The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

I do not need to get on a plane. I don’t need a fancy resort package. 

Maybe it’s the year-plus of homebody living, but honestly, my backyards have become my absolute paradise. California sunshine, cool breezes, hammocks to gently rock me, fragrant honeysuckle and fruit trees, hummingbirds, roly-poly bugs, bees, a Sonos Move, some feminist Gen X playlist, Topo Chico and/or a can of wine. It’s my everything right now. I feel both nourished and expansive. This weekend, the kids and my friend Andrea and I are doing a manicure-and-Disney double feature outdoor pizza night. Four-star bliss.  Read more...

Y’all KNOW I am always going on about the amazing courses being offered by Chairman Mom. But the reason we went so hard at this business is because we personally found it so life-changing to learn and grow and build community this way. And by “we,” I mean members of the Chairman Mom team, but also women in our community. 

I have a zillion courses I want to build, and we launch a new one every month. But there are a few I will never attempt because there are already phenomenal womxn doing them who inspire me. Frankly, if you are in the market for those skills, I’d love you to pay THEM instead of us.  Read more...

Today’s intro is from Megan Harding, Chairman Mom’s Head of Courses & Events.

Hi, Megan Harding here. If you’ve attended a Chairman Mom event or taken a course, you probably already know me. I’m starting full-time as Chairman Mom’s new Head of Courses & Events on May 10th, so you’ll see a lot more of me! 

I”m excited to tell you more about something new we’re working on starting this month. 

But first, what does self-care look like for you? 

For some, it’s a glass of wine and a bubble bath. For others, it’s a conversation with your therapist, a walk with a friend, or a run. Self-care is as individual as each of us, but we know across the board we haven’t been able to prioritize it over the past year. How can you, between keeping your job while signing into your kids’ Zooms and watching the fall of democracy during a global pandemic that’s all happening in the midst of a national reckoning on racism and police brutality?  Read more...

A few weeks ago, Evie was doing a disappearing coin magic trick for me. That’s a normal thing for a kid. What was less normal was her line when she was making the coin reappear: “I’m gonna put it in again, because I want the coin, I want wealth.” 

Um…can you tell I’ve spent a month promoting, producing, and video editing our latest course “Boss Up Your Financial Game”? The course sold out and started last week and has been absolutely phenomenal so far. So much of the reason women signed up was to break the bad patterns they’d learned around money and do better for their kids.  Read more...

A few weeks ago I had to have a conversation that I had been putting off for years. I had to talk to my Southern evangelical parents who never really accepted my gay sibling about my transgender child. Differences aside, I’ve remained close to my parents, especially my mom. I credit my mom with a lot of the things that have made me successful and happy in life. 

But I was a cisgender, heterosexual woman who was friendly, tall, outgoing, thin, and achievement-oriented. I was the type of daughter my mom would have ordered if there were such a system.  Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

Well, folks, my 27th birthday came and went last weekend. It was truly fabulous. My fully vaccinated best friend of 16 years came up from DC, and we ate our weight in cake and pie, walked around Central Park, napped, and went to dinner with a few of my closest friends.

We actually ended up also grabbing drinks outside at a bar that mostly caters to 23-year-olds who chug a lot of Bud Light, but the bright side of that was the people watching was A+.

I’ve talked quite a bit in newsletters about the weirdness of 27 for me, but it’s funny how you pass a benchmark like that and life goes back to normal so quickly. Today my roommate and I are spending hours on customer service lines trying to figure out where our dining area furniture is. I have to go for a run later because, you know, health. I’m currently sneaking Sour Patch Kids from my cabinet even though I really don’t need any more sugar today. Such is life. Read more...

During the last year, my partner Paul has had more than the usual COVID anxiety considering he’s 40, in good health, and we aren’t frontline workers. 

Why? Because back in 2013, he saw me hospitalized with pneumonia in three-quarters of my lungs. My kids couldn’t visit because I looked too scary, hooked up to too many machines with too many things being pumped into me. The next month, I gave a keynote in Chicago, but I had to sit on stage, or I’d cough too much. I was on stage giving a keynote, even though my lungs couldn’t support me standing and talking. Why? I was a single mom under attack and I needed that $15,000. Read more...

“I basically can never leave California,” Eli said to me the other day. 

Yep. My guess is everyone talking about how “over” California is doesn’t have a transgender loved one.

In nearly half the states in this country, it’s become open season on trans kids as the GOP thrashes around for any culture war to ignite their base and hate their way back into power. 

How much are you even hearing about it, though? 

Remember a few years ago when states were trying to pass laws that wouldn’t allow transgender kids to use the bathroom of their gender? Remember how up in arms liberals were? Remember when large corporations were leaving cities as a result?  Read more...

I had a mind-blowing realization the other day. 

I was talking to another female founder about the Chairman Mom community. 

I was telling her about Susie the Ninja who helped solve Evie’s ninja problems and Serafina and Valerie the total badasses teaching our course on financial literacy who I got to know through the Sisterhood course. I was telling her about the amazing writing in the Ready, Set, Write showcase; how I just so happened to be writing a graphic novel about pigs and cows, and Elena had trained to be a vet. And about Leah Y., who absolutely has to start a podcast about Asian folk tales and how they resonate in today’s world.  Read more...

Last night Paul and I decided to watch a movie and were drawn to Senior Moment starring Christopher Lloyd, Jean Smart, and William Shatner. The big reason (other than Jean Smart) was that it was a movie about Palm Springs that was actually filmed in Palm Springs. 

Don’t. 

I am in agony that I gave this thing $6 of my hard-earned money. I feel like I have to right that wrong by telling you how bad it was. 

It was extremely sexist, racist, and just plain f***ed up. I googled it to try to figure out what happened with this film that had a good cast, atrocious production quality, and seemed to have had the red carpet rolled out for it in Palm Springs. Did anyone read the script first?  Read more...