More and more I seem to be referred to as "The Alpha Mom." That's because I co-founded a company and was the subject of an infamous article that ran last year, both of the same name. I'm Isabel Kallman: mother to Ryland, wife to Craig, daughter to Maria and Carlos, sister to Carla, and CEO of Alpha Mom.
True, I am also an unapologetically ambitious business woman, but that does not mean that I am not a caring and loving mom. I have lots of roles, as do all women and mothers. Yet many traditional media outlets prefer to portray mothers as one-dimensional archetypes. Two popular ones are martyr and monster. At certain times, I can be perceived as either one, but usually I'm neither. Instead, I'm a complex woman who is frightened at times and fearless at others. But overall, I'm still learning to master my emotions in the process.
When I first launched Alpha Mom I had just left Wall Street after a decade of what I once considered winning the lottery of opportunity. My parents had immigrated to this country when I was as a toddler. They came in pursuit of the American Dream, and I had worked very hard to make them proud. But I dreaded the 5 a.m. alarm clock, the crazy hours and the cheerleading for a company that I wasn't emotionally invested in enough.
The thought of starting my own company, something I was passionate about, something I could do from my own home, during my own hours--that was exciting. But it was risky, especially for an immigrant girl like me. Immigrant Girl-- that's how I still thought of myself. Not a young mother who had had a career on Wall Street. Luckily for me, I had a husband who knocked some sense into me (not literally!).
So I started Alpha Mom. For awhile it felt good. Really good. I was with my son--no scampering off to an office with an hour commute. I was working creatively, doing something I loved, something that mattered to me-- providing mothers with information so that they could make decisions about their care and that of their families, and thus embrace this new stage of their life with confidence. We launched Alpha Mom TV on Comcast in about nine million homes. Pinch me, can this be real?
But, I agreed to have a story done on Alpha Mom with New York Magazine. What seemed like an informative story on the emergence of a new outlet for mothers turned out to be a snarky personal "expose" of an exaggerated caricature of a mother that none of my friends or family recognized to be me. I was building the business of my dreams, allowing me to be home with my own son, doing things on my own terms, putting my money where my mouth was, yet I was now labeled a... control freak, monster, walking uterus.
Why, in the first place, did I think I deserved to be represented fairly by NY Magazine? For decades I had been the lucky one, the blessed one. The weeks and months following the article were fraught with doubt and fear. Had I deserved everything I had achieved thus far? Was it just good luck and now my fortune had run out?
Obviously, nothing had actually changed. But the truth was that I didn't emotionally handle the fallout of the article as I should have. My family and I were subject to poisonous pens writing hate and hurt. It spun me right 'round to the same place I had been too many times before.
I had always lived in a glass house. I had lived in fear... fear that everything that was important to me would be taken away from me when I woke up in the morning. It was the fear that I would lose my parents, my ability to dance, my husband. I could go on, but I won't. By the time I had my son I had learned to rationalize this fear, to believe that I had mastered it. But I had not.
So what have I learned? Well, I've realized the fear that bad things will happen to me is just another manifestation of the belief that I don't deserve the good stuff that happens in my life. I've learned to believe that I have earned the opportunities that come knocking. I guess this makes me appear fearless to some people. I have setbacks. I am still fearful at times. My inner dialogue is deafening.
But most importantly, I continue to go forward and do what I love to do every single day. I continue to create my destiny and live the dream that I have always wanted to live. I continue to be at home with my son every morning when he wakes up, when he has lunch and when he goes to sleep. We are there for each other and that is priceless. I am a complex woman who is unloading a lot of emotional baggage on her motherhood journey. I am both fearful and fearless, sometimes in the same hour. Alpha Mom is my reflection and my beacon.
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