I was at this darling summer wedding and I was sitting at a table. Some people I knew, half the table I didn’t know. So it’s just a lot of small talk. And there were these delicious homemade Rice Krispie treats as part of like the treat table. It was so good. You guys, if you don’t know this about me, I love marshmallows.

Leah: I love marshmallows. So many people, I just, they don’t seem to understand how incredible a marshmallow is, but to me, they’re amazing. In fact, [00:01:00] s’mores. I absolutely love roasted marshmallows, but like, I just want the marshmallow. I don’t need the chocolate and the graham cracker. I am a marshmallow purist because they are just so delicious.

And when you get that perfect marshmallow, Oh my gosh. And I can eat so many, like an obnoxious number of them. Like we’re roasting marshmallows. Oh, I can easily. easily put down a dozen. No problem. In fact, that’s like the starting point. Like just keep going. I love marshmallows. I have this hot chocolate bar during the Christmas, during Christmastime and there’s a jar of like mini marshmallows and I constantly go over and just grab a handful.

Like I just, I love marshmallows. So I love homemade Rice Krispies treats. They are so good. Like that gooey marshmallow in them. Oh, so good. But I had never actually made Rice Krispie Treats. Ever. They just intimidated me. I don’t, I was embarrassed by that. I feel like there’s these certain things that all, moms [00:02:00] are supposed to be able to do.

They’re supposed to be able to know how to get stains out, know how to make Rice Krispie treats, know how to make chocolate chip cookies and identify if the milk or the lunch meat or that thing that’s been sitting out is spoiled. Like those, those are the things we’re supposed to just, you become a mom and somehow you’re supposed to just know how to do those things.

And Rice Krispie treats intimidated. Me to no end. I think it’s because I’ve made marshmallows before, which is hilarious. Okay, Leah, you’ve made marshmallows, but you were afraid of Rice Krispie Treats. Yes. And there was this just idea. I just had this story in my head that, you know, you got to get that marshmallow consistency down and it probably has to be at some perfect temperature.

And, you know, if, if you have made marshmallows, right, like there’s a very quick difference between having a marshmallow consistency and like. a solid mess. And I just, it seemed complicated. So I had never ever tried, but my kids love rice [00:03:00] crispy treats and they’re a really great snack during summertime, like for them and their friends.

So I was sharing with the table how I was like, yeah, confession. I just buy the boxes at Costco and the kids eat them by the handfuls. And it’s, you know, one of the snacks we take out on the boat all the time. And, and I was sharing this and the person next to me, uh, an older gentleman in his. Late 60s started mocking me and being like, you don’t make rice, crispy treats from scratch.

They’re the easiest thing ever to make. And I didn’t really want to admit in that moment. Well, actually, I’m totally intimidated by rice, crispy treats, and I’ve never tried making them. And I just was like, oh, no, I just buy them. We go through so many and he’s like, but they’re so easy. My mom always made them.

Rice Krispie treats from scratch. They’re like the easiest thing. And he’s like laughing. He’s like, why would you not make them? They take nothing. And you know, it, it stemmed all these feelings in me that [00:04:00] he knew nothing about, but like just feeling really inferior,

 And not enough. And like, basically my mom card was being put into question and you know, I tried to recover and I just said something like, well, you know, I can’t do everything. I, I’m a working mom. Your mom wasn’t. So I just buy them. And he quips back, my mom worked and she could make Rice Krispie Treats, just, I sat with that for days.

Like it did, it triggered so many feelings in me of like, I’m not a good enough mom because I’m not making these Rice Krispie Treats. Another confession. When I watched the Barbie movie and the moment where America Ferrera’s gives that, like, monologue, I cried.

I cried because I felt it so deeply and so strongly. I understood that in my core. There’s this line where she says, We have to always be [00:05:00] extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong. That’s how I felt so many times. Trying to be this girl boss where you constantly are trying to reach the next level and hit these huge accolades and accomplishments and I’m trying to, you know, be able to say, oh, I reached this level, right?

I’ve, I’ve hit six figures and then, oh, I’ve hit seven figures. Seven figures, and I’m on these stages and I’m being invited to these events and look at all the things, but also never look like you’re actually bragging, but somehow still make sure people know how accomplished you are so that they’ll trust you and believe that you really can help them.

But also make sure you have time to be the incredible mom and show up for everything and not mess up and forget that it’s picture day. Or, not have them in the right outfit for theme week, or not have finished the slip that they needed to have back in their backpack, or the reading time, or whatever it was.

You know, just trying to [00:06:00] do all these things and constantly feeling like I wasn’t enough and I was doing it wrong. So okay, there’s my other confession. That movie, I totally cried in that scene. Okay, so why am I sharing this with you? First of all, because I always want to keep it real and I want us to have real conversations where we’re talking about the truth of balancing the busy and that it is hard.

It’s that, that’s why there’s this podcast completely dedicated to it. It’s why I’ve made my life’s work. work or my career, not my life’s work, but my career shift to helping women put the steps in place that help you do a little bit less, but let it come out better because trying to do all these things all the time is exhausting.

And it’s so hard. Okay, so, last summer, [00:07:00] I made Rice Krispie Treats for the very first time. It was June 10th, I know, because I went back and I looked at the pictures, because I took pictures, and I did a video, and in the video, I, I’m like just, like, panning over my, my sheet pan of Rice Krispie Treats, and I’m, you know, watching it, and I hear myself saying, I did it, I did it, I made Rice Krispie Treats, and I was so excited, and, They were so easy and you know that because you’ve made rice krispies treats probably and you’re like, you know You’re hearing me tell you all this and you’re like but Leah They’re actually really really easy and when I finally when I finally tried I learned that there’s so easy And I’ve got to say that was probably the most delicious rice krispies treats I’ve ever had in my entire life because I was so proud of myself because I Made them.

Okay, so I want to talk about And just to have this very honest conversation about the modern mom [00:08:00] struggle, like this struggle of the fact that we have more information than we could ever consume in 10 lifetimes, let alone one, we have more opportunities than women have ever had in the history of this planet.

There is so much available to us. And this feeling, this desire, this maybe even some. Somewhat obligation to like reach out and grab it all. And yet deep down in our deepest of cores for so many of us, there is this innate want and desire as mothers to be there and to nurture. And, and I’m not saying all the time, like, don’t get me wrong.

It’s not like, Oh my gosh, you know, like there are days when it’s so hard and I’m like, please just. Go away and let mom have a moment. Okay, like that is such a real real part about parenting But you know this idea that we’re that part of the Barbie monologue She says something around [00:09:00] along the lines of like we’re supposed to be incredible mother, but don’t talk about your kids too much We’re supposed to be right and you know this idea of how much we’re trying to Be things that don’t Don’t actually feel in like our truest sense, right?

Like constantly trying to go for these outward. Accolades and these points of success. I’ve shared with you guys how, you know, at one point I set this goal to have my own studio space. This was way back when I was still doing photography, which was my very first business because I heard someone at a conference say, you know, that they had this studio and the way they were talking about it was like, Wow.

Like that’s when you’ve made it. And so I was like, Hey, I’m getting a studio. And I did it. I accomplished that goal. And as soon as I had it, I realized like, I don’t like this at all because it takes me 30 minutes in good traffic to get there 30 minutes back. That’s an extra hour. I’m away from the kids and bad [00:10:00] traffic.

It could easily be two hours plus. And I have to get there early, set everything up. It’s just was more time than I wanted to give, but I had jumped into the idea that that’s what success look like. If I was really a successful photographer, I had, you know, some beautiful loft studio space available to me in the city.

And so I made it happen and it wasn’t actually in alignment with the real me, which was like, I’d rather have not the most stunning studio space. In a room in my house so that I just have to walk across the hall instead of having any extra time away from my kids, but it took me going all the way to actually getting the goal to even figure that out and realize that I just wonder how often we go after these things because everyone says we’re supposed to, I think of, you know, our whole lives were asked, what do you want to be?

What do you want to be? What do you want to be? And one of my girls, [00:11:00] I remember her coming to me and saying, almost like it was a secret, almost like she She didn’t want to tell everybody because she didn’t want to be judged and saying, I just want to be a mom. That’s what I want to grow up and be. I want to be a wife and a mom.

And have we in all of the opportunity that is so incredible and so amazing. And I’m so grateful for because here’s me who wants to be an entrepreneur, right? Like, first and foremost, I am a mom, but I love being a business owner. Am I accidentally? Making it feel like that’s not an okay dream when that’s the most powerful, beautiful, incredible profession on earth, being a parent.

So we silently struggle. We silently struggle because we are constantly feeling this tug and this pull in this confusion of all these different things we’re supposed to [00:12:00] want, not want, try to be, not be, say, don’t say, show, but don’t make it too obvious, just all the different things. And in all that, and in all of this, we need to stop and we need to start checking in and saying, is this actually what I want?

We need to ask ourselves questions, ask and question the hustle harder culture, the take your power, but at the expense of others mentality and see if it’s really actually serving us. In order to really see what’s happening for us at this point, I think it’s actually helpful to look backwards and understand where we come from.

So since the late 1800s, women have made dramatic strides in the areas of employment and management. I think, you know, we’re all like, yes, totally got that throughout the 19th century, the majority of [00:13:00] occupations available to women were limited to domestic work and agriculture. Okay.

That was, if you are a woman and you needed to work, it was, it was going to be within basically those two fields for the majority of the 19th century.

We as women were not seen as suitable for more highly valuable occupations. Our desire to be educated was questioned. Like, why did we even need that? What was the purpose? And our need to be heard was very often ignored. A woman’s ability to move into higher levels of education and the workplace was practically non existent.

And that meant that women could not rely on themselves. She had to rely on a man for her support. Now you put that in context. juxtaposition to today where we can take up the highest levels of anything. We can make [00:14:00] our own money. We can rely on ourselves. And yet I wonder if we’ve pushed too hard to where we’re not letting people help us anymore.

We’re not allowing for space for true partnerships. One of the things that I am most grateful for is that I unequivocally know that I can provide for myself. I don’t have to, I have an incredible partnership, but I can’t even imagine not having that opportunity. And I am so beyond grateful that my daughters, that myself, my sister, my friends, every single one of us, you and me, that we can be together.

Take care of ourselves. We can provide for ourselves. We can do all these things. We can own land and vote and run our own companies and climb up the ranks and get education and we have opportunities. And that is so incredible. [00:15:00] Okay. So by the 1910s, you have this huge shift happening where this conversation about allowing women opportunities outside the home had reached essentially a fever pitch. Women wanted more and they were standing up. They were asking for it.

In fact, they even begin to demand it barely a hundred years ago. I mean, it’s so crazy to wrap our head around the fact that women did not have economic independence to. be able to take control of their own pursuits for professions or education. It just wasn’t available to them. It’s in 1918 that the 19th amendment is passed and the U S constitution grants women the right to vote.

This opens up the door to. All the possibilities and opportunities that today we see as normal, we see as expected, and yet even 100 years ago, it was [00:16:00] not then comes World War Two, and we have another huge shifting point. You have all of these men. who are needed overseas. They go off to war, but back home, there is still the world needs to keep spinning.

Meaning the United States still needs to keep functioning. So there’s all of these home things that still need to be run. They need to be operated. And so women step in and they start filling all those roles. I remember stories from my grandmother that she shared with me about her and her mom working in the shipyards down in Seattle, building the ships.

These women were building the ships that were going to go off. I mean, the idea of that, even a couple decades earlier, unheard of. And yet this need arises. Women are needed. If you ever read the book, Fly Girls, if you didn’t, it’s a, I really liked it. It was a good [00:17:00] book. And these women pilots during World War II, women were needed and they were stepping in and they were filling all of these different roles.

It And with that came this recognition and this, this realization that they’re capable, that they can do these things, that they enjoy these, this sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. And they don’t want to give it up when the boys come home. Now, some of them did. Some women were like, Oh, thank goodness.

I’m ready to go back. And we need to honor that too. I think that’s so critical. We need to honor each of us and where each of us are. So some women are like, yes, thank you. Take it over. I want to go back home and focus. My brilliance there and others were like, I love this. I want more of it. Don’t make me stop.

World War II, one of the unexpected parts of it was that it showed women how capable [00:18:00] we really are. 

That’s actually making me think of the Rose Code by Kate Quinn. Another amazing book that is also really worth reading, 

so you have this generation of women who realize that they can do the work, that they can earn their own money and they like it and that they are capable beyond measure.

So with the end of the war brings the boys home and they are wanting their jobs back. It’s expected that the women will hand these jobs back over to their male counterparts. In the 1950s and 60s, women’s progress in the workplace actually begins to recede. It goes backwards. Some women absolutely welcome it.

They’re like, yes, thank you. They’ve done their part. They’re ready to focus on raising their kiddos. And others did not. Many single mothers, especially who had assumed the role of breadwinner during the war were now expected to return to the home to raise their children. But now they’re empowered.

They’ve realized how great it feels to earn their own paychecks. And they want more of [00:19:00] that. 

So this is what starts what many feminists refer to as the double burden. Women are expected to be professional and economic contributors outside the home while still maintaining the same level of domestic responsibility as women in the home. So they’re supposed to be able to do both, right? They are supposed to earn the paycheck and be

And I can’t even express to you how much I understand this concept of double burden. I’ve shared this so many times, but for years, and it was just because my husband was going through grad school and then starting his practices and, and because we were blessed, that’s the bottom line. And I wish I could go back and tell.

young me from 16 years ago. Oh my gosh, this is incredible. This is such a blessing, but it was also a double burden. And, and it’s okay to admit that it’s okay for me to explain and say, it was so [00:20:00] hard. It was so hard being the provider and the primary parent. It was so hard. Okay. So that’s where our history lesson ends. And, uh, where I want to go from here is just continuing to talk about this double burden as it’s referred to, and talk about the fact that many of us have honestly chosen to take it. Now, there are those who, they don’t have a choice.

They are doing what they have to do. And to you, um, You are incredible. I really do believe you have angels helping you. You are trying to do the impossible and you are amazing. And I hope you know that. And you know, I got to a point where I didn’t have to anymore. And yet I loved my work. I loved my business.

I didn’t want to stop. So I want to acknowledge. [00:21:00] That there are those of us who are wanting to do all these things and it’s not out of necessity. It’s, it’s a desire and that’s not bad either, but let’s, let’s call it for what it is. Since 2001, I’ve carried the domestic responsibility of our home. I am the primary home person. You know, as we started having kids, the kids all know, like they’re going to come to mom. I have the answers. I know where things are. I know how to fix things. I, I am the one that the majority of the time they’re going, they’re going to come to.

Now, I want to say like, it started out really rocky, it, it fell to me and yet probably honestly, Taylor was more educated and capable of like the home things than I was. I did not know how to cook to save my life, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to create this welcoming home with great food and lots of laughter.

In fact, to learn to cook, I, this was in like 2001, 2002, I [00:22:00] would sit down with a notebook and pen and I would watch the Food Network. Back then it was still like primarily cooking shows and I still can think of my favorite chefs, my favorite shows that I love to watch and I would just take notes. I would watch them cook and take notes and study it like it was a class, me learning.

My goal had originally been to be able to make. Three meals that I could alternate. But then I started figuring out that as I was learning how to do those meals, how much they all interconnected and, Oh, you start with the same base for all these different dishes, or these things always seem to be the combination you use or whatever, that’s how I learned to cook.

So in 2009, with three kids, four and under, I wanted to start a business. I wanted to help provide and contribute income for our family because my husband was, uh, just going into grad school and. I wanted something of my own. I mean, I definitely had this feeling and this desire to have something of my own.

And I really wanted to help us financially. I knew [00:23:00] what an impact it would make if I could bring in some income. So I went after it and I’m so grateful for all the blessings that have come with it. Like so beyond grateful, but I don’t want to pretend it also wasn’t hard. I have this desire to be at all and to be all the things, but it took me a while to learn that I can’t do all the things.

We can be all the things, but we can’t do them all. And sometimes, even though we can, It doesn’t mean that we should, and that is its own hard lesson to learn. I wanted family dinners, a clean house to host and entertain, a great marriage, incredible relationships with my kids, tons of quality family time to go to lunch with friends, to travel, to run a successful business, to read books, to work out regularly, always be learning, have date nights, go on girls trips, volunteer, do family history work, be a great friend, a devoted daughter and sister, be a daily scripture reader.

Do you see, [00:24:00] do you see all the different things trying to fit those all in?

And that’s where I want to just share and say, we live in an incredible time and it is full of incredible opportunities. And if it’s on your heart to go after it, go after it. I don’t believe that those are placed there on accident, but also give yourself permission to not go after it. When it’s not your dream, when your dream is a little bit more stillness, a little more white space, a little more quiet, embrace that as well.

And don’t apologize. Don’t apologize. Going back to that quote from the Barbie movie, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow [00:25:00] we’re always doing it wrong. Let’s shift that. Let’s, as women, tell each other more often when we’re doing something great. Let’s as women stop comparing ourselves and instead just lifting ourselves and then others.

Let’s look for how we can encourage the things that truly fill our souls, that truly matter most. I’ve shared this before, but something that I live by is this idea of good, better, best. For most of us, you know, that list I read to you, everything on that list is good, everything. There isn’t any of those things where it’s like, wow, Leah, that’s naughty, right?

Like my whole life is full of good things. And yet within all that good, there are things that are better. And then there are things that are the best. And when we stay true to those best things, which in my case, I’ve [00:26:00] always come back to

being a mother, being a wife, serving and loving others. And being a disciple of Jesus Christ, those are my things. When you find your things, when you, when you focus more on those best things and not everywhere, you think you’re doing it wrong. That’s when we’re going to become more powerful. I can’t wait to hear what you think of this episode.

 I hope it’s encouraged you and, and lifted you and helped you. I would love for you to share it with a friend and have a conversation together. And I’d love to have a conversation with you myself. So send me an email, send me a DM, leave me a voice memo in my DMs. You can find me anywhere at balancingbusy.

Leah: com. Thank you so much for being part of the balancing busy podcast. We can be fulfilled and not frantic. [00:27:00] Here’s to helping us accomplish that. 

Hide Transcript