When we no longer have a job or career we love, it’s time to write a new chapter in life. It’s not easy, but it can be uplifting when we commit to it. I faced that struggle after my 15 years as a reporter at a CBS station came to an end. After realizing how much I missed my passion for telling video stories every week, I created a YouTube channel to focus on a topic near and dear to my heart: the plight of working moms.As a working mom and a recovering perfectionist, I understand the stresses many working moms face. That’s my motivation for spending so much time creating videos and setting up a channel to help other working moms struggling with the same feelings of being overwhelmed and frustrated that I experience.

My channel shares wisdom from many working moms, not just myself. I am a journalist who sets out every week to interview a new group of working moms from all different backgrounds to find out how they are coping with the challenges of nurturing their children and their own aspirations.

My channel is called Working Mom Warrior, and it offers tips and inspiration about how to find work life balance while juggling career and kids. You can subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxg1_TTFJHgJhNh5ad2vnAA?sub_confirmation=1

I started this channel because I want to share the ups and downs of the lives of all different moms from a variety of backgrounds. I also want to let everyone know that we all have failures. The working moms I interview admit their failures, and I share that on my channel so other moms can relate. When you’re going through hard times and feel like you’re failing every day, if you hear other people describe the same mistakes you are making, then you can recognize you are not alone.

My dream all started because I was a television reporter without a beat. I spent 15 years working at a CBS affiliate. I love TV news. I was so fortunate to have a career I loved and felt so passionate about. But in 2014, new management at the station decided they no longer wanted me to report stories two days a week as I had been doing as a freelancer all those years. I was sad my long-time position ended, but I was grateful for an incredibly long run for a part-timer in a very competitive industry.

After being away from TV news for months, I knew I wanted to continue to tell stories somehow. I got some new freelance journalism gigs, but none of them allowed me to create video stories every week as I had been doing. I decided I would love to produce stories that were meaningful to me and to other working moms who might be facing their own crisis and feeling alone as I was.

When I first went back to work after having a child, I was working a couple days a week, and it was perfect. I loved that balance, but I created a side business that kind of took over my life. I created a business I could run mostly from home because our family needed more income, but I didn’t want to take on any more days at the station, which was 100 miles from where I lived and took me away from my kids for 13 hours each time I worked. There.

After a while that side business consumed me; it was taking more than 40 hours a week. That time was in addition to the two days a week I was working as a reporter in another city and all the time I spent with my kids. I was super involved in my kids’ lives then, and I still am now somewhat, even though they’re teenagers and don’t need as much of my time. That’s because I don’t help them anymore with homework and guidance and activities as much as I used to, since  they don’t want me as involved. When they were younger, I was the soccer coach and the Girl Scout leader and the room mom and more. I wanted to do all those things. I didn’t feel pressure that I had to. It was the kind of mom that I wanted to be, and I enjoyed it. But I still wanted to maintain my career, so I felt pulled in a lot of different directions.

Our family went through a lot of financial struggles as many people did during the Great Recession, and I felt a need to bring in extra income. That’s why I started the side business. I didn’t necessarily want to be away from my kids. I didn’t want to work more days at my freelance gig because it was 100 miles away. I didn’t want to be gone from my kids five days a week and never see them at all. So I was trying to find this balance, and in the meantime things got way out of balance.

I wondered if there were other moms out there going through the same thing. When I started talking to my friends I realized they were experiencing many of the same emotions I was. I found out they were feeling like they were not living up to their own expectations, even though they seemed like they had it all together to me. 

I wanted to share those stories, so I came up with my idea to interview moms on camera. When I first posted videos, and I was getting 20 or 30 views, and that was not very encouraging. Lots of mothers have channels that are getting 10,000 or 50,000 views. There are channels with millions of views. It’s not that I expected that to happen right away, but I was hoping I would at least get hundreds of views. I’m trying not to judge myself too harshly. I’m learning that I have to give my new project time to germinate and grow.

I hope my description of why and how I started my YouTube channel inspires you to begin a new journey if you feel like something is missing in your life.

I’m just trying to be raw and honest and let everyone know what’s going on in my life when I create each vlog. I record my vlogs in the car many times on my way to one of my jobs. I am a freelance journalist and video producer, regularly contributing to a newspaper and a financial news TV show in addition to creating marketing videos for small business clients. I host pub trivia one night a week. I run a real estate business and a lawn sign business. And now I’m producing two videos a week for my YouTube channel, which is a job even if I’m not getting paid. I made a commitment and am determined to stick to it.

In addition to views, what I really wish is that I would get some comments from people. Of course I don’t want hater comments, but I just want any comments. I have posted 27 videos in the first 20 weeks since I launched the channel in April 2019. I’m making sure every week no matter what I put up one video a week. It’s supposed to be on Tuesday, but I’m kind of a night person. So sometimes I do it late at night, and it doesn’t actually post until Wednesday at 1 or 2 am. But I am getting a produced video out there every week. My goal is to eventually get up to two videos a week, and I am committing to that as of today. I hope to do even more in the future, but I’m going to take it as I can, a little at a time. I’d like to go faster, but I have to give myself some grace and recognize that if I can just get two videos a week that’s good. Then I’ll build up to more.

I really want to share the ideas that I have to help other working moms and the experiences that other working moms are going through. If this resonates with you at all, please give me some sort of comment, good bad or otherwise. I would love to hear some feedback. Right now I’m hearing no feedback on my blog or YouTube. 

So please comment, subscribe and watch more of my videos. I have lots of different kinds of videos. I want to see which videos are most useful or enjoyable to people, and I’ll produce more of those types.

I hope you enjoy the video blog and all of the produced videos with interviews featuring other moms, and I look forward to your comments.

What question would you ask a group of working moms?

Share your question in the comments, and I will add it to my list of topics I discuss with the new group of working moms I meet every week.

FOLLOW ME HERE:

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxg1…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorkingMomWa…

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/workingmo…

Blog: https://workingmomwarrior.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MomOverAchiever