Moms need to fill their cups in order to pour into their children.

Find out how I did just that with Baby Dove at Mom 2.0 in this sponsored post.

There is a lot of guilt that comes with me being a working mom. Even though I stay at home with Baby Jamie, and although I’m the room mom for Ayva’s class and able to go to a lot of school events, I still feel like it’s not enough sometimes. If I’m on a deadline and have to be on the computer in the evening when we should be having family time, I feel like I’m letting family down.

That’s not all. Occasionally I’ll opt out of attending an event because, after a week of chasing around a little boy while trying to build a business, if I have the chance to get a moment to myself, I’m going to take it. I know that I shouldn’t feel bad about that. I mean, us moms need to take care of ourselves, too, right? But I do. I can’t help it.

Baby Dove and the “right way” to be a mom

Baby Dove knows that moms are doing the best that we can, and they want to encourage us to trust ourselves and really to show ourselves grace. There is no right way to parent. The way that we’re doing it is perfect for our families. Dove was the title sponsor of Mom 2.0, a conference I attend every year to be inspired and reinvigorated in my work. Much of the Baby Dove presence was about motherhood means—really. From the conversations with self-esteem experts, to the breakfast I hosted with the Baby Dove team to talk about issues facing multicultural moms, they showed over and over again that they understand what’s important to moms.

We just want to do right by our kids. That’s it.

Over the course of the 3 days that I was at Mom 2.0, I had conversations with other moms and the same topic kept coming up. How do we balance it all? How do we work towards our dreams while nurturing our kids’ goals? Is it possible to do both? Will we need to give something up?

We talked about the pressure we feel from other moms who are in different situations than us, and how sometimes we were the ones putting ridiculous expectations on ourselves. We shared how we were always striving to be better for our children, and how better didn’t always feel like it was good enough. All of the conversations ended the same way. We needed this time away to talk and build with other moms who understood what we were going through.

A conversation with multicultural moms and Baby Dove

I was able to make so many amazing connections with other mamas at Mom 2.0, but the best moments had to be at the Baby Dove breakfast that I hosted with the Dove team. We pulled together a group of diverse, creative, working moms from all over to talk about some of the challenges that we face raising children in our multicultural families.

For many of us, what we do, being women in business for ourselves, is very different than what the generation before us did. Several women shared how they faced backlash from their families because they were doing things that seemed out of the norm for their family. One mom homeschools her children and teaches them Chinese to preserve their culture. Another mom sold all of her belongings before the conference and she and her husband and kids were on the road headed to…they don’t quite know, yet. I talked about how I had to explain to family why I was going out of town again, and leaving my kids at home.

It was a great morning of sharing and connection. So much of what the other moms shared as challenges resonated with me, and I felt grateful to know that I wasn’t alone. Baby Dove understood that enough to bring this group together, and I appreciated it so much.

I needed this time away, and those intimate mama talks at Mom 2.0. It just reinforced that I can’t do this mom thing alone. I can’t. Thankfully, those three days for me reminded me that I don’t have to.

For more information about Baby Dove products, head over to their website.