Entrepreneurship

May 2013

This is our final Tradition Month post about the varieties of ways women shape their lives around children and work. We’ve discussed the Work-From-Home Mom, the Stay-At-Home Parent, and now daycare. While we’re wrapping up this discussion for the moment, we always want to hear more from you about shaping your life balance. Childless? Childfree? Daycare with a corporate job? Currently a single mom? Send it in, we want to discuss it all.

by Meg Keene

Babies and Writing Don’t Exactly Mix

When I first announced I was pregnant, and that APW wasn’t changing or shutting down, many people commented that they were “continually amazed by my energy and my ability to do it all.” My reaction to these comments was one of confusion. I mean, I assumed we’d all watched our share of babies (this has proved to be my first incorrect assumption), and knew that while babies are great, babies and writing don’t exactly mix. And secondly, I thought we all knew the answer to the question of how you do it all, right? Also incorrect.

The short answer, which seemed obvious to me at the time: help.

The long answer, which I’ve since realized is perhaps not that obvious: help. Or more specifically in our case: daycare.

But there is a reason that people were leaping to the wrong conclusion about what we’d do after the baby came: the ball is being hidden on childcare. The puzzling thing is, I don’t know why. Families that have two parents who work full time have help of some form or another. They just do. I don’t want to be the one to burst the bubble, but it’s a fact. More than that, families with two full time, working parents, assume you know they have help, because have you ever MET a baby? But the trends of entrepreneurship and telecommuting, mixed with the current cult of motherhood, have muddied the waters. We’ve taken to pretending that if you work full time from home, you can do it while bouncing a baby on your hip. We’re being asked to suspend our disbelief and pretend that women, particularly entrepreneurial women, are able to do it all. And by do it all, I mean literally Do It All, all of it, At The Same Time.

I’m Calling Housewife

The Feminine Mystique, the feminist classic about the destructive myth of the perfect middle class housewife, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary earlier this year. I read it early in my pregnancy, expecting a fascinating feminist period piece, and was gripped (and troubled) by its immediacy. Because the new feminine mystique is of the “whole mother.” The one who keeps her kids in her own care, makes organic pureed baby food, has a small urban farm in her back yard, runs a full-time business, and keeps an impeccably decorated house. Now, all of those things are pursuits I happen to personally enjoy. I love me some business running and baby wrangling, have a recently planted garden, think my house is pretty cute, and might even (ask my husband to) puree some baby food. But I don’t do all of these things at the same time. I work on making the garden and the house awesome on weekends, I wrangle a baby morning and night, and I work during the day. While my kid is at daycare.

I can’t count the number of articles I’ve read about professional bloggers, women I’m friends with, that just flat out get the assumptive facts wrong. There is the “Better Homes & Bloggers” post, “The Feminist Housewife“ article, the recent “Mommy Business Trip“ travesty, and the Mormon Housewife piece. (Which is possibly the most offensive?) While I’m interested in questioning the feminist implications of the “new domesticity,” there is danger in confusing cultural trends with actual people. The women discussed in these articles happen to run businesses focused on motherhood or women’s lifestyle—in some cases, awesome feminists businesses focused on motherhood or women’s lifestyle. Unluckily for them, that means that while I’m a small business owner, they’re housewives—even though we do exactly the same job. The articles always start with the premise that these women are living some sort of vaunted June Cleaver existence, living and documenting their perfect domestic lives, while staying at home to raise their children. And you guys? They’re not. Many if not most are professional women whose businesses happen to focus on motherhood. They sometimes do crafts for the same reason I sometimes do crafts: it’s in the job description. They by and large have full-time childcare and run a business that supports their families (often as the primary breadwinner, at that). But here is the weird part: they’re forthright about having childcare, yet the world somehow wants to assume that they don’t have help.

Last week, at Mom 2.0, I heard Rebecca Woolf speak. Rebecca was one of the women misrepresented in “The Feminist Housewife” article, presented as a mommy to her husband’s professional. She talked about how she recently wrote a (beautiful, must-read) post about having help, because even though she’d mentioned having a full time nanny over and over again on her site, people somehow missed it (or, to personally editorialize, perhaps they didn’t want to see it). They thought she had some secret that they didn’t—and that would be a serious secret, since Rebecca has four kids and a full-time writing job.

And the way we think about mothers and work is truly fucked. We’ve constructed a no-win paradigm—a jail for mothers. Women who stay at home with their children are deemed ”privileged,” and then roundly dismissed as unimportant. (Even though caring for children is hard and important work, whether it’s done by a parent in the home, or a childcare provider.) When women work, and their partners are deemed able to support the family, their work is deemed a “luxury.” (Somehow it’s never the partner’s work that’s a luxury.) And for women who work because they have to work, to feed and house their children? Well, our worst judgment is reserved for them—the women not properly providing their children with “options.”

And while mothers are damned before they even begin, they’re doubly damned by the pervasive myth of the woman who does it all. It hurts everyone: in the public eye, out of the public eye, writing about motherhood, or working at lawyering. It puts the onus of childcare on women and their careers, while letting men totally off the hook. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: In Praise Of Daycare

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Life, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Reclaiming Wife | 201 Comments »

Apr 2013

Marriage And Early Motherhood Part II

Last week we gave you part one of Marriage and Early Motherhood, a two-part interview series where I get to pepper Meg with questions about her thoughts on choosing to have kids, being pregnant, and her perspective on the past few months of being a new mom. While the idea for this feature might have been ours (well, mine. I possibly harassed Meg into talking more about motherhood in one post than she probably plans to for the rest of time), the content is decidedly yours. The questions we’re asking were sourced from the almost five hundred comments you left in our open thread on the same subject back in March. And man are they good ones. If I’m being honest, part two is my favorite half of the interview, because today we get at some of the more taboo topics in motherhood—the stuff we aren’t talking about in a lot of other places: bodies, support systems, and the pressure for motherhood to be an all-consuming force. So if you missed part one, go check it out and come back. If you’re here for round two, let’s dig in.

—Maddie

Cage Match: My Thighs vs. Awesome Baby

Maddie: Ok, I just want to throw a few words out there and have you respond to them. I want to hear you talk about vanity. Because I feel like there is a lot that goes into, just, body stuff.

Meg: I think people are kind of ashamed to say that they have issues around vanity. And I mean, I think humans do. I don’t even think that’s something just women do. I gained more than forty percent of my body weight during pregnancy, and I was not made to feel awesome about that by the medical establishment. I did not do anything funny; that’s just what my body wanted to put on. I then turned around and it is almost all gone, I have a four-month-old, and I have not spent an inordinate amount of time at the gym. In fact, I could not go to the gym until week twelve because of medical stuff. So, my point there is not that you should be required to lose all of your pregnancy weight. If you can’t breastfeed, for example, it’s just going to take a long time. My point is the human body is way more resilient than we’re led to believe.

That said, there are parts of your body that will never be the same. There are things that’ll never be the same, but I hear people talking about it like that’s a reason to stop themselves from having kids if they otherwise want to. My problem with that is not the vanity, because you’re allowed the vanity. My problem with that is that shit’s going to happen anyway because you’re going to get older. So if you want to have kids, the idea that you would, like, worry that your boobs aren’t gonna look as awesome? Newsflash, your boobs are not going to look as awesome. That train has already left the station. So, there are parts of your body that will never look the same, though for me it hasn’t been terrifically extreme. I don’t want to say this in a minimizing your fears kind of way, but it literally is like, I look at my thighs and think, “I have a lot of stretch marks,” and then I look at my baby and think, “There is a new human being who lives here who is awesome.” I’m not saying I don’t have huge amounts of vanity like everybody else, but you can’t even compare. I’m like, “My thighs vs. awesome baby? Whatever, I’m going to buy a different swimsuit this year. Moving on.”

Everything Will Change…Right?

Maddie: Okay, so the other word. Motherhood and identity and all that goes with it. Motherhood and identity. I feel like you have a lot to say about motherhood, so I’m not even going to ask you a question.

Meg: Not everyone shares my opinion on this, but I do not feel like I have a new identity. At all. Period. The interesting thing about this is there are a lot of very smart women in my life who I’m very close to and respect a ton who have really felt like motherhood sort of internally rebuilt them. And I do not feel like that. I feel like I am exactly the person I was before I had the baby. I just now have a baby and in a lot of ways—and I don’t mean this in an everyone should have a baby sort of way at all—but the change for me is that I feel like I have a richer and deeper interior life than I did. I would say that I’m happier than I was, but you know, my interests are not any different. And my identity is not any different. And if I can say that now, when I am still deeply in the thrall of hormones, then that is a pretty radical thing to say. Because I think often your identity really shifts when you’re in the thrall of the hormones, and then by the time you’re the parent of a twelve-year-old, you’re not—I have friends who are parents of twelve-year-olds because, again, people we know got pregnant right after high school—by the time you kid is thirteen, you’re not like, “My identity revolves around my teenager.” But I didn’t even really experience that in the short term. Your mileage may vary, however.

Maddie: What about the flipside? Maybe it’s because, I dunno, I’m a couple years behind, or because of where I lived, or whatever, but on the flip side, I feel this extreme pressure to, if we do have a kid one day, to make it sort of no big deal. I did the same thing with my marriage where I was like, “Just married, no big deal. I think I like this guy, he’s okay,” kind of thing. And I’m afraid that I will be…

Meg: Why is that?

Maddie: I think it’s a rejection of the cultural narrative that it’s this huge, life altering…

Meg: …everything will change.

Maddie: Yes, exactly. So I feel like I need to say, “Nope, all the same here. Fine and dandy.” And I don’t know if that’s something that will change, or if I’m shooting myself in the foot with that.

Meg: I think you have to allow for the fact that things change. My identity has not shifted, but that doesn’t mean that all kinds of things haven’t changed. You know, there’s a whole new person in our lives. So, I think it’s a little bit of a balance. I also think that I’m in a weird situation in terms of identity, because super weirdly to me—because friends of ours had kids twelve and thirteen years ago—but super weirdly to me we are young within our friends circle to have kids, young within the greater Bay Area professional scene to have kids. In David’s office, the people who have kids the same age as ours are partners in their early forties. So, I’ve been in this weird situation where I roll up to daycare and I’m wearing some—David always mocks me that I’m wearing some trendy crap. I’m wearing like, Hunter wellies and patterned tights and a jean skirt and a striped shirt. And everyone else is noticeably older and wearing office clothes. There really can be this sort of mismatch, I feel like I look like the babysitter. Which is ridiculous because I’m thirty-two. So it can be sort of interesting the ways your identity maybe doesn’t shift, and then how you relate to other parents. I haven’t figured that part out yet. At all.

How We Stay Sane

Maddie: One thing I want to talk about is this idea of support. Because I feel like there is this myth of you and your partner, and that’s it, and you just do this. And I’ve noticed just by spending time with you—you have a pretty big support system.

Meg: Maddie knows that because she had my baby at her farm all day on Saturday. And she couldn’t do it alone at her farm.

Maddie: I couldn’t!

Meg: She had a husband and a roommate and a box of Chicken in a Bisket. And a dog.

Maddie: So true.

Meg: I think support is the most key thing to talk about. Continue reading Marriage And Early Motherhood Part II

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Gender & Feminism, Life, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Reclaiming Wife | 190 Comments »

Apr 2013

Marriage And Early Motherhood, Part I

When I first approached Meg to do an interview with me about early motherhood, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to get out of it exactly. It’s not so much that Michael and I are even in a place where we want kids yet, but I’m definitely in a place where I want to be able to talk about wanting kids without having to spiral down into hyperbole. So much of what’s available for conversations about parenting is either fear-mongering, or condescending, or prescriptive, and none of it allows for me to safely express my anxieties about having children in a space where I feel like I’m being given platform for honest discussion (both online and off). And if the 500 plus comments from our open thread on the subject are any indication, I’m willing to bet that the same goes for a lot of you.

Over the past few years APW has played the role for me of best friend’s big sister, who will tell it like it is. So, I thought maybe an old fashioned sleepover-type confessional could be the answer. As some of you might know from Meg’s pregnancy announcement last year, Meg and David are choosing to keep their family life pretty private, so this might be the most I ever get out of her on the subject. Meg will be the first to tell you that she’s no expert on child-rearing (her words were “I’ve been at this for exactly four and a half months. You can call me in for expert advice when I’ve had ten kids.”) Which means that this interview is not meant to be in any way prescriptive, nor is it meant to represent the experience of all new mothers everywhere. Rather, in the same way that I once found solace in these pages hearing that marriage wouldn’t fundamentally change who I am if I didn’t let it, and that a career move isn’t a prison sentence, this interview gave me the reassurance that having children doesn’t mean getting on a roller coaster ride and enduring it until it’s time to get off. When Meg and I first started talking about this interview, she told me, “I don’t want to offer any advice on motherhood, other than the magic that is overnight diapers. The rest is just thoughts from the trenches. Your mileage may vary.” I think that just about sums it up. So here is part one of Marriage And Early Motherhood (part two to follow next week). May it spark a non-terrifying conversation that makes you feel a little better too.

—Maddie

That Gut Feeling

Meg: Are you going to set the scene? Wisteria. A lime popsicle. The sun. Chicken enchiladas, cooked by Meg’s husband.

Maddie: [Laughing] Yes. The enchiladas were really good. Ok, so one of the first questions people asked in the comments of our open thread was about the issue of confidence with the decision to have kids. Because I think a lot of people are concerned that if you aren’t 100% certain that you want, want, WANT a baby, that you have no business having one. And I’m curious what your take is on that?

Meg: Yeah, I think that’s bullshit. There’s this Elizabeth Gilbert quote in Committed where someone says to her something like, “Having a baby is like having a tattoo on your face. If you’re not sure about it, you shouldn’t get it.” And I just don’t think that’s true. There are very few decisions in life that you’re that sure about, period. Right? And I think that probably anyone who is 100% sure about having kids and never has any questions about it, that is where I might question whether or not you knew what you were getting into. Because you’re committing to a very big life change, and the scary thing about having kids is that it’s the one of the few things in your life you can’t get out of. The dirty secret about marriage is that if it doesn’t work you get a divorce. Yeah, it sucks, and it’s going to fuck up your life but you move on. The scary part about having a kid is that it’s irrevocable. So if there isn’t some part of you that’s like, “Uh, is this a good idea?” I just worry that you haven’t applied your analytical self to it.

Maddie: I feel like there’s this thing that’s happening, where there’s celebrity pregnancies are really oddly sexualized, and then in educated, urban communities there is this glorification of pregnancy and motherhood. I’m curious how you anticipated, and also dealt with that. Because that’s something I’m scared of… having to explain why I’m either bottle feeding or not using cloth diapers, or on the flipside having to explain doing all those things… I guess, it’s the whole mainstream versus indie thing.

Meg: Right. In some ways we were protected because we’re so early in our friends circle having kids.

Maddie: Which is hilarious also.

Meg: Right? Because I’m, what? 32? But we have a couple of friends who have kids… our friends who have kids have kids who are either five or thirteen (we have a lot of friends that got pregnant right after high school, or are a little older than us, or who just don’t have kids at all.) There was no one that was contemporaneously having children. So we were able to do things the way we thought were logical, which has led to some interesting social moments later, when we were around parents, because we, like, didn’t know that everyone got an infant car seat and it just didn’t seem logical to us, so we didn’t get an infant car seat. We got a convertible car seat, and then we didn’t have an infant carrier to carry the baby around with and I totally looked like I was making a political statement when I was out with other mothers. But that sort of protected me in some ways. I did feel a lot of pressure around the, what I call the Cult of Whole Motherhood: give birth at home, don’t have an epidural, don’t ever bottle feed, etc. Though ultimately a lot of that stuff worked itself out. I sort of fundamentally (no surprise here, the whole site is built around this) am just not a dogmatic person. So I went into labor being like, you know it might be nice not to get an epidural, but we’ll see, I had a pretty precipitous labor so—our doula actually said it was the most intense labor she’d ever witnessed—so I got an epidural. I had milk supply issues right away, so I supplemented with formula. Because it seemed like the baby was going to starve if we didn’t. And now, he’s 95% breast fed. So I sort of worked it out by doing what was logical. But there does have to be a certain amount of just tuning out what different people want you to do.

Do Your Hormones Eat Your Rational Brain?

Maddie: Shifting to post-baby, one of the questions that really struck me in the comments of the open thread was whether or not you can avoid your own hormones? And this idea that there’s a lot of inevitability built into having a kid, in that you can say you’re not going to want to do X, or you can think you don’t want do Y, but once the baby’s there and your hormones kick in, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Meg: Sort of yes, sort of no. I think the way the narrative is built is really damaging. You’re not going to become a new person unless on some level you want to become a new person or are secretly hoping you’ll become a new person or are just really embracing that. So this whole idea that “You just don’t now, you just don’t know”—I think in the big picture I don’t know that that’s actually true. I knew I wanted to keep working, and people said “Oh you just don’t know, you just don’t know,” and, well, no. I know who I am, right, so I do want to keep working.

However, you don’t know what your hormones are going to do. But the idea that your hormones take over your rational brain is not true. I was not aware the I was physically going to go through withdrawal having the baby in daycare, I was going to be physically shaky at first because my hormones were at conflict with my rational mind. My rational mind wanted to be at work, but also my baby was happier in daycare, I was happier with him in daycare, but my hormones were telling me something else. So yes. In some ways you can’t avoid your hormones and they are super powerful, and they’re going to do what they are going to do, but your rational mind is still as much in play as ever.

Maddie: When it comes to a lot of the other stuff that I think people try to caution you about: the lack of sleep, how much attention they need, how many physical needs they have, I know a lot of people expressed concern over just being able to function as they know themselves in those early days and whether or not they could physically survive it. Continue reading Marriage And Early Motherhood, Part I

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Gender & Feminism, Life, Marriage, Reclaiming Wife | 180 Comments »

Apr 2013

Letter From The Editor: The Good

Dear APW,

Life is complicated right now. I don’t mean that as a euphemism for bad. Not like Facebook’s “It’s Complicated” relationship status (though yes, David and I often discuss changing our relationship status to “It’s Complicated” on a random day, and sitting back to enjoy the made-for-Facebook drama that would ensue). I actually mean life is complicated, in that there a lot of things going on, and a lot of different levels at which I’m supposed to be operating. New parenthood is a bit of a trip, and I really do mean that in the best way. (Two people used to live in this house, and now three do. One of them was made by the first two people. WHAT IS THAT?) It’s straight up complicated.

I had this blissfully ignorant idea that when I got back from maternity leave, I’d just hit the ground running, same as I ever was. This seemed reasonable to me because, let’s be honest, while I technically took four months off for maternity leave (that’s one month for extended labor and three months for the baby, for those of you keeping track at home), in reality, I took one month off (December. The month after I gave birth.) and a couple of other months without full responsibility, but sometimes lots of work. So really, how different was it going to be to be back at work?

Quick answer: Lots different.

Long answer: Oh My God.

Here is the thing: I did, in fact, hit the ground running. There were something like four major projects vying for my attention when I got back. Some sucked (legal). Some were awesome (Pantene Beautiful Lengths, other secret projects that are yet to be revealed). Some were in the middle (accounting, piles of paperwork). So I worked, and did. And also, I didn’t sleep much. Perhaps you have not heard of four-month sleep regression? But yes, it’s a thing, and yes, it’s timed to hit right about when lots of (American) women go back to work and start getting settled in. High five, system! So, with all that, it turned out that one big project didn’t happen: loads and loads of writing. And of course that one thing that didn’t happen, became the thing that consumed my brain. Continue reading Letter From The Editor: The Good

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Life, Meg's Thoughts | 37 Comments »

Mar 2013

Introducing APW’s Business Interns

Two weeks ago, Maddie got to introduce the APW writing interns for 2013. Today I’m super excited to get to introduce the 2013 business interns. Reading APW intern applications is both the best and the worst thing I do all year. It’s the worst thing, because I get overwhelmingly sad that APW isn’t some huge organization where we can hire all of you. And it’s the best thing, because it kind of restores my faith in humanity. You guys are the smartest, funniest, most driven group of women I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. And did I mention hilarious in a smart and political way? Reader who listed “Stay At Home Mother” on her resume, with a list of skills including “taught tiny human the English language,” I salute you. You are a bad ass.

But. Because life is not a bowl of cherries, I had to narrow it down to just two writing interns (whose awesomeness is beginning to show) and two business interns. Applying to the APW business internship program was a particularly difficult task, because the job description was so open ended. We didn’t have any specific needs, so we just asked you to tell us why you wanted to come be part of the team, and why we should bring you on. And boy, did you guys deliver. I guess in this case, life is actually a box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. But what we got was:

Lucy Bennett! Lucy’s application last year is what gave me the idea for the business internship program this year. (Surprise, Lucy! She doesn’t know that.) I kept looking at it thinking, “I want to hire her, but I don’t have a slot for her.” Turns out she applied again this year (phew) and her application was a standout. You know Lucy from all over the comment section (her web persona is You Love Lucy), and her recent wedding grad post. Lucy’s going to be bringing some serious graphic design skills to APW (you can see some of her killer portfolio here). Lucy’s resume says that she’s looking for “a work environment where I can make nice things for people, where I can wear as many (literal or metaphorical) hats as I like, and where work and silliness can coexist peacefully.” Lucy, we raise our top hats to you! Exactly.

Joanna Kirtley! Joanna studied Project Design at Stanford (which is basically ~~king~~ queen of strange and fascinating majors), which means she’s trained how to “understand people deeply and uncover their unmet needs,” and then meet them. So watch out for your secret APW yearnings to be met. She’s also a project manager and is going to be organizing us up. Oh, and also-also? She does graphic design, and has a penchant for infographics. I know, right? I know.

So without further ado, the ladies themselves. Please give them a big cheer, and feel free to throw out ideas about your unmet needs… if you know what they are. If not, watch for Joanna figuring them out…

—Meg

Continue reading Introducing APW’s Business Interns

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Meg's Thoughts, Uncategorized | 17 Comments »

Feb 2013

Letter From The Editor: Not A Rom-Com

Dear APW,

Before we get started on Not A Rom-Com month, let’s just put this out there: I’m a big fan of Romantic Comedies. David (who otherwise has excellent taste) is not, so when he’s gone I’ll watch any Romantic Comedy I can get my hands on. In fact, today’s second post references The Holiday, which is a perfect example of the form if you ask me. Plus, Kate Winslet.

That said, the trouble with Romantic Comedies is glaringly obvious. Rom-Coms are our new fairytales, our cultural mythmakers, and they spin a web of narrative that is hard for us to escape. The myths hide so deeply in our psyches that we don’t know they are there until they’ve leapt out to bite us in the (totally unrealistic) ass. For me, the most damaging Romantic Comedy myth was not, of course, margaritas with the gay best friend (reality?). What really messed with my head was the Romantic Comedy life timeline. I really thought that you graduated college, found and interesting job at a magazine or art gallery, got a nice urban apartment, and were starting down the road to serious success by twenty-two, preparing you for happily married with a baby and owning the art gallery by twenty-seven. And I know this myth has its hold on more people than me, since the APW comments are filled with laments of not being anywhere near as successful at, say, twenty-three, as expected.

Newsflash: You know who was wildly successful by twenty-three? Lindsay Lohan. Brittany Spears. Fiona Apple. Drew Barrymore. And that clearly worked out flawlessly for everyone concerned. Wild success and relative youth has a way of doing damage, and sometimes destroying talent before it even begins. I, however, was not a recipient of that newsflash, and at twenty-three, was trudging through the snow in boots I’d bought to wear to my temp reception job that were now leaking. Brilliant. Now I had freezing wet feet to go with my constant mental tape loop of despair. (If I don’t own an art gallery and a collection of wildly cute shoes at twenty-three, it’s clear the ship has sailed.) Then, to make things worse, by twenty-six I had my perfect Rom-Com theatre production job… and the same goddamn leaky shoes. Because why? Working at an art gallery/theatre/floral studio will leave you flat broke and not at all in the possession of a stylish and well-appointed apartment. (You want the reality of my twenties? Watch Girls—less the horrific sex scenes, thanks.)

I found out that the danger of Romantic Comedies is they contain a shred of truth. It is totally possible to be happy, with a job you like, an exceptional collection of shoes/handbags/records/whatever your thing is, a nicely decorated home, and a cute dog and/or baby. It’s just that, for most of us, that happens five to twenty years after the Romantic Comedy timeline says it should. And thank God. Because as Elizabeth Gilbert said, in one of my favorite (paraphrased) quotes from her ever, “I’m glad I became successful when I was old enough to know that I was neither as great as my most fervent fans thought I was, nor as terrible as my most dedicated critics.” Which is to say: know yourself first. Then get the shoe collection.*

Which pretty much applies to weddings exactly. Know thyself and be thyself. And then figure out what the eff kind of shoes to wear.

So this month we’ll be deconstructing the Romantic Comedy narrative and try to strip it of some of its (damaging) power: the grand romantic gesture, love conquers all, weddings as the end of the story. And of course, we’ll be doing it with a splash of love for the form. Because being spunky and brave like your classic Rom-Com leading lady usually does not go amiss.

Next up: What watching The Holiday (and sobbing) can teach you.

xo,
Meg

*Sidenote: I wish. I’m always the person with about five shoes in rotation. Flats, boots, sandals, gym shoes, heels. Maybe I’ll tackle that issue in the next decade.

P.S. Next month’s theme is “Decided.” Rather than the often-discussed process of making a decision, we’re talking about what happens once you’ve decided. Made a choice. Gone for it. What happens then? What happens next? (Hint: This is what a wedding is. What happens when you’ve decided.) If you want to join in the fray, submit your stories, weddings, and more here. Of course, posts not related to the theme are delightedly accepted as well.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Life, Meg's Thoughts | 34 Comments »