It Has To Be Me Episode

PARENT-TO-PARENT MENTORSHIP

Abigail Wald

Episode #23: October 10th, 2024

THE GOLD FROM THIS EPISODE

“Parenting pits your greatest desires against your gnarliest realities.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“I had all of the love and all of the joy. But, not being able to express all of me was actually attacking the love and the joy. We need to be honest so we can feel the depth of the love.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“I realized that parents were all globally engaged in the same secret life all alone. We needed to connect because we were all holding the future of the world in our collective arms.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“Becoming a mom feels like you're stepping away from parts of your life. It feels like a demotion in some ways and a promotion in other ways.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“Parenting is this really important job that we're all supposed to do quietly and really well without any training.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“Every parent makes a silent promise: I will be the perfect parent who never makes one single mistake.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“There can be more than one truth. The only way we win is if I can get humble enough to make space for your truth to be right as well.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

“Your anger is a marker of your values. Get in touch with your rage. It is your motor to activate the change you want to be a part of.”

Abigail Wald

Founder of Mother Flipping Awesome

in THIS EPISODE

  • Abigail Wald breaks the “mommy code” and gets raw about the minefield of parenthood. She reveals how getting brutally honest about her struggles as a mother encouraged other women to share their unconventional truths, and how those transparent conversations developed into a global community.

  • Mother Flipping Awesome helps thousands of women and men get real, hit the “reset” button on their parenting journeys, and navigate the challenges and celebrate the joys of raising kids.

  • We discuss the necessity of getting out of the parenting vacuum of “having the same experiences alone,” and into a community where you can share all your stories honestly and acknowledge feelings and thoughts you’ve been told are taboo. Abigail insists that giving yourself permission to express your full human experience as a parent enables you to feel the depth of the love you have for your children.

  • She leads with a central philosophy that parenting isn’t just about raising kids. It’s an invitation to step into your own leadership. Claiming the unique parenting style that aligns with your values and with the needs of your child, she says, is the key to creating a harmonious “mini society” that is your family.

TESS'S TAKEAWAYS

  • A family is a mini society.

  • Being a mother is a complex journey with distinct phases.

  • Parenthood is an invitation to rise into your own leadership.

  • Allow your parenting style to align with your values.

  • Understand and respect each child's particular needs.

  • Your child is an individual, not an extension of you.

  • Find a community that catches and supports your experience.

  • Harness your anger as a marker of your values and an instrument for change.

ABOUT ABIGAIL

While raising her children, Abigail Wald maintained a successful voiceover career, and created the Yes Bar out of her home kitchen.

While navigating her son’s medical condition, she joined parenting groups hoping to hear other moms tell it like it is—and instead she got sanitized stories that didn’t match her experience. And it turned out that those stories, telling only one side of parenthood, ignored a lot of people’s experience. 

While parenting fills our hearts with more love than we thought possible, and gives our lives purpose and meaning, it also messes with our minds, bodies, sleep, relationships, careers, identities, priorities and even our sanity.

So Abigail established the Mother Flipping Awesome community as a space for mothers and fathers to share no-holds-barred accounts of real-life parenting. 

The community, with Abigail and her team as coaches, helps parents press “reset” on their parenting lives, cleaning up one sticky, gooey corner at a time.