Meet Sarah, Founder and CEO

Posted by Mark on Apr 9, 2015 in Bios, Featured | Comments Off on Meet Sarah, Founder and CEO

I was chatting with a friend one day at work.

It was the usual list of complaints, er, um… observations: “I can’t believe how much time we used to have” and “My son cried today when I left to go to work, and all I want to do is be home with him.”

Suddenly I said, “There has to be a better way.” There is no other way to explain that moment, except to call it a “brick-to-the-head” moment. If I had been a cartoon, there would have been a light bulb above my head. Indeed, there has to be a Better Way. I had a new mission in life: To support women in finding their own Better Ways.

If my friend and I were going through this, a whole bunch of other women must be going through it too. In fact, I knew that to be the case.

I’ve heard people call it “the dark side of the moon” or the “secret no one tells you.” Motherhood in this day and age is hard, and no one wants to admit it.

Sure, they complain here and there, or people say we have to learn to “juggle.”

Um, that’s about as descriptive as calling a tsunami “wet.” No one ever tells you how hard this is. It’s completely worth it, more than anything I’ve ever done in my life, but if anyone would have ever told me that I would want to give up my career to be with my kids, I would have told that person they were completely insane.

Yet, that’s exactly what happened. And having to face this has caused a slight identity crisis for me. Who am I if I’m not on track in my career? Who am I if I’m not out there being politically active and changing the world? And then came the, “Who cares? I just want to be home with with my son.”

Now, this would have been great, except that my family relies upon my income. So it started to occur to me that I didn’t have a choice. That realization was incredibly painful.

When the smaller love of my life was born, I was an executive. I had it all mapped out. I had always wanted to be a mom more than anything. I could do both, that’s “what women do” today. In fact, before I met my husband I was so sure that I wanted to be a mother that I was actually looking at sperm banks to do this by myself when I met him. Thank heaven for blind dates, right?

When we launched this site, I was seven-months pregnant with my second child. I know that creating my own hours, and being with my children when I want, while bringing in money, is something I’m willing to give almost anything for. I remind myself of this as I’m up at 1:00 in the morning writing articles or working with our developer and designers. I also think of all the other moms our there who will have somewhere to go to laugh, to not feel alone or just to say “thank heaven someone finally said that!”

One of our goals is to make a mom laugh every day. I know that if I can do that, their lives are better, their friends’ lives are better, their children’s lives are better and that’s about all we can ask for.

Making one person laugh, making one person’s day brighter, I can think of very few things that are better than that.

Sarah is also a contributor on The Huffington Post.