The book

Five years ago, I had an idea.
A great idea, according to several agents and publishers.
Who Am I Now: Honest Conversations with Stay-at-Home Moms was supposed to be a collection of interviews with mothers of all ages from all over the country who discussed, entirely in their own words, the sociological, the financial, the psychological and the physical impacts of their decisions to remain home with their children.
No condescension from the experts, no supermoms held up as role models: only candid interviews with real women of all ages.
More than a dozen women, strangers at first, gave selflessly of their time, their hearts and their souls to make this book happen.
Their motivation was not money.
There were no promises of compensation.
They spoke to me because they wanted to help.
They were no longer strangers by the time we were through and I am forever grateful that I had the opportunity to know them.
I couldn't wait to share their experiences, their raw honesty, their wisdom with the world.
But then came reality.
Pull a parenting book off the shelf.
Chances are the author is a celebrity of some sort -- a talk show host, an already well-known writer, an actor, a nationally or internationally renown doctor. The publishers who were interested in Who Am I Now? wanted that same status from me.
They wanted me to freelance for national parenting magazines, speak at conferences, blog on parenting sites -- do anything I could to become a "parenting expert" before they would consider publication.
But I am not an expert and I never will be.
I am a stay-at-home mother of four who was once a journalist and is now writing fiction. I am a woman who struggled with staying home, who took comfort in the voices of others and who wanted share that comfort with others who were struggling. I was to be the compiler of Who Am I Now?, not the writer, not the expert.
It has pained me to think that those women wasted their time, their energy and their honesty.
So I had another idea.
Every two weeks for the next several months, I will publish one of those interviews on this blog.
I will promote the blog wherever I can and I will count on the interviewees to share as well.
Together, we'll get the word out. We'll reach those moms who need us, those mothers who are struggling with their new roles and with the identities they left behind, who are searching, sometimes through eyes swollen with tears, for the answer to that question: Who Am I Now?