Do I Have An Identity Outside of Being ‘Mom’?
As single moms it is very common for us to dive so deep into being a mom that we can often lose ourselves. Sometimes we can feel like there is nothing more to us than being ‘mom’. I know that I have felt that way at times.
Constantly feeling like I lost my identity when I became a parent. I mean, who am I other than “Connor’s mom” or “Gage’s Mom” or “Brooklyn’s Mom”. In fact, I am pretty sure that there are many children and some parents who don’t even know my actual first name.
So after years and years of not really having much of an identity outside of being so and so’s mother…what happens when they grow up and move out? When your identity is so engrained in being a parent who are you when they are gone? That is the dilemma that Jen McGuire faced when her four adult boys moved out.
She found herself looking at the bathroom mirror, that was now finally free of toothpaste spots, and feeling like it was no longer her home. Because it was now empty of the people who had given her purpose for so many years. She, like many of us, had wrapped up her whole identity in her children. Now without them there she felt lost.
So she decided that she was going to go on a mission to find herself again – in Europe. In this podcast episode I interview Jen and talk about how she came to the decision to take such a trip. We will also talk about her memoir NEST: Letting Go From Italy, France and Ireland, why she wrote the book and how her trip truly changed her life as an empty nester.
