What Did You Learn From Michelle Kennedyã¢â‚¬â„¢s Book?

Prototype Source: Courtesy of Peanut

Michelle Kennedy is a mom to 4-year-quondam Finlay and the founder and CEO of Peanut, a social-networking app for mothers to connect and learn from agreeing women.

Michelle, the Mother. I was fine with that. I'd bought everything on my baby list, I'd read a few parenting books, I'd attended some prenatal classes to really make sure I had it all covered. I was professionally at the top of my game, running an extremely successful dating platform. I had lovely friends and a great family life (my hubby and I had been together for five years), so motherhood . . . well, that seemed like just some other step in my life, the next affiliate in my volume.

I was scared; everything was changing and it was out of my control.

When my son Finlay arrived, I felt naive. I hadn't appreciated how dissimilar everything would be. He was incredible, beautiful, fragile. I couldn't believe I'd had any role in something so perfect (all nine pounds of him), simply I was scared, like everything was changing and it was out of my command.

I'd gone from working a million miles an hour and being around people constantly to all of a sudden being at home all twenty-four hours on my own with this little dude. It was a difficult adjustment.

My husband would get to work every 24-hour interval and "leave" me at home. It sounds ridiculous to phrase it like that, simply that's how I saw it at the time. I wasn't actually sure who Michelle, the Mother, was. I'd lost my identity. I didn't know who I was anymore, and the usually very-together me felt dangerously close to falling apart.

I wanted to connect with other women going through what I was going through, only I found information technology really difficult to relate to the portrayal of motherhood I was seeing on social media and in parenting forums. I didn't recognize the tone of vocalism beingness used to address me as a mom — it was infantilizing. Searching for advice at 2 a.m. led me into a globe of mystifying abbreviations (DH? OH?), and no real way to communicate and run across other mothers like me. In that location was a lot of judgment flying around in forums, and I became so terrified of being criticized, I was tongue-tied. I became a lurker, wishing that another mother would inquire the question I had, then ducking when I felt the inevitable judgment coming. I was lonely.

I was alone. It was a actually difficult realization. It was a muddy undercover that I couldn't enunciate.

It was a actually difficult realization. I certainly didn't experience comfy with information technology. Information technology was a dirty secret that I couldn't verbalize. I mean, I had friends! I even had one who had a child. She was wonderful, only her infant was older than mine, and I felt often like I was burdening her. She really had this maternity matter down and was and so in command of her identity as a mother. Why didn't I have that?

Everything and nothing could reduce me to tears at that fourth dimension. I was extremely sensitive, and as whatsoever new female parent will tell you, in that location is nothing quite like motherhood to make strangers experience emboldened to share their opinions with you. "He looks hungry!" said an older lady in the queue at Starbucks one morn, "I think Mommy needs to give him a piddling feed." I burst into tears, because how did she know my son better than me, considering she was near likely right, because I really, actually wanted to accept a coffee. At that very low, vulnerable moment, I was more solitary than I could ever have thought possible.

I tried to come across other mothers, but, of course, not all moms are the same. Coming together considering "you're a mom, and I'thou a mom" can be bad-mannered and forced, and brand you feel lone anyway. At times, I was faking information technology, pretending to be someone I wasn't, but to not be on my own. That didn't make me feel improve. What I really needed was to find someone agreeing, someone I could be myself with and then I could repossess that part of my identity. Ofttimes, I'd run across groups of mothers and thought I was dorsum at school, constantly assessing the situation to see if I might "fit in" with them.

It'due south not socially acceptable for a new mother to say "it'south actually tough, and it's not exactly what I thought it would be."

Albeit my feelings toward motherhood didn't experience similar something I could do. It'due south not socially acceptable for a new mother to say "it's really tough, and it's not exactly what I idea information technology would be." I would share snippets with my friends and hubby, but I didn't actually know how to articulate that I was lonely. I was acting as a competent, together mother, and I didn't come across anyone who seemed to exist feeling the same way I was.

Image Source: Courtesy of Peanut

The turning point came 6 months in. I started to go far a flow and regained my confidence. I've now heard people depict that tough period catastrophe as a fog lifting and, yes, that'south what it was. I returned to work and was more connected to the Michelle I understood, and I made 2 wonderful friends who were mothers. I started seeing motherhood as a chapter in my book — non the but one, merely for certain the most exciting.

Sometimes maternity is challenging, confusing, and even scary, merely it's amazing. It becomes a lot less daunting when you can feel similar yourself, and share your journey with other women who love and respect the woman y'all are. I needed that support and I knew other women did, likewise.

I had been running a tech company that focused on dating apps, and of a sudden it seemed obvious that I could use the noesis I had to create a product that would help women, new mothers, connect, so they didn't have to struggle like I did. I started Peanut, an app to reflect modern motherhood, which offers a smart, mobile solution for mothers to chat, meet upwards, and larn from one another. It assumes not all moms are the same, and gives them the opportunity to come together, judgment gratis. It's the respond I wished I had as a new mom, because motherhood doesn't have to be lonely.