Louise Webster - A New Way for Mothers: A Revolutionary Approach for Mothers to Use Their Skills and Talents While Their Children Are at School

Praise for A New Way for Mothers

A true change maker.

Global Invest Her

The air of calm, grace, and joy that Louise brings to a room is echoed in this book with its thoughtful and realistic approach to motherhood. Rather than seeing motherhood as a separate stage in a womans life, Louises approach brings in all of our life before it and asks: who are we as a whole person? This revolutionary concept not only encourages mothers to bring all their skills to their new lives, but it also highlights the importance of learning and growing as you go. Most importantly, it emphasises kindness to yourself, patience with yourself, and appreciation of yourselfand we all need more of that.

HARRIET MINTER, journalist, broadcaster, and female leadership expert

More diverse boards bring better perspectives, challenges, and outcomes. To achieve this, businesses need to actively encourage and develop diversity at all levels, particularly at senior management. However, alongside this, we desperately need to encourage more women back into the workplace by helping them balance caregiving with careers. In this book, Louise Webster challenges our thinking and demonstrates there is no one simple solution. She encourages us to stop the judgement, to start supporting one another, and to honour individual journeys. As a father of seven-year-old twin girls, I have also become increasingly aware of the need to more actively create a world where everybody receives support and encouragement in developing their capabilities and achieving their aspirations. The world is a better place when we have authors like Louise making us think more deeply on this topic.

DR. DAVID KELLY, Plural Board Director

Copyright 2017 by Louise Webster

All rights reserved.

Published by Familius LLC, www.familius.com

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Reproduction of this book in any manner, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher is prohibited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2017935340

Print ISBN 9781945547171

Ebook ISBN 9781945547553

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by DeAnna Acker

Cover design by David Miles

Book design by Brooke Jorden

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

For all mothersconnecting you to your skills, well-being, and happiness in the hours available.

Introduction

The world will be saved by the Western woman.

Dalai Lama XIV

W elcome to this book! You have taken your first step by picking it up; this is the start of an exciting journey together. This book is an ideaand an action planfor you to make a new way for yourself in the world. I hope you find this book is filled with love, wisdom, and inspiration. My hope is that it will lead you to greater well-being, happiness, strength, and peace.

Before writing this book, I created beyondtheschoolrun.com, a website to inspire, engage, and connect parents with their skills and talents in the hours available to them. What does BeyondTheSchoolRun mean? To me, it refers to the moment in time when a mother creates space in her mind to start to think about her life beyond caring for her children. I have met some mothers who, after years of looking very happy, have started to question where they are. They wonder, What has happened to my job? This doesnt mean your children are necessarily at school. My children werent when I felt this moment. It doesnt matter when this moment happens, but I believe many of us reach this point. This is the BeyondTheSchoolRun moment. And this is the moment I have written this book for. I hope that the new way presented in this book can provide a starting place for you to find answers, steps, connections, and inspiration.

I believe we can care for our children and still utilise our skills in the hours available to us. I believe that by combining our well-being and our talents, we can work towards a healthy, long-term connection between work and caregiving and in doing so we can create a new way not only for ourselves but also for future generations.

And I believe this journey isnt exclusive to me. It is available to all of us. In this book, I will share with you what steps I took, who inspired me, what I read, and the wisdom and guidance I received from others I met along the way.

A Bit about Me

I am a mother of two children (ages six and ten). But like most of us, I had a before children story and life.

I worked in public relations. I began by working for others, both at agencies and within a corporation, but I knew I wanted to have kids and would need more flexible hours. So I started my own agency, Rare Communications, which I ran for five years.

Shortly after having my first child, I unexpectedly hit a wall. I think it was a combination of exhaustion and a lot of people around me having personal issues. I had always been someone who had helped solve other peoples problems, but this was a big wake-up call. I needed to focus on myself and, most importantly, my baby. I also realised the life I had created didnt fit and that I needed to reassess. So I decided it was time to end the business, which thankfully I sold to another business owner, and as a family, we decided to move out of the city.

I didnt know at the time that this was to be one of the greatest, although most challenging, turning points in my life. It led me to explore a new way, a way that combined work and family, well-being and earning, and passions and dreams.

It was after I had my second child that I desperately felt the need to reconnect and work again. I found that not working hugely impacted how I felt and my well-being. But I began to see the barriers in returning to the workplace flexibly. And I also understood the difficulty of returning to work after a period of time focused solely on caregiving.

When my son started school, I became very aware of just how many women had given up careers to care for their children. Lawyers, human resources professionals, marketers, and so much more. It just seemed to me that, like myself, so many of those women had skills to offer and yet were restricted by their roles as main caregivers. I cant tell you the amount of times I heard women say that they were always told they could achieve whatever they dreamt but that they didnt know that as soon as they had children that would all change. I kept questioning, Why could this talent not be utilised without compromising caring for our children? What value it would be to businesses, and also what value it would be to the well-being of parents and their children? I became acutely aware of the need to create change, not only for myself but also to ensure I could look my daughter in the eye and say with all honesty that she could work towards her dreams.

So, with all that in mind, and with a growing awareness of the level of inequality for women and girls, I set about to establish www.beyondtheschoolrun.coma place to inspire, engage, and connect parents with their skills in the hours available to them. I wanted to create everything I myself was looking for. Most especially, I wanted to meet a community of people who wanted the same things and understood the challenges of combining caregiving and work.