On Friday, April 23 I co-moderated a room on Clubhouse called “Busting the Myths of Motherhood” alongside some incredible women:

• Laura Modi, CEO & Cofounder at Bobbie

• Aliza Friedlander, PR Strategist and Journalist

• Kim Chappell, Head of Marketing and Comms at Bobbie

• Sharon Mazel, NYT Best Selling Author

“Let’s feed our babies, and let’s not judge.” Bobbie is a new style of organic U.S. baby formula that’s European style and meets FDA standards. Learn more about Bobbie here.

Listen to parts of our chat below:

The chat started off with a discussion around the pressures of being a working mom. This is a theme that appeared throughout the conversation in different ways. Many women felt like they couldn’t do both: be a good mom and also be ambitious and career driven. In society and even in popular TV shows, working and career driven women are often portrayed as choosing their careers over their family — which is simply not the reality for most women. In my personal experience, I’m the breadwinner of our family and for the longest time I was the only one with a stable income. I couldn’t choose to be a stay-at-home-mom even when I wanted to when Archie was a newborn.

Maria Berglund shared that she loves working and that “doing something for yourself - a job for example - fills your bucket in a different way.” I couldn’t agree more. I work for Cisco Webex and I absolutely love working on a team and contributing to a company mission. My coworkers feel like family and my job is exciting and fulfilling. Not to say that motherhood isn’t, but like Maria said, it fills your bucket in a different way. Going back to how television portrays working mothers — I think there’s still a lot of work to be done around normalizing “the working mom” and that it’s okay for women to love their jobs and love their families too.

Eileen Grimes shared her challenges about how the pushback she received when she choose to send her child to daycare during the pandemic. As the discussion between working motherhood went on, Sharon jumped in and shared that, “the best parenting style is the one that works for you.”

Tai Jackson and Aliza shared a commonality in discussing that being a stay at home mom can be an incredibly lonely journey. Tai shared that when she became a mom, she learned the value of having mom friends and in creating your village of support. Tai shares that although she doesn’t take being a stay-at-home-mom for granted, she said it comes with it’s fair share of misconceptions as well. She said, “I think that's another myth that like we need to talk about also that, yes, being stay at home mom is beautiful, being a working mom is also beautiful, and being both is beautiful and it can be really challenging.”

Aliza shared how Clubhouse has helped her and a lot of moms gain confidence, “I've gained so much confidence through this community. How wonderful is it that we can all be on this call and I can have kids in the background, and I'm not worried about it.”

The chat fluctuated between the correlations of working motherhood and choosing formula. Many women shared that the pressures and expectations of breastfeeding were too much and they suffered a lot of mom guilt in choosing formula. Kim shared that a lot of people take an “all or nothing approach” to baby feeding and think they have to choose one or the other when in reality, breastfeeding and formula feeding go hand in hand.

Liz (@thenewyorkstylist) talked about combo feeding and how she had a doctor congratulate her to making it 1 year into breastfeeding and how he began to talk badly about his wife that she “only” made it to 7 months. She discussed that there was so much wrong with that scenario and how she felt empathy towards her doctors wife.

My personal experience is that I almost exclusively breastfed until 6 weeks and when I went back to work we did combo feeding (both formula and breastmilk) and it was fantastic. I have no shame in using formula — I was a formula baby and so was my husband and we’re both healthy and happy today. I loved breastfeeding but exclusively breastfeeding was a lot of work and I didn’t mind having the break by offering the bottle. When baby number 2 comes around I will probably do both again!

Nicole Puckerin (@themomlink) shared her perspective as being a Canadian expat here in America and how different maternity policies are.

Sandra (@themomrant) wants to dispel the myth that in order to be a good mom, you need to be “straight-laced”. This made me think about the type of mom I am. I’m not sure if I’m straight-laced or a hot mess, I think I’m relaxed and easy-going but kind of a stickler about certain things. I think it’s nice to have an open-minded view on motherhood!

Overall, I really enjoyed being a co-moderator on this Clubhouse chat and would do it again in a heartbeat! It was wonderful to listen to everyone’s stories and how every mom has a unique perspective to share. I’ve been enjoying Clubhouse because it’s been a much easier and more laid-back way to meet people. On Instagram, all you have is someone’s photos and they way they DM to figure out if you have a connection or not. Through audio, you can really tell if you’ll jive with a person or not. You can connect with me on Clubhouse by searching my podcast name: @newmamaspodcast — hope to catch you in a chat soon!