The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

I shared this in our small group about imposter syndrome already, but give how active conversations about imposter syndrome tend to be on Chairman Mom, I thought I’d put it in the newsletter as well!

Imposter syndrome: We seem to all have it about something, right? Men and women. Consider the advice they always give you about marathons: If you can do a half physically, you can do a whole, the challenge is the mental game. Same with startups. The mental game is the hardest part of something that’s already insanely hard. Read more...

Over the holidays I was reflecting on how many amazing women I’ve gotten to know since Chairman Mom launched, and how intimate a lot of those bonds have become due to the nature of the site. I haven’t had that feeling of making “real” friends online since the early days of the Internet.

I know some of you have also formed some amazing IRL and virtual connections on the site, so I thought it’d be a nice feel good Friday activity to tag your favorite badass on the site!

It’s always dangerous to single someone out when you are a rabid power user like me. I have met so many amazing women. But today, I want to single out @Asra. Her comments have always challenged me to see things from another point of view, even though we share so many of the same passions!
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I was so delighted to see that “Baby Shark” (do dooo do do do do doo do) has now gone so viral that as of last week it’s a Billboard Top 40 Song. It’s number 32, above a song by Ariana Grande. It’s been watched more than two billion times on YouTube, and at least 500 million of those were my kids so I feel some real ownership in this.

In the wake of the news, the beb was full of parental moaning. From Jimmy Kimmel: “I don’t think I’m overreacting when I say whoever is responsible for it should be locked in prison for the rest of their lives, and then when they die, their bodies should be fed to the very sharks they sang about.” Read more...

Editor’s note: Today’s newsletter is written by Amy Muller, Chairman Mom’s digital community strategist. (You’ve probably seen her plugging away at CM threads!)

I’ve worked in tech for over 20 years and have been confronted with all kinds of gender bias. The worst is the implicit bias that you sense in your gut is happening to you but you can’t actually pinpoint in a way that convinces others that there’s a there there? So you’re left feeling like maybe it’s just you. Maybe it’s all in your head. Maybe you’re a little bit crazy. Read more...

A note from Sarah: I’m really excited to announce that we’ve added another badass to the Chairman Mom team: Jana Kleitsch, an amazing UX designer who is joining our almost all-female developer team. We met Jana via another Chairman Mom member and she lives in one of our favorites cities, Seattle. She’s also a former founder. That puts her in good company at Chairman Mom: So far half of our team are former founders. So you know we’re a resilient AF bunch.

If you start notice everything becoming way more usable around here, that’s Jana. You’ll hopefully get to know her through the community as well. And you’ll definitely meet her and the rest of our team if you come to the Chairman Mom Flee in September. Read more...

12 is the magic number

Wow. So far our small groups feature has been our the most popular new thing we’ve ever launched. And I’m so thrilled because I think it’s so core to where we are going as a company. (When we get an app, this is really gonna be on fire…)

This is a list of some pending groups that only need one more person to form, in case that person might be you…

• If you could spend a long weekend away from your family for a me-time vacation or retreat, where would you go?
• Titles, corporate structure, stock and who is doing the most work
• How did you get back to exercise post-partum?
• How do founders deal with the anxiety that it might all just blow up in your face?
• Does anyone feel not ____ “enough” to attend the Chairman Mom retreat? (A thread that morphed into a fascinating discussion on imposter syndrome…)
• How do I support a potentially gender fluid daughter?
• Any advice on recovering after a miscarriage with first pregnancy?
• Wardrobe rut: If I were going to buy two or three statement pieces for fall, what trends should I jump on?
• Interested in joining a “daddy weekends club”?
• Has anyone found a way to forgive a spouse for infidelity?
• Easy weeknight meals
• Boss says a raise is not in the budget… but he gave one to someone else…
• Private Clubs — Worth the money?
• What do you wish you knew before you got pregnant?
• How and when do I give notice that I’m not coming back after maternity leave?
  

We also formed groups around getting financial s*** in order, Chairman Mom Book clubs, and more!

If there are topics you want to join a small group about, search our archive to find a relevant thread or ask a new question! Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here. I’m back with my first intro of 2019! Hello!

To re-introduce myself to new newsletter subscribers, Sarah typically writes these intros and I write all of the other content you see in these newsletters every day. A lot of the writing I post below also comes from many of our wonderful Mama Bears, so if you see an article you think would be great or have a recommendation or call to action, you can email me at lily(at)chairmanmom(dot)com.

Onto today’s intro.

Recently, I feel like a switch has flipped. I don’t exactly know how to categorize it yet, and I can’t tell how much of it is being a young and very vocal feminist woman in this current American hellscape versus how much of it is my birthday coming up in a few months and feeling a little bit older and wiser. But lately, I’ve seen a pattern emerging: I’m noticing the seemingly tiny sexist norms we’ve all come to abide by more and more, and I’m becoming increasingly aggravated by every single one of them. Read more...

At the end of our Mexico trip, Paul and I had an amazing conversation with a guy driving us to the airport. He’d lived in America for years, and eventually came back to Mexico. He obviously knew a lot of people who’ve lived on either side or even alternating sides of that border, and we were having this conversation in Mexico about to fly home to the US, while the U.S. government was shutdown over “border wall” politics.

How could we not get into the topic?

There was a lot of the usual “yeah, we’re embarrassed…” talk. But he also said something I’ve never heard from someone in another country about the state of America right now. Something I’d never really thought of. Something that was actually positive. Read more...

Let’s talk resolutions. I know many of you know how rabid I am about them. While resolutions feel aspirational and then guilt-inducing to a lot of people, to me, they give me a roadmap of what I want to get done in the year.

More than that, it gives me a way of assessing how I did in December. Every single woman reading this—whether you have children or not, whether you run your own company or not—will never complete the to-list in our heads. We will always feel some obligation left undone, some head-f**k of “Was I a good enough friend this year?” Some voice saying you aren’t enough of something. Read more...

I am really excited to announce a new feature that has been in the works since Chairman Mom’s earliest days: Private groups.

There’s something very powerful about people meeting in small groups to discuss something that matters to them. Those suffering trauma know it. Publishers who benefitted from the rise of book clubs know it. PTAs know it. Jeff Bezos as his famous “two pizza teams” knows it. Boutique fitness chains know it.

There is something about a small group that—when done right—is far greater than the sum of its parts. Read more...