Mompreneur Next Door

This quote, "Comparison is the thief of joy," by Theodore Roosevelt is so true! I never heard it until I started my Mompreneur gig a few years ago and wish I would have known about it when my kids were little because we moms are so good at comparing ourselves to other moms and thinking we suck. Why oh why do we do it? I have no idea. Here's what I do know. When my kids were little, I thought pretty much everyone else in the mom world had their sh$t together except for me. Reading it now is just laughable because there's no way that everyone else in the world knew what they were doing and that I was singled out. But that's how I felt. My kid melted down and I screamed back - only mom ever to do that. My kid didn't want what I cooked for dinner so I just gave in and served crap - certainly the only mom to have ever done that. My kid was crying and could not get it together so I turned on a show - definitely the only mom ever on the planet who ever thought of

Working out today with some of my favorite mamas, I was talking to a mom about saying no. It came up because she was going to run an errand at a local store but was hesitant because she didn't want them to sell her other stuff. She feels like it's too hard to say no, so she finds herself listening to a spiel that she's not interested in just to be nice and dreads this store. This got me to thinking - why is it so hard to say no? As toddlers, we say it loud, well and often. In fact, toddlers say no hundreds of times a day. You read that right. Hundreds. Of. Times. A. Day. Moms of toddlers - I know you're not surprised😉 Then we get older, we become afraid to say no, and we dodge questions that will elicit that response. So I'm going to challenge all of you to start saying no with tact and grace and teach your kids to do the same. Because the larger issue is that we don't know how to say no, and it's not something we're taught nor do we teach it. It&