Saren and April, Power of Moms Founders and Directors
This is a community unlike any other. We’re not here to tell you how to cook or clean–or how to make yourself, your kids, or your home look fabulous (though we definitely like things to look fabulous…).
We’re here to join with you as we ALL become the mothers (and people) we really want to be.
Here are a few of the volunteer board members who help run this site. Click here to learn about all of them!
Power of Moms is a gathering place for mothers who want to be deliberate in this beautiful (and often chaotic) process of raising children and growing ourselves, as women.
We believe motherhood is incredible, yet challenging (anyone else have a meltdown this week?). So we come together to share ideas and help each other to enjoy this experience. (Yes, it’s possible.)
Our site has received more than 2.5 million visits in the past year, and we have an incredible team of writers, ambassadors, trainers, and board members–all “regular moms” like us who want to champion the cause of deliberate motherhood by providing great posts, podcasts, videos, and programs that can help you:
- take better care of yourself
- get organized
- learn and share effective parenting techniques
- make your family life less stressful and more meaningful
- connect with like-minded mothers (in person and online)
(Click here for specifics on what we offer.)
Please know that we really want YOU here. We need your voice. We need your perspective. Regardless of your employment situation, your background, your marital status, or your ability to make it through the bedtime routine without losing it, you belong here. And TOGETHER, we are the Power of Moms.
Fill out this form to register as a member of Power of Moms! We’ll send you a welcome email and a Free Member Package–plus we’ll keep you up-to-date with our weekly newsletter (from which you can unsubscribe at any time…).
Welcome!!
Click on any question below to jump to the answer or scroll down to read all the questions and answers together:
What is the purpose of Power of Moms?
What does Power of Moms offer?
What makes Power of Moms different from other websites for mothers?
What are the basic beliefs that fuel Power of Moms?
What sorts of mothers gather at Power of Moms?
Who’s involved in running Power of Moms? Who does all the work?
What was the inspiration for starting Power of Moms?
What are the future plans for the Power of Moms?
What is the significance of the daisy on Power of Moms logo?
What is the purpose of Power of Moms?
Our purpose is to inspire and empower you to become the mom and person you are meant to be while giving you the opportunity to help other mothers grow into the mothers they are meant to be. Just as members of other “professions” have their professional organizations and websites, we see Power of Moms as the “professional organization” for mothers everywhere who take their “job” as a mother very seriously and desire a network of other mothers that can provide ideas, inspiration and empowerment. Power of Moms is the gathering place for deliberate mothers interested in growing through motherhood – not just going through motherhood. Our overall vision is to offer moms around the world the chance to “network” with other moms who share their same values, motivations, hopes and dreams. We aim to help moms take care of the person inside the mom while taking care of their families. Back to Top
What does Power of Moms offer?
Everything we offer on our website is designed to help moms become the mom and woman they really want to be. And a great deal of what we have to offer is free or very inexpensive. We provide great new posts, podcast episodes, and videos on our homepage all the time plus we have tons of great material in four main categories: Taking Care of You, Organizing, Parenting and Family Life, and Connecting with Others (click here for details on what’s included in each category).
We help moms put together Learning Circles – meaningful mothers’ groups that meet monthly to discuss great articles on specific aspects of motherhood. We help mothers organize their thoughts and time and projects so that they can experience less stress and more joy through our Mind Organization for Moms (M.O.M.) program based on David Allen’s best-seller Getting Things Done. We help moms do some self assessment and set and track meaningful goals through our Bloom Program. We put on life-changing Retreats to help moms learn from each other and leave armed with tried-and-true ideas to make their motherhood experience what they want it to be and help their families reach their potential. And there’s a lot more – check out our “What We Can Do For You” page to learn more.
What makes Power of Moms different from other websites for mothers?
Our focus is on strengthening mothers as women and as people who have chosen to make motherhood a primary focus in their lives. Unlike most motherhood-related sites, we don’t talk about cooking, shopping, fashion, cleaning, decorating, or potty-training. Instead of focusing on how to look, what to buy and how to react to the problems that pop up in our lives as mothers, our website focuses on pro-active ideas that will help us BECOME who we really want to be as mothers and as women. We link as much of our content as possible to suggested ACTION. There are plenty of places on the Internet to get ideas and read wonderful articles. But our site couples ideas with concrete suggestions and challenges. Everything we offer has a “do” component. You’ll see that each essay includes a challenge at the end – something you can DO in response to whatever rang true to you in that essay. Each essay also includes a question to help you share further points that might strengthen what the article has to offer other mothers.
Plus each of our programs offers scads of concrete ideas that can lead to life-changing actions and paradigm shifts. Everything we teach on this website reflects our personal values and beliefs, but because we want all mothers to feel comfortable on this site (even if they are not exactly like us), we use a principle-based approach that focuses on asking the right questions and letting mothers figure out the right answers for their unique family circumstances.
What are the basic beliefs that fuel Power of Moms?
We believe that motherhood is a valuable and valiant pursuit and that mothers need and deserve more support, appreciation and opportunities to learn from each other. We believe that mothers are precious and indispensable—we bring children into the world and strengthen societies by loving and nurturing our little ones. We are heroes to our children as we create homes of safety, warmth, and love—while throwing in some stern talks and tickle fights.
We at Power of Moms extend our appreciation to those mothers who are doing the best they can to build strong families. We also acknowledge that behind our noble efforts are many complex challenges and hidden feelings of depression, guilt, or frustration.
We believe it’s important for mothers to feel connected to other mothers and to have opportunities to share what they know so that – bit by bit – they can become who they really want to be. In the midst of all of the sacrifices that we make to care for our families, we sometimes forget that mothers are people, too. We believe that even in the midst of mounds of laundry and children’s interruptions, moms can and should find time and resources to nurture themselves, to expand their interests and talents, to become the woman they need to be while becoming the mom they need to be.
What sorts of mothers are involved in Power of Moms?
Our audience is deliberate mothers. We attract women who are serious about mothering and who want to grow their own abilities and talents through and during the experience of motherhood. We’ve got a very diverse audience of mothers. We’ve got moms from 134 different countries including moms who work outside their homes and stay-at-home moms, moms with plenty of money and moms with none, moms with several degrees from fancy universities and moms with valuable degrees from various schools of life experiences, moms with preschoolers through moms with teenagers. Back to Top
Who runs Power of Moms?
Saren and April, Power of Moms Founders and Directors
April Perry and Saren Eyre Loosli are the founders and co-directors of Power of Moms. You can learn more about them by reading the following section and/or by clicking here for April’s blog and here for Saren’s blog. April and Saren are assisted by a great group of volunteer moms who head up different programs and sections of the website. Check out our wonderful Board of Moms.
What was the inspiration for starting Power of Moms?
Saren: My background is in training and development. I got degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard University and then spent years putting together training manuals and professional development conferences. After marrying my good husband (and our webmaster), Jared, and having five children in quick succession, I turned my focus towards raising my family and realized how HARD motherhood is – even for me, the oldest child of the nine children of Richard and Linda Eyre, NYTimes #1 best-selling authors of parenting books!
I found myself wishing for some sort of conference or training manual that could help me become the mom I really wanted to be and for some way to connect with and learn from other mothers. I found play groups and plenty of books and gleaned great ideas from my wonderful mom and other relatives. There were websites full of ideas on the best products for moms, babies and kids plus websites where moms could post questions and get some answers. But I couldn’t find anything out there that was designed to help me really develop myself as a mom and as a woman during this stage of life. I talked to other moms who also felt this lack. And I saw how parents had flocked to my parents’ books and seminars and knew the interest was there. So I thought maybe I could use my background in training and development and put together “professional development” conferences where moms could get together and really learn from each other.
After I’d conducted a couple very successful conferences, I had to put my “extracurricular activities” on hold for a while as I focused on mothering my own 5 preschoolers (5 kids in 5 years gave me a serious run for my money – especially when we decided to build a new house to accommodate our family and that project was so consuming!).
Then I found April Perry who had launched her own little website with a purpose that mirrored mine. When we realized that our goals and personalities and abilities made a great match, we decided to merge our efforts and Power of Moms was born.
I work on Power of Moms while my kids are at school and put in a lot of hours when they’re asleep. It’s hard work and there are always more things to be done than there is time plus plenty of balance issues. But I learn so much from the other mothers involved and I figure that anything I do that helps me be a better mother and person is worth some stress and sacrifice of free time.
April: Becoming a mother was so exciting for me, but I initially went through the same challenges that many moms experience. I had just graduated from college and had been working plus was heavily involved in student government. I was used to juggling lots of projects, working with new people, and feeling a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. I absolutely loved having the opportunity to stay home with my daughter, and I knew my work with her was valuable, but I had the bandwidth to do more, and I wanted to spend my free time on meaningful projects that would help me pursue my life’s mission.
I spent several years reading every book I could find about motherhood, interviewing moms I admired, looking into a variety of educational opportunities, praying a lot, and talking to my husband about the kinds of things I wanted to do. As I went through that process, I had two more children, and I developed a deep love for motherhood. Caring for my family was still hard, but as I became more experienced, I could see the meaning of my work (and the fruits of my labors), and I felt so much joy and purpose as I cared for the people I love most.
Once my husband finished business school and we bought our first house in 2004, I felt ready to start “doing something” with all the knowledge and experiences I’d had. Originally, I spent every Wednesday night writing essays about motherhood–essentially I was “blogging” to myself. My husband could see how passionate I was about motherhood and how I wanted to help other mothers find joy and purpose in their lives while experiencing the nobility of their roles, and he encouraged me to start a website, write books, write for a newspaper column, speak at conferences, etc. He even drew a diagram on a little piece of paper showing me how all those activities could work in harmony (I still have it), but his ideas seemed too “big.” I was really good at thinking small and considering myself to be “just a mom,” but my husband kept supporting, challenging, and inspiring me to do more.
To be perfectly honest, I was afraid to step outside my comfort zone, but as more and more ideas about a website started coming to me, it got to the point that it was more painful not to start Power of Moms than it was to sit down and actually do it. My initial Power of Moms website had only been live for a few months (with a mailing list of about 150 of my friends) when Saren and I connected, and now it’s grown beyond my wildest expectations.
Last month, I found that diagram my husband drew seven years ago, and I started laughing. I said, “Honey, I’m now running a large website, writing a book, writing for a newspaper column, and speaking at conferences. How did this happen?” He just smiled.
It’s taken thousands of hours to get to this point, and the whole family has pitched in and sacrificed to make this possible, but I have never felt happier. I get to put motherhood at the top of my priority list while also working with great women, accomplishing exciting projects, and hopefully making a difference in the world.
What are the future plans for the Power of Moms?
We are currently busy growing Power of Moms Radio, further developing and spreading the word about our programs, training trainers who can increase the number of workshops and Retreats we can offer, and doing everything we can to provide the best support to mothers in our community. We’ll soon be launching a new website called “Power of Families” that will offer excellent parenting programs for moms AND dads.
What is the significance of the daisy on the Power of Moms logo?
Is a daisy a very “powerful” symbol? Well, we did have that whole “flower power” thing going on in the 60’s… Daisies are tough flowers. They don’t wimp out easily and they out-last just about any other flower in the vase. They don’t attract the most attention out of all the flowers at the stand, but they are consistently beautiful, bright, and happy. The daisy (named in the 17th century by Carolis Linnaeus) represents purity and innocence. Moms are the bearers of and leaders of the pure and the innocent. American colonists treated cuts and bruises with a daisy lotion, and American books from the late 30s still refer to the daisy’s medical power for hearts. Daisies are described as durable, adaptable, and as a symbol for excellence. Mothers, like daisies, heal cuts, bruises, and hearts. They are tough, adaptable, and committed to excellence in all areas of their lives. We love daisies. Back to Top
How can I get involved?
You can get involved by doing any or all of the following:
- The BEST way to get involved is to sign up for our weekly newsletter (right-hand side of the page!). We’ll let you know what’s new on the site, what events are coming up, and how to participate!
- Then subscribe to Power of Moms Radio so you can get to know us through these great podcasts while you exercise, commute, or fold laundry. It’s so fun.
- If you like to write, you can become one of our authors.
- And if you want to meet us in person, attend a Power of Moms Retreat.
You also might want to participate in one of our powerful programs. Visit our Store Page to learn about Learning Circles, Mind Organization for Moms, and much more!
- As you really get to know this community, you could even become one of our Certified Trainers and run your own Workshops with Retreats using the great materials we provide.
And we’re always excited when great moms join us as Power of Moms Affiliates.
Basically, just decide how you would best like to connect with us. There are tons of ways to get involved. We’re thrilled to have you with us.
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