Why I Started Working Moms Connection
Working Moms Connection started from a place of hope and desperation. While in college for engineering I had a professor tell me that I was never going to make it as an engineer because I was just going to get married and have babies so I may as well not bother. I refused to believe him. Through tears, late nights, a full-time job, and engineering school, I finished my degree anyway.
When I became a mom, my husband and I knew it was the next step on the checklist of things to do to be successful. After I became a mom, what surprised me wasn’t the diapers, or sleepless nights, it was how badly I wanted to quit the job I had worked so hard for. I desperately wanted out, but we couldn’t afford for me to quit at the time because of our debt.
Read here: How Motherhood Changed My Ambition
It wasn’t that I suddenly didn’t want a career—it was that everything felt like competing priorities. I didn’t know how to hold both motherhood and a career at the same time.
Read here; Four ways to leave work at work–and maximize time with your family.
Read here: Lessons about Juggling
But I stuck with it. My mentor at the time told me not to discount the importance of the work I was doing and the difference it made in the world. I don’t think I fully appreciated that advice at the time, but I tried my best to apply it and make my work mean something. My thought was that if I’m away from my baby, I better be doing somethng meaningful to build a better world for him.
Even though my own mother, Kimberly Hicken, worked full time as an educator and raised eight babies, I didn’t feel like I had the bandwidth or capability to balance both motherhood and a full-time career. I called her often in tears asking her why it was so hard. I searched the internet for resources, I believed there had to be a better way.
Due to a story my dear friend Anne Ogden (coworker at the time) told me, I was inspired to create a vision for working moms who would come after me and who were currently trying to learn how to juggle.
The story went like this. There was a small community and every day the neighbors would walk past a pile of trash and look at it and say “That is so gross, somebody should do something about that.” But nobody ever did anything. They just walked past it and lived with trash in their neighborhood until one day, somebody stepped up and decided they could be that “somebody” and removed the trash.
Inspired, I thought, you know, somebody ought to provide resources for working moms. Somebody ought to prepare soon-to-be moms for working motherhood. I decdied to step up and be that somebody along with several others who were also in the thick of it.
From the beginning it was really important to me that the community for WMC we created didn’t further the divide between working moms or stay-at-home moms. I wanted all of us to feel supported. I do ask in the Facebook group if the mother is planning to work soon if they are a stay-at-home mom because we wanted the content to be related to working motherhood, but not to isolate the stay-at-home moms because there is no good in trying to define “who has it harder”. We all need resources and help, and despite our different advantages and experiences, we all have hard things we’ve experienced that make life difficult.
(If you’re interested in helping raise resilient, curious kids, you may also enjoy my Raising Innovative Kids project.)
Lastly, the main thing that I wanted women to walk away from was connection. I wanted them to feel seen, heard, and loved. I wanted them to feel supported, and empowered to embrace the lives they have, make the best of it, and enjoy it best they can even through the hard.
In August of 2017, I invited all the people who expressed interest in this project to attend a meeting. Looking back at the agenda now I can’t help but laugh. My 26-year-old aspirations were so high, and yet, we accomplished nearly 80% of what we set out to do. Looking back, I smile because my ambitions far exceeded my experience.
I had given people arbitrary assignments. I asked them to step up and help me create this. And many of them did. They poured their hearts and souls into this and followed my vision adopting it as their own. They worked so hard to put on the 2019 Embrace event, people submitted over 50 blog articles, our instagram grew to over 2k, and our Facebook group took off.
Lessons learned by Working Moms Connection
First off, if I could go back and tell myself one thing it would be this: quit doubting yourself, because you are doing your best and that is enough.
Over and over again I see women constantly doubt themselves, feeling like they are not enough. That lesson eventually became the foundation for Dear Abigail, a collection of letters to my daughter reminding her—and perhaps reminding myself—that she is enough.
I thought Working Moms Connection had failed. I closed the chapter, paid off the debts, and assumed it was over. But the community kept growing without me. That taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way: meaningful work doesn’t have to be perfect to matter. Sometimes the seeds you plant continue growing long after you’ve stopped tending them.
Our community still matters. And we are still making a difference to thousands of women. Your individual contributions, your comments and likes, your willingness to engage in discussions and think critically matter. Communities are built one interaction at a time. Every thoughtful comment, every encouraging reply, every person willing to listen instead of attack shapes the culture we’re creating together.
Working Moms Connection also changed me personally. It taught me that my passion wasn’t simply supporting working mothers—it was helping people think more clearly, ask better questions, and build stronger communities. Those lessons have followed me into every project since, whether I’m working in engineering, serving on local boards, or helping educate people about health and science.
Today I serve as Director of Operations and Education for the Molecular Hydrogen Institute. While the subject matter is very different, the mission feels surprisingly familiar. We educate people, encourage thoughtful discussion, and try to help them make informed decisions based on the best available evidence. That same philosophy eventually grew into the Wellness Science Initiative, (a branch of MHI), which expands beyond health to teach critical thinking, respectful dialogue, and lifelong learning.
The world still needs people who are willing to step forward, even if they don’t have all the answers. Somebody ought to do something. I hope, when you see the opportunity to make your family, your workplace, or your community just a little better, you’ll remember that those somebodies are ordinary people like you and me.
Thank you for being here and welcome!
