Second Bloom: Transitions to New Midlife Vocations from Mothering and Homeschooling is a series of conversations with eight extraordinary, ordinary women.
Meet Bethany, Corina, Lindsay, Krista, Lisa, Jill, Wanda, and Nancy.
Women who have transitioned from homemaking and child-raising careers into training programs, bachelors, and masters degrees; women working in corporate professions, universities, and small businesses; writers, students, guides, helpers, musicians, designers, administrators, managers and healers.
Mothers with kids still at home and actively parenting tweens, teens and young adults. Mothers who have long launched birds from the nest. Mothers who homeschooled for a good portion of their children's education, and some that didn't at all. Mothers of two, three, four, five, six and seven children. Grandmothers.
Women with a strong commitment to that first career of homemaking and child raising, who have experienced or are experiencing a Second Bloom into new vocations in midlife.
Each interview is structured around a similar set of questions including family background and mothering history; the story of transition out of caregiving, mothering, homemaking, and homeschooling into a new vocation or career in midlife; motivations for that transition; financial goals for the added income; and reflections on the skills, experience and character traits we bring as mothers to new endeavors and new vocations.
The experience of eight women with different family sizes, different goals and dreams, different financial means, different locations and living contexts paints a diverse picture of the opportunities and amazing personal growth available to us in our Second Bloom.
Motherhood matters and for many of us it is our primary occupation in the first part of our adult lives. We believe in, and invest heavily into our family life and our children's wellbeing.
After a long season of this commitment we might wonder what will I do next? and how will I get there?
This conversation series answers those questions in the stories of eight women.
You will be encouraged by the way these women have discovered new joy, purpose, and meaning in their Second Bloom. You will be inspired by their courage, vulnerability, resilience, and hard work in going to school and starting businesses. You will resonate with their mother's heart and their deep commitment to their children.
And you will be delighted to witness how the mindset and skills honed in mothering, the sacrifices made, and love given to our children, comes back like an ongoing payout on our investment, to be the catalyst and inspiration for our own midlife growth and development.
These women's experiences - their wisdom, insight, and joy, exceeded my own expectations for this project, and they have become inspiring examples, beacons of light, helping point the way in my own Second Bloom.
Originally released to Patreon, these interviews now reside on my blog.
October 4, 2019
“I didn't have to be the center of my family life anymore and I didn't get to be the center”.