’t understand that their beliefs don’t fit into my world. I once had a mom say to me “Why did you even have a child if you’re just going to have someone else take care of them” (I’m a working mom). That hurt my feelings, it was the worst comment someone could have ever made to me. I could never say that to a person…. but having my daughter- I’ve never regretted it for a second. I did, however, regret having lunch with that woman.

ohhh, i would love to be member of ‘club dig’ (or ‘circle dig’)! but unfortunately, i am too fare away, in germany… 🙁

my own cirlce is a little smaller in this moment, because i had to start working some month ago, what is very exhausting and hard for me, because i LOVE to be home with my three girls.

therefore, my virtual circle had grown 😉

i enyoy very much to read your articles and to watch your pictures of your life and your sweetwonderful children. thank you for this joy!

(captcha says ‘digst’ – dig, digger, digst, hm? 😉 )

Love this post so much, Nici! I wanna be just like you when I have kids 😉

it’s so hard not to judge. because as a mom you NEED to believe that you are doing it right.
i think the part that we often forget is that you are doing what is right … FOR YOU. and that others may be doing what is right for them.
it’s ALL right. just not the same kind of right … and we need to embrace each other for believing in ourselves.

Finally finding time to leave a comment to this provocative post, Nici. I left a Ph.D. program at Stanford mainly because I was disappointed with many aspects of academic life and did not want that life for myself or my family. Having a child a year before I left helped clarify my mind about everything but was not the reason I left. Talk about leaving a club really fast…Women in academe feel embarrassed to talk about family and children, and my leaving put me immediately in a convenient box for everyone who stayed behind: I was yet another woman lured away from the (exciting) life of the intellect by the (boring) life at home. Such load of crap. The fact that I gave up a prestigious fellowship and chose to teach high school, which I find far more fulfilling, did not register. And finding other like-minded women who don’t think that it’s a black-and-white choice between home or work, or intellectual life and family life, has been pretty hard.

Echoing what others have said – just wanted to say that I really appreciate you and what you choose to put out there, Nicci! I always enjoy coming here – you are so positive and generous and honest. Your girls are really lucky.

Thanks for being so celebratory of all our choices and our rights to make them and pursue our own joy! I think you contribute so much to the world just by being who you are. Cheers!

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