When our children reach 18 and get ready to move out - to college or the military or just adult life - it is natural for us to think "now they will have to figure out who they are".  We smugly settle into our comfortable kitchens and talk with our spouses or friends about the way our sons or daughters will meet the challenges that face them in an uncertain future.

What is less common is for us to look in the mirror and ask ourselves - and who am I now?  Of course, as we get older, changes are more subtle.  Unlike our youthful selves, we older selves are unlikely to suddenly dye our hair blue or decide to become vegetarians.  Just because the changes are subtle, doesn't mean they are not there.  We all change and learn with time.  Your children have taught you a lot over the years.  Many women say their children have taught them to respect diversity and to prioritize according to principle rather than preference.  Others have their world's opened to appreciate a sport or a type of music they never really understood before.  You have grown over the years just as your children have, just not as obviously.

How do you want to use your new found knowledge?  What is important to you today?  Perhaps you put some of your dreams on hold while your children were small.  As they need less of your time, you can resurrect those dreams.  Ask yourself what have your learned in all these years of motherhood and just plain living.  While children are young and so demanding, we have little time to check in on our basic beliefs and priorities.  Getting food on the table, homework done and driving them wherever they need to be is far more pressing than contemplating our political or religious or philisophical beliefs.  But as they become more self-sufficient, we can use some of that time to rediscover ourselves and re-engage in the world in a new way.  You will be happier if you use your strengths to contribute to the world in a way that interests and engages you.  There is so much you can do, it's just a question of choosing the path most appealing to you.

Motherhood is some of the best leadership training in the world.  As the kids move on and move out, don't think of yourself as an mother bird in an empty nest.  Think of yourself as a retired CEO who is looking for her next gig.

The first time I ever skied in my life, I went wtih a big group of kids to a place in Wisconsin, about an hour from my house.  All of them had skiied before and, as soon as we got off the bus, they scattered to their favorite runs.  I was left alone to figure out which hill to ski and how to get to the top of it.  I started with a relatively small hill and got in line for the tow rope.  Watching those ahead of me, I figured out where to position my body and where to put my hands on the rope.  When it was my turn, I stepped up to the rope, grabbed on tight and promptly fell flat on my face.  A kind stranger picked me up and said "you need to let the rope slip through your hands and hold on very lightly so that it takes you with it.  Don't squeeze". 

As I am a week away from the high school graduation of my first born son, those words seem particularly apt.  He is 18 years old and ready to go out in the big world.  He needs to make his own decisions, his own mistakes and his own life.  

When they are children, we squeeze them tightly.  We tell them how to behave at the table, at school and on play dates.  We teach them their ABCs and we teach them right from wrong.  We listen and coach them through tricky social challenges and we are there for every triumph on the stage or the playing field.

As they move into young adulthood, we need to loosen our grip.  If we want them to continue to share their lives with us, to tell us stories of their adventures and to bring their friends home, we need to loosen our grip but not let go. 

It's not easy.  Are there curfews after 18 years old?  Do we tell them they can't drink even though we can't control whether they do our not?  Do we set rules while they are in our house but not have rules when they are away at school?  Every parent makes their own choice based on their kid and their values. 

Still, it feels uncomfortable.  For 18 years, there's been a playbook.  It wasn't always clear or easy to follow but there was lots of advice from teachers and family and other parents about how to handle disciplining and motivating your children.  With high school graduation, we are at the end of the mapped world.  There is a vague ocean ahead with indistinct threats but no map for navigating it.  Instead of being the navigator, we become the lighthouse.  Our young adult children will need to navigate for themselves but they need us to keep the beacon lit.  They need to know they can come to us for advice and guidance but we are a stationary object - not on the bridge.

So, as I sit in the stands watching my son and his friend graduate, I will try to remember that parenthood is a rope tow and that I have retired from being the captain of his ship to being his lighthouse.

If you have any stories to share of transitions in parenthood, I would love to hear them.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, like Gigi (thanks, Gigi), you know that I co-authored a book entitled "What Happy Working Mothers Know" (Wiley).  It came out on September 8th and my co-author, Cathy Greenberg, and I launched the book at the Pennyslvania Governor's Conference for Women on September 17th.  Last week, the book hit 4 best seller lists - the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon.  We could not be more thrilled.

When we spoke to a group of 2000 women in Philadelphia last Thursday, we explained to them why we wrote the book.  Both Cathy and I struggled to find happiness as working mothers.  Our stories are very different but we both had a lot of career success and beautiful children but, for many years, we did not feel at peace.  We want to help other women to find their path to happiness faster and more directly than we did.  The book is science based and also contains many stories of women we interviewed who inspired us.

We don't advocate that mothers should go to work, nor do we advocate that they should stay home with their children.  That is an intensely personal decision.  We advocate for happiness.  Through the book, we give women the insights and the tools to get over whatever the obstacles are that are getting in the way of their happiness. 

On our website - www.whathappyworkingmothersknow.com - we will post tools and articles for free.  Our goal is not to make money with this book.  I have a job and Cathy doesn't need the money.  Our goal is to make a positive difference in women's lives.

I hope you will read the book and share it with a friend.  Let me know what you think.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for me.  I'm not sure why, but I've made more mistakes and had more arguments with friends in the last two weeks than I have in the last 2 years.  It may be that the planets are in retrograde, whatever that means.  All I know is I've been feeling like there was a weight on my head and my chest.  The weight was anger - at myself and at others.  It made me feel very unhappy.

So, is it ok to be angry?  Little girls are often taught that anger is not ok, it's not feminine.  We all know that is just silly.  Anger is human.  Everyone feels it and it serves a purpose.  Anger tells you that something is wrong, it is out of alignment.  The problem is, we often misdiagnose our anger.  We may be too quick to blame others.  Or, we may be too quick to blame ourselves.  The key to making good use of anger, is to take the time to really figure out where the misalignment is.  Notice, I said misalignment not blame. 

Ask yourself, why you are angry?  What happened and how did it make you feel?  Where you disrespected?  Betrayed?  Misled?  Try to understand why the other person or people involved acted the way that they did.  Was there bad intention or was it an honest mistake?    Really try to analyze it objectively.  If it helps to talk it through, choose someone who you know to be calm and fair.  You're not looking for the friend who sides with you no matter what.  You want someone who can help you think this through. For some people, journally can be a good way to understand what is going on in your head. 

Are there actions you need to take?  Perhaps you need to have a difficult conversation with a friend or a co-worker?  Or maybe you need to resign from that committee you had volunteered for.  If you need to take action, plan it out with a cool head.

Once you've figured out exactly why you feel angry, hang onto it for a moment.  Concentrate on how right you are and how wrong they are.  Then, let it go.  Visualize a rose in your hand.   It is lush, red and perfect.   As you think about what is making you angry, the rose petals will turn brown.  Then visualize them falling from your hand and blowing away. 

Anger is a healthy, natural emotion if we use it the right way.  Listen to it, learn from it but don't hang on to it.  Holding onto to anger creates stress in your body and in your life.  It keeps things spiralling downward.  The next time you feel angry, embrace it, understand it and release it.  You'll feel stronger than ever when you do.

If you look at life as a dance, you will no doubt agree that working mothers have to dance to two different rhythms.  We have the work rhythm with a strong, insistent drum beat of profit, customer satisfaction and boss' demands.  And there is the dance at home which is more subtle and varied.  Your family looks to you to harmonize the various melodies of children and partner.  Just when you have it all working - the beat changes and you need to adjust - quickly.

Change can be exhausting and nerve racking.  It can also be exhilarating.  How do you navigate change and still do the happy dance?

Again, I draw from the wisdom of my yoga teacher, Amanda.  If you need to change position or take a challenging pose, it helps a lot to have a strong foundation.  To me, that means being very clear in your own mind about what is important to you and why.  You need to prioritize to make this work.  For most of us, our family is the most important thing in our lives.  But does that mean that you let even a small family need get in the way of work obligations?  If you did, you probably wouldn't continue working for long.  If you want to do both dances, you need to decide when you listen to one tune and when you listen to the other.  Guilt, by the way, will throw off your balance so try to let go of guilt completely.

You may need to let go of things you'd like to do but that just don't make the cut after you prioritize.  For example, home cooked meals with the whole family are important.  But, they are not more important than letting my kids get involved in sports and other activities that take them away from home at night.  Or, you would love to go to every one of your kid's soccer games but sometimes, you just need to stay at work to get something important finished.  When I travel, I miss a lot at home.  I miss all of the after school chats about the social world my boys live in.  On the other hand, I do interesting work and go to interesting places and traveling is important for me to be effective.  Although I feel sad when I miss things at home, I don't feel guilty because I made the decision to take a job that requires travel and I love what I do.

Dancing to multiple tunes every day is not easy.  It requires trial and error.  But, as Amanda told us today, learning the steps may be difficult but, once you learn the steps to the dance, you will find bliss.   

I need to share something I learned in yoga class this morning.  First, let me give you the visual of me in yoga class.  I am the one who can never get my knee to 90 degrees, who needs blocks to do triangle pose and who sits and watches while the rest of the class does handstands.  I'm terrible at yoga but I go to class because I really like the teacher, Amanda.  She picks a theme for each class and talks about it as she pushes us to take painful poses.

Today she talked about the bliss of self knowledge.  In a yoga context, that involves muscle energy and organic energy which I don't fully understand but which seem to make the poses more painful and also more powerful. 

While I was not doing handstands, I began to think about the bliss of self-knowledge in relation to being a working mother. I think that bliss, or happiness, is the product of living a life in harmony with who you truly are.  Of course, to do that, you need to know who you are which is where the self-knowledge comes in.

It's hard to shut out the expectations and demands that your family, your work and society have for you.  There are a lot of them and we bump into them every time we turn around.   It is not easy, I know, but you need to find a way to shut out all the noise long enough to hear you own voice.  Maybe it's taking a walk alone or journaling or soaking in a bubble bath or meditating.   Figure out how and what time of day you do your best thinking and reserve a few minutes of that time to try this.

Imagine your perfect life.  What is your day like in that life?  Do you go to work?  If so, what do you do at work?  What is your interaction like with your children?  What about your partner?  How do you talk to each other? 

If you are like me, this is an iterative process.  I couldn't figure it out all in one go.  In fact, it took me months of thinking and amending.  It's like an oil painting that you work on for a long time.  You create the sketch, then change the sketch.  You begin to paint, then adjust the colors.  Maybe you even scrap it and start over. 

It's not easy but it is worth it.  Because, unless you know who you are, what you enjoy and what is truly important to you, you can never find happiness.

I go back to yoga even though it hurts and I'm bad at it because I love the way I feel when I'm done.

Most of us want to be happy.  What may be getting in our way are some commonly held myths about happiness. 

Myth:  Happiness is dependent on acquiring certain things or relationships.
Truth:  Happiness is a choice you make every day.

If you have every thought, I'll be happy when....I make more money, my kids are older, I meet my soul mate, etc, you are laboring under this commonly held myth.  It is interesting to note that research involving people who won the lottery observed that, within 6 months after winning, their happiness level returned to what it had been prior to winning the lottery.    Happiness is a state of mind, it is how you choose to view the world and your place in it.  Regardless of what is going on around you, happiness is a choice you make every day.

Myth:  Happiness is a frivolous luxury
Truth:  Happiness is an important part of good health.

Many people minimize the importance of happiness.  They think happiness is for kids or self-indulgent wealthy people.  Certainly a hard working mother does not have time to worry about happiness.  In fact, happiness is an important component of good health - like diet and exercise.  Happiness reduces stress which means it also reduces the risk of stress related ailments like high blood, stroke and heart attack.  When a person feels happy, their entire nervous system synchronizes and works with less strain on the body.  Happy people are also far less likely to suffer from eating disorders, alcoholism and drug abuse.

Myth:  Happiness is a function of good luck
Truth:  Happiness is a discipline

This myth is partially true, to the extent that genetics are good luck.  In 1996, University of Minnesota Professors David Lykken and Auke Tellegen found that everyone has a genetically determined happiness set point.  It is like a default setting for happiness.  It does not determine whether someone will be happy or not but it is a significant component.  Building on that research, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky of US Riverside, Dr. Ken Sheldon of the University of Missouri and Dr. David Schkade of UC San Diego developed a model for happiness:

50% of happiness is genetic
10% of happiness is the circumstances of the individual (health, financial security, etc)
40% of happiness is a function of our choices and how we choose to view the world

If you assume that we can also influence our circumstances to some extent, we have control of 50% of our happiness.  It takes self-awareness, knowledge and discipline to make ourselves happy. 

In our book, "What Happy Working Mothers Know", we provide the information and the tools to help you find your happiness.  Check out our website at www.whathappyworkingmothersknow.com 

My friend and co-author, Cathy Greenberg, has taught me many valuable things.  Some of those lessons are in our book "What Happy Working Mothers Know" which will be out in September.  It is already available for pre-order on amazon.com.

This lesson is not in the book but has been very helpful to me.

For years, people would tell me to "appreciate the moment".  I would nod in agreement and then roll my eyes when they weren't looking.  Which moment, I would ask myself, should I appreciate?  Always multi-tasking, all of my moments contained at least 3 activities.  The whole thing sounded a bit trite, like when people advise me to "have a good day".

Cathy's pearl analogy really helped me to put this into practice.

First, we need some definitions.  A "moment" is a span of time.  It can be 10 seconds or an hour.  Most of my moments last between 1 and 10 minutes.  "Happy" means when you feel good.  It may be relief, pride, appreciation, laughter or just a moment in which you really connected with another person.

Think of happy moments like pearls.  They are rare and beautiful.  When you find one, you need to appreciate it, look at it, hold it up to the light and admire it.    If you found a pearl, you wouldn't complain that the floor was not filled with them.  You would hold that pearl in wonder and consider yourself lucky to have found it.  Happy moments can be like that too.

Your happy moments can come anywhere at any time.  Maybe, when you open your eyes in the morning, you take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the color of the sky.  Or your happy moment may come as you tie up your running shoes to go on your morning run.  It could come when you hear your baby giggle or when you get a quick moment of praise at work.  Whenever or however it comes, take a moment to polish it before you store it in your pouch.

I put words around my happy moments.  I will actually say (often outloud) "this is a pearl".  In fact, my sons are so used to it that they sometimes identify the pearls for me.  As we sit in the kitchen after school laughing about the days events, one of them will say "is this a pearl, mom?"  When they do that, I get two pearls for the price of one.

You will find that when you are looking for moments of happiness, they appear more often than you might expect.  So open your eyes and your heart and look for the pearls in your life.  Try it and let me know how it goes.

    I'm currently reading a book called "Womenomics" by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.  Both women are working mothers in the highly competitive field of tv journalism.  They write about an important workplace trend - led by working mothers but followed by men and younger women as well.  The trend is to reject the climbing of the corporate ladder to design your own career path.  A strong desire to find a comfortable work life balance is what drives this trend.  Increasing numbers of people, from working moms to millenials, reject the idea of letting work crowd out the other important things in their lives.  

    As I read this book, I am struck by how much of it describes my own career over the past 9 years.  In August 2000, my family and I left Chicago to move to Tucson.  I was looking for a way to have both a career that was interesting and to be with my sons as they grew up.  I negotiated with my employer to allow me to make the move and to telecommute to work every day.  Although I was  and am grateful that my employer was flexible enough to allow me to do what I so desperately wanted to do, I paid a high price for my decision.   I had to give up the team I was managing and take a job with no direct reports and  I was taken off the path to promotion.  I felt I had taken several steps backwards on my career track.

    Shipman and Kay describe this trend as the new feminism.  The original feminists, of the 60s and 70s, gave women the opportunity to compete with men on men's terms in many fields.  It was a huge breakthrough which has made so many things possible for the women who followed.  The trend today is to challenge the status quo.  When we demand flexible work arrangements or alternative career paths, we are saying that we want to re-define the rules of career success rather than simply compete under the old rules.    This is not just a women's issue.  Increasingly men are also looking for a better work life balance and are walking through the doors that women are opening.

    As with all change, this one is not easy.  There is an ego bruising side to it.  No matter how sure you are in your decision to step off the fast track, it still hurts when you watch others - those who used to be far junior to you - zoom past as they climb the career ladder that you have eschewed.  To soothe your bruised ego, I suggest you remind yourself of all that you have gained as a result of your decision.  It doesn't make the pain go away but it helps.

    Women, particularly working mothers, are leading one of the biggest transformations in work place dynamics in decades.  We are redefining career paths and focusing on the value we bring our employers.  The millienials - the generation in their 20s today - will expect this kind of flexibility.  The companies that adapt most quickly will be the winners of the war for talent. 

    If you are one of the people who have made this decision, I'd love to hear about your experience.  If you are thinking about making this move, I'd love to hear from you too.    

We couldn't be moms without men.  That's pretty obvious but it's also easy to forget when you feel like you are the one doing all of the child care.  On the occasion of Father's Day, it seems appropriate to take a moment to celebrate the fathers in our lives - particular the father of our children.

First, a reality check.  In our research for "What Happy Working Mothers Know", Cathy Greenberg and I surveyed and interviewed over 1000 women in multiple countries.  The majority reported that they contributed 50% or more to the family income and they handled 80% or more of the child care.  Does that ring true to you?  It certainly did not surprise me.

The interesting question is why?  I think we can all agree that fathers love their children just as much as mothers do - they just express that love in a different way.  Men enjoy rough play - wrestling or tossing in the air.  Men are generally better than women at teaching kids to take a risk, to push themselves out of their comfort zone.  Perhaps most importantly, men simply see the world differently than women.  Even if Dad agrees with Mom on what time a teenager's curfew should be or whether junior should be on the travel soccer team, his reasons may be different.  Children benefit from both perspectives - mom's and dad's. 

Happy moms are those who have worked out a split of responsibility for child care that suits them.  Some women want to take on the majority of the child care.  They enjoy it and they like being clearly in charge of the kids.  Others prefer a more partnerial 50/50 split.  Decide what you want and talk with your husband about it.  Too often, we expect the men in our lives to read our minds.  Or, we are inconsistent.  We ask them to do something and then we criticize the way they do it.  If dad is in charge of getting the kids off to school in the morning, don't worry if their clothes don't match or their hair isn't combed.  If it has to be your way, you are the best one to do it.

So, today, I celebrate all dads who love their kids.  I celebrate the fun dads who devote their weekends to giving piggyback rides and playing games.  I celebrate the serious dads who talk about the news and teach their kids to play chess.  And I celebrate the well intentioned dads who forget the names of their daugthers best friend or embarass their son by shouting at the ref during a basketball game.  

Dads (like moms) are not perfect.   As long as their kids know that dad loves them, there is a lot to celebrate.

Happy Fathers Day!