As a 50-year-old mother of two – aged 13 and 16 – and a coach, entrepreneur and author, my plate is over-the-top full, as is the case for thousands of women today.  I work with women who are facing numerous crises in their lives.  The top challenge for them?  The utter inaccessibility of work-life balance, and the chronic feeling that they’re letting down everything and everyone who matters to them.

To me, having a joyful and fulfilling life experience is about discovering exactly what matters most to you in life and honoring that.  It’s focusing on achieving your dreams and visions – as a parent (if you choose to be) and as a contributive member of society — but doing so on your terms, in ways that fulfill you.

I’ve found that midlife mothering is about that as well.  It’s about figuring out who you are – deeply and uniquely– and following your own code of ethics and values.  Midlife mothering requires discovering what matters most to you, then having the courage, perseverance and commitment to create exactly what you long for.

My family and my work are my world, and always have been.  The biggest challenge throughout my entire life has been balancing what I want to do and be as a mother, with who I want to be as a highly contributive professional.  These two identities had always clashed fiercely and painfully until I hit 40.  Then things changed.

When I was 41, everything morphed.  The crises I’d faced as a professional women all collided after a brutal layoff in the days following 9/11, and I realized it was time to reclaim my life and become a woman who could steer my own ship, and craft my life as I wanted it.  I knew if I didn’t change, I’d be filled with pain and regret in later years.

But in order to be all I wanted to be as a parent and a professional, I had learn some harsh lessons – about myself, traditional gender expectations, my values and expectations, my relationship with power, money and time, and more.  I had to reconstruct a new identity that worked.  I’d made so many mistakes throughout my professional life and my 10-year reinvention, that it wasn’t easy.

At 41, I began to learn new lessons.  I took each one on, made some big changes, and eventually found my way.  At 50, I feel finally so much more on track, more fulfilled, more in control and hopeful and courageous.

What’s different now that I’m 50?  Here are the five key lessons I learned in midlife that have changed everything – about myself, my mothering, and my life:

Lesson #1: Traditional Thinking Doesn’t Work for Me

I faced so much negative criticism over the years for being different from other women.  About my working full-time when my kids were little, women harshly criticized, “I wouldn’t’ want someone else raising MY children!”  I’ve stepped out that box of what women are traditionally “supposed” to do and be as moms, and I’ve done it my way.  My kids are thriving, and I know now that we must follow our internal guidance (not the threatened, resentful utterings of others) to know what’s right for us and our families.

Lesson #2: Enmeshment Isn’t Good Parenting

I learned in my therapy training about the concept of “enmeshment” – being overly connected and engaged with your children (or others) in what they’re thinking, feeling, and doing — is damaging.  They don’t know where you end and they begin.  Being enmeshed stifles their independence and their development.  I learned the hard way that I was enmeshed with my daughter, and had been with my own mother.  So I worked diligently to build healthier boundaries, and provide the appropriate amount of connection and engagement so my children could gain the self-reliance, autonomy, and self-confidence they needed to thrive.

Lesson #3: Being “Superwoman” Means You’re Super-Unhappy

In my 20 and 30s, I was driven to excel and achieve.  I wanted money, power, responsibility, and felt my professional identity was the thing that gave me my self-esteem.  Now that I’m out of that game, I find that my work lights me up from the heart and soul, in a different way than before.  Now it’s about helping people and about expansion and joy, not power.  This service focus has softened me – I’m happier, more fulfilled, more self-sufficient, and I bring those qualities to my mothering and my family life too.

Lesson #4: Everything Passes

Early on, when I was in the throes of a terribly challenging time – in my mothering or in my worklife – I’d anxiously agonize and project into the future about all the possible terrible outcomes that could emerge.  Now, I understand this immutable fact – what is present today fades and passes.  Today’s urgent dilemmas become tomorrow’s challenges overcome, and these make you who you are.  It truly is all good.
Lesson #5: My Best is Good Enough

I always wanted to be the best at everything.  Now, I feel that doing my best is good enough.  I’m better at going with my own flow, understanding that who I am may not be in synch with other women or men, but I don’t resist that any longer.  I am what I am, and I show up each day doing my best.  As the beautiful little book The Four Agreements explains, “If you try too hard to do more than your best, you’ll spend more energy than is needed, and in the end your best will not be enough.”  But if I do my best each moment, there is no way I can judge myself harshly.

At 50, my mothering is about beginning the launching process with my children, watching them mature and develop and letting them go.  I know I had a bit of a hand in it, but understand that they came into the world already equipped with so very much to guide them to the destiny they choose.  It’s a good feeling to acknowledge that while you’re highly imperfect and mightily flawed as a mother and a human being, you did your best, and your best is good enough.