Can a Corporate Mom Learn to be Hip? Maybe….

When I left my corporate 60 hr/week job a few years ago and started BHS, I had this deluded vision of being able to spend more time with my kids before they became teenagers. (Although some of my friends tell me when your kids are teenagers, they need you even more.) Experienced entrepreneurs know, and I now believe it, that a successful small business can be even more consuming than working for someone else.
I have to admit that I still carry the baggage of a corporate career. I’m still not completely unplugged. Printing out my kids summer activities each week from electronic shared calendar that my husband and I use to make sure everyone is where they need to be should have been the first clue. Answering emails to my daughter’s coach in numbered responses as if she were a client, should have been the second. Oh well.

But this summer I’ve really tried to make our time more creative and to hand off to others some of the BHS tasks. To be honest. It’s been challenging. My kids know I am not hip but it amuses them (most of the time). Sometimes, I feel like I am in a Disney movie that shouldn’t have been approved. You know the one. Former corporate mom tries to be cool outdoorsy type and the kids subject her to antic after antic. The pink “bunny” milk spills in the back seat … then the tent collapses … then they make a wrong turn in the woods and end up on the “most difficult” instead of the easy trail … I could write the script in my sleep.

I think I realized I was trying too hard when my 7 year old announced from the back seat: “You know, Mom. When Dad tells a joke it’s funny. When you tell the same joke … it’s not always funny. Harsh. I thought I left performance reviews back with dry cleaning, sales pitches, and product launches.

This weekend I took the gang for a hike along the Ausable River in the Adirondacks. I decided to let them take the lead and not worry about how far we went. The trail was full of small things to stop and examine. When we got to a beaver pond I eavesdropped as my older son explained to his younger brother :

“You know, we don’t eat butterflies,” my 5 year old announced.
“How come?” asked his brother.
“Because they don’t have a lot of meat on them,” he replied.

A great moment. For the rest of the hike we wandered mostly along the river, stopping to have lunch and swim. Afterward we drove into Lake Placid and went for another swim in Mirror Lake. I left the iPhone in the car. I built a sand castle. Maybe “hip” isn’t isn’t my future but it was a great day.