MamaBlogger365 - Q&A with a Psychologist: What’s Up With Motherhood? An interview with Jessica Zucker, Ph.D. with Hollee Schwartz Temple, The New Perfect

Jessica Zucker is a L.A.-based psychologist who specializes in women's heath, especially transitions in motherhood. She'll be one of the featured panelists at the Museum of Motherhood's Mindful Mothering conference, Monday, November 7. There's still time to register! Click here for more info.

Why are moms so competitive with each other?

Jessica Zucker, Ph.D.: Culture sets up a troubling dynamic between women – mothers or not. Comparing ourselves to one another is a mainstay embedded in the fabric of cultural confusion and promotes separation rather than connection. Motherhood seems to stir profound insecurities for women as they traverse the simultaneously joyous, daunting, rewarding, and vulnerable journey that is parenthood. Women are often stymied by the overwhelming amount of time and energy parenting requires, leaving little room for pre-motherhood activities. Most people aren’t forthcoming about how anxious they feel, how isolating mothering can be, or how fulfilling it is to love a little person in such an inexplicable way. Competitiveness bubbles below the surface from pre-conception onward. Painfully insecure moments pool in the psyches of mothers as they contemplate a million tiny and meaningful decisions and feelings throughout the day.

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Dr. Jessica Zucker will be a featured speaker at the Museum of Motherhood's Mindful Mothering day conference on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011; visit MOMmuseum.org to register!

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This interview was originally published by The New Perfect.

Photo credit: alvimann|MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - My Journey from Never Enough to Good Enough by Hollee Schwartz Temple

Hollee Schwartz Temple is co-author of Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood (Harlequin Nonfiction, Spring 2011)

Flash back three years, and through my kitchen window you’d see a frazzled mom, laden with a package of Oreos, a bag of pretzel sticks and a Highlights magazine.

My then-kindergartener, Gideon, had seen the idea for “spider cookies” in the magazine, and so there I stood, determined to make “the best” snack for his class. It was all going according to plan until I tried to insert the first pretzel leg into the Oreo spider body, and found that either the pretzel leg or the cookie body cracked when I tried to complete the project. Two hours later, as my husband munched on “spiders” I had rejected as not good enough to serve to the five-year-olds, he wondered out loud whether anyone would even realize that the concoctions -- which ultimately took two hours to assemble -- were supposed to be spiders!

That was then, and thankfully, over the past three years, I’ve learned to take a fresh new approach to my work/life balance. Through the research my friend Becky and I performed for our new book, Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood, I came to discover that attitude is really everything if you want to enjoy the life you’ve been given. Read more...

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