Becky Castle Miller

You know what I’m really good at? Mothering a newborn.

You know what I’m not at all good at? Mothering a 6-year-old.

This is because I have mothered three newborns and only one 6-year-old (and I’ve only been doing that for a few months).

When my first child, Katherine, was born, I wasn’t great at taking care of her. I was unsure and clumsy. I was awkward as I tried to hold and feed her. I meticulously researched every option for every decision and then still second-guessed myself. I didn’t know what to do with her all day…after feeding, bathing, and changing, it was only mid-morning, and the day loomed ahead of us, teeming with question marks.

Read the rest of Becoming A Master Parent at The Mom Season, Dani Byham’s blog.

If you want to work in a field where you have talent and interest, but you also want to have children and be very involved in raising them, plan ahead for a career that will allow you to work part-time. Here are some suggestions for charting that kind of career path along with the story of how I’ve made it work for me.

Do internships (work for free while you can)
Your high school and young adult years are great times to work somewhere for free. If you’re living with your parents in high school and your expenses are covered, work for free in a field you’re interested in while you don’t have to worry about rent. I wrote for my hometown newspaper in their teen section during high school, and I got crazy-valuable experience (and no paycheck).

In college, while my living expenses were covered with scholarships, tuition payments, and loans, I worked for the school newspaper (for which I did receive a small scholarship) and did an internship with the honors program newsletter for credit. That means I paid for that experience, but if I hadn’t been worried about college credit, I could have just volunteered and done the same work. I also did another internship in marketing at the company that planned to hire me when I graduated. I paid for credit for that work too, but the company paid me hourly, so it worked out okay.

If your parents are able to help you pay for college, consider asking them to instead help you cover your basic living expenses while you work a job or do an internship in your field. It’ll be cheaper than college, you’ll learn more, and you’ll be much more likely to get a paying job when you’re done.

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Today I have a guest post up over at Sarah’s blog. She writes about doing life and parenting with a physical disability, so I wrote about parenting through mental health problems, specifically depression. Here’s a preview:

The blackout shades on the windows mostly kept the sun at bay, and the dry Cheerios I set on the table mostly kept my two- and four-year-old kids at bay. I slunk back under the heavy comforter, head on the wet pillow, and returned to the weight of sleep. Today I wouldn’t end my life, but I would try as hard as I could to pretend I didn’t exist.

Even now, three years later, I blush as I confess this to you.

I am so ashamed at what a terrible mother I was, what a terrible wife, what a terrible housekeeper. I had no idea what was wrong with me, only that I was failing at everything in my life. Previously a strong and capable professional, I was losing clients because I couldn’t bring myself to call them back. Formerly an energetic new mom, I could barely feed and clothe my children.

The view from my laptop: Sick baby sleeping on me while I write.

Sometimes you read a little something that washes over your soul with a wave of freedom, that blows into your heart a gust of spring air.

I stumbled on a comment on a very old blog post from Jennifer Fulwiler, now of Conversion Diary, back when she wrote on The Reluctant Atheist. Jennifer and her husband felt like they were called to do “more” in the world to help people but couldn’t figure out how. Her commenter said:

“For husband and wife, the admonish[ion] of Christ to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and clothe the naked starts right there with your spouse and kids. There’s plenty of opportunity to care for the sick while comforting a spouse or child whose being ravaged by the flu. There’s plenty of opportunity to feed the hungry just by bringing your babe to the breast to nurse. There’s plenty of opportunity to cloth[e] the naked by providing for spouse and childrens material needs.”

That freed me when I read it a few months ago, and it frees me as I read it again today. We have been sick for something like three weeks…I lose track, because it’s been such a long blur. Viruses and flus and coughs and colds have swarmed around and through our family as we’ve swapped diseases with each other and the rest of Maastricht.

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I mentioned my friend Sarah Kovac to you last week in my post How Hustle Can Get You a Book Deal. Here’s the promised guest post from her about how she managed to get that book written while taking care of her son. Sarah’s second baby is due around the same time as her book releases, so I hope she’ll write another post in the future about how to handle a book launch with a preschooler and a newborn!

I’ve never been the ambitious type. Growing up with a severe physical disability (called Arthrogryposis), I learned quickly to accept my lot in life and be happy with what I had–most days, anyway.

This laid-back philosophy, combined with my aversion to schedules, caused me to feel right at home in the college journalism department. I’d been writing for fun all my life, but my desk as Opinions Editor was where I learned to be creative on demand, write poorly/revise later, and meet a deadline. I dropped out just before my senior year to focus on being a new mom, but writing was in my blood. I couldn’t stop. During 3 a.m. nursing sessions, I sat on the floor, babe in my arms, laptop at my toes. (Yes, I type with my toes.)

I typed everything and nothing. Every obscure memory that made my life unique; every hurtful look and awkward conversation and victorious moment. Everything. Fragments, half-thoughts, ramblings, all laid out in a hurry before my newborn started to fuss or drift back to sleep. I wrote about 7,000 words… and then I ran out of steam, in typical Sarah fashion.

I gave up on my little file of thoughts, and a year of baby wipes and giggles and sleep-deprivation passed. Then suddenly my world began to spin faster. I uploaded a video of how I change diapers with my feet, and two days later, my story was headline news on CNN.com.

Organizations started inviting me to share my story as a guest speaker, and I won a blogging contest that sent me to North Carolina for a speakers/writers conference called She Speaks. I mistakenly signed up for the chance to pitch my book proposal (which didn’t exist) to a for-real literary agent. When I realized my mistake, the conference was just two weeks away. I had never seen a book proposal in my life. Of the three suggested sample chapters I needed to present, I had exactly zero.

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This is a guest post from my brother, Daniel Castle, in response to my post What To Do When You’re Afraid of Being Wrong. Daniel is a pilot, and is therefore never wrong. What’s awesome about Daniel (besides the being a pilot thing) is that he bucked traditional wisdom about majoring in Engineering or some such at the Air Force Academy and majored in English, because he loves writing as much as flying. I think this is a great example of specialization…anyone can pilot a tanker*, but how many tanker-pilot-humor-writers do you know?

*That’s not true.

TL;DR Version: Be awesome. Awesome people don’t have wrong opinions.

My husband, Matthew, thinks his brother-in-law Daniel is always right.

1. Be a pilot. And insert that fact into any and all conversations (especially when there are strong opinions present). This simple fact will end all arguments and make you the automatic winner. Everyone knows you don’t argue with a pilot because you can’t win*. If you’re a pilot, you can also use your civilian airline captain’s voice, which is like a Darth Vader stranglehold trump card against any contrary opinions. “KSHCK, Goooooooooood morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is your eeeeeeeerm captain speaking. You are wrong, KSHCK.” Coincidentally, this brings me to my next point.

I’ve narrowed my topic, found my niche, and tapped into my passion … and now I’m terrified to write about it, because what if I’m wrong?

I want to write about being a dreamer while you’re a mom, about using your skills both at home AND at work, or as a volunteer. Making a difference in both the small world of your kids’ lives AND in the great big world outside your door. I know it’s possible to do both, because I’ve done it for the six years I’ve been a mom. I am delighted with the career I’ve built, part-time, while raising children who also delight me.

But what if I’m wrong?

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My friend Sarah Kovac has her first book, In Capable Arms, coming out this fall!

Sometimes I see authors releasing first books, and I wonder how much luck or the right connections had to do with the publishing deal. Having been privileged to watch Sarah’s story develop since we met in high school, I can tell you that her success is due to a lot of hustle on her part.

Sarah’s book is about dealing with AMC, which makes her arms mostly unusable, so she performs many daily tasks with her feet. Her journey to publication began in 2010 when she saw CNN requesting iReport stories from parents with disabilities. She had studied journalism at school, but was scared to report about herself. After wrestling with insecurity over her appearance, she decided, “My arms are my arms, whether I like them or not, and hiding them is just ridiculous. They’re attached. They’re not going to go away. And if my story can encourage somebody, then I’m going to tell it, even if it makes me uncomfortable.”

So she created a short video of herself doing daily parenting tasks, like diapering and feeding her then-8-month-old son — with her feet. She uploaded the report before she could second-guess herself.

The next day, she checked the news on CNN, and found herself on the home page! This quickly led to interview requests from local media outlets.

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If your kids have the app Stack the States, you understand edutainment. If you husband works in software and likes video games, you’ve probably heard about gamification.

(And if you also got Stack the Countries, and your 4-year-old son’s favorite country is Malta because, I have no idea, and he misses the point of the game and just tries to get Malta, then you are me.)

Edutainment and gamification are not just for kindergarteners and men. I think they’re important aspects of the education reform movement (who DOESN’T want to make learning more fun?). And they’re currently helping me improve my marketing.

I’ve been on a self-directed education kick recently to learn more about web marketing. My core skills are in content development and organization (writing and editing), and much of the writing industry is about marketing. Your words could be the best ever, but if no one reads them, what’s the point in communicating? If you’re not marketing your writing, you might as well be journaling.

My learning has included:

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Nearly everyone bikes to school in the Netherlands (and work as well – even the prime minister!). View From the Cycle Path has a cool video that a dad made showing the bike traffic of parents and kids on the way to a Dutch school in the morning.

School busing is totally a foreign concept to the Dutch. Kids walk, bike, take public transportation (train or city bus), or, sometimes, get dropped off by car. One company here has created a bike bus that allows one adult and eight kids to pedal together. They’ve sold about 25 of them. I’m curious to see if it will catch on more.

When I drop my 6-year-old daughter, Katherine, off at her Dutch school, I usually also take along 4-year-old Joshua and 1-year-old Estel. I use a three-wheeled bakfiets, a cargo bike. Picture:

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