|
It isn't very often that you will find a mom who can ackowledge that she is not a supermom and not only that, she doesn't want to be one! Are you ready to laugh? I have a very special guest for you that you will all get a kick out of. Her name is Lauren Mayer and she is a hilarious mother and comedienne living in the San Francisco burbs. Her CD "Psycho Super Mom" is one of the funniest and most relevant pieces of comedy I have heard in a long while. Welcome Lauren!
How did you get started doing what you are doing?
I've been writing song parodies and comedy since I was a kid. I went off to New York after college to become a Broadway songwriter, got tired of being a starving artist, moved to San Francisco to meet straight men, got involved with the cabaret scene and writing specialty material for singers. Through that I got into a partnership writing & producing corporate 'industrials' (customized musical/comedy shows for events & meetings), until my partner left the business, I got divorced, my ex-husband's company folded, leaving me with no support and worthless stock options, and 9/11 changed the whole meeting industry. (That wasn't a good year!)
So I started teaching music & voice, writing children's musicals, and looking for more creative opportunities - my former partner had become fairly successful doing new age ('woo-woo') music, and she basically dared me to come up with a project of my own. Since I was totally immersed in raising kids in the 'burbs, that's all I could think of to write about, so I wrote, produced and recorded my own CD, "Psycho Super Mom". And joining Ladies Who Launch, and getting that support from so many great women, gave me the confidence to get out there and perform the songs and other material as a one-woman show.
Humor is an essential part of raising children that a lot of parents have a hard time remembering. Can you give us some hints about when and how to inject humor into those tough moments with kids?
Part of it is remembering that things pass, and not to take everything so seriously - there's so much pressure these days to have perfect kids who enable us to brag about them with bumper stickers!, and as a former child prodigy who got straight As and never misbehaved, I can verify that being a perfect kid only leads to needing lots of therapy!
I try to be open to those moments where my kids make me laugh - like the time my boys were arguing over who was more mature by comparing who had more pubic hair. It's tricky - as kids get older, they're more sensitive to teasing, so that type of humor is harder. I find absurdist humor works pretty well - if the boys argue in the car, I sing really loudly. And it's also important to clue into kids' humor - again, I have boys, so their idea of humor is to rate each other's farts. The other thing that helps is to laugh with other moms!
I have noticed that you are very active in your pursuit of getting your name and company out there. Good for you! It is hard to juggle it all, isn't it? Can you tell us any secrets you have up your sleeve about being productive with kids?
It IS hard to juggle everything - but I love what I do and I don't want to go get a 9-5 job, so that's a strong motivator. As far as 'secrets' - I do way too much multitasking (making phone calls while I'm on the road, trying to cook dinner while I compose music), but what does help is preplanning, like remembering, okay, this is the day I have time in the car while Ben is at drum lessons and David is at dance class, so I'll pack my laptop and the phone numbers I need. I also swear by Trader Joe's frozen meatballs.
I think being a comedienne is hard! It takes some major guts to write your own material and get up in front of an audience. Tell us about how you get up the courage to do this kind of work and how we might be able to relate that to parenthood.
I've always enjoyed writing funny material for other people, but I think being a mom strips away alot of your self-consciousness (giving birth with a whole room full of strangers watching!, then that whole toddler phase where you can never go to the bathroom without a kid hanging there, and then the embarrassing things they say in public, like the time I was paying for me & the boys at Fresh Choice, which involves stating their ages, so my younger son popped up, "And she's 45!")
But what really gave me the confidence was seeing how much other moms laughed at my stories, and realizing we all bond through humor, and we need that support to counter the pressure we feel to be perfect mothers whose kids are perfect, whose houses are neat, and who wear size 0 jeans.
I find that everyone has the potential for the "psycho-mom" personality at times. Super-moms live inside us all too...somewhere? Psycho Super Mom is a great title for your album. Does the title fit you?
I hope the title doesn't really fit me! The idea for the title was that trying to be a super mom will drive you psycho, and frankly it's a total revenge fantasy; I know a couple of those super moms, whose kids like brussel sprouts, who always bring homemade cupcakes to bake sales, whose houses are immaculate, and who find time to work out, study Cantonese, and decoupage their driveways. I love to fantasize that they're really psychotic under the Martha Stewart veneer!
Tell us how you are promoting your products and services. We want to hear about what you do and how! This is interesting not only because we want to find out about what you do, but for the entrepreneurs among us, we want to know how you are going about it all!
What a great, and timely, question! I used to think marketing was all about feeling needy and begging for attention, and I also think as women we are brought up not to demand too much attention, to take care of everyone else first, not to act 'full of ourselves' or to blow our own horns. (I did actually get dumped by a boyfriend in high school because I beat him at a debate tournament!)
But now I'm realizing that if you're passionate about what you do or create, it's fun to share it, and women network in a completely different way than men - we LIKE to help each other and to refer each other, we thrive on that sense of community-building. SO - I belong to groups like Ladies Who Launch and E-Women, and I 've finally gotten over that fear of asking for help, so I've been asking friends, moms I know, etc., for leads.
Another great way to promote yourself is to be out there - to speak for free at women's networking events, to donate your products, anything that gets you visible.
What are your plans for the future? Tell us your biggest dream of who you want to be and what you want to do. Let loose and let's see if the power of intention and the act of putting it out there stir up some movement for you!
I love it when someone gives me not only permission to dream big, but ASKS me to do it! My current fantasy is to appear on The View, doing a comedy segment about what drives us psycho when we try to be supermoms. I also love the thought of entertaining big groups of women AND sharing my insights about how not to get dragged down by the stress of trying to keep up with other people's ideas of what makes a successful woman, good mother, etc. Also, right now I do my show to pre-recorded tracks, which is great, it makes it really portable and easy, but I can't wait to do it with a kick-ass live band! (My younger son is 11 and turning into a really good drummer, so my total fantasy would be to have him play drums for the show!)
Any final comments to parents about the value of humor?
Humor is ESSENTIAL to keeping your sanity - parenting is a really hard gig, and you have to remember to laugh. And don't take it all so seriously. Some of the best advice I ever heard was from one of my mother's friends, who was an older, more experienced mom. When I wanted to start shaving my legs at age 11, my mother was horrified, and asked her friend Ginger what to do. Ginger's advice was, "Will it make a difference in 20 years?" That helped my mom keep it in perspective - no, she wouldn't let me get a tattoo if I'd asked, but leg-shaving didn't have long-lasting implications.
The other thing is to find moments to have fun! We get so wrapped up in going and doing, activities and enrichment and the day-to-day details, and the sky won't fall if we eat cereal for dinner so that we have time to play a game. We bought a pingpong table that said 'some assembly required', meaning you need an engineering degree, but we got it jerry-rigged enough to play on, sort of, and right now that's my favorite thing to do with the boys when they get home from school, and it gives us fun bonding time before I start nagging about homework or chores. (Plus pingpong balls have a way of hitting people in all the most inappropriate places - boys find that incredibly amusing!)
Give us a plug! Tell us where we can purchase your products and services and when your future shows are!
Products: I have several CDs available - "Psycho Super Mom" is on my website, www.laurenmayer.com , and it contains songs like "Hormone Hell" (going through menopause while my son is going through puberty), "There's Always A Diorama" (I'm craft-impaired!) and "Getting Lucky Tonight" (trying to have couple time with kids in the house! I also have kids' CDs available through www.curriculumrocks.com , tied to grade-level curriculum.
Services: I do my 'Psycho Super Mom' show for women's groups, and I can customize songs to the group, event, ages of moms' kids, etc. I also work as a corporate humorist/emcee, doing programs on using humor to relieve stress, or writing custom material about the company's challenges. And I've started coaching women and women's groups on public speaking skills, specifically combatting stage fright and utilizing humor effectively. All of that is available through emailing me -
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Upcoming show - "Psycho Super Mom" - the Mother's Day Re-Do Edition! -
May 18, Sunday, 7:30 p.m., Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 E. Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City
Tickets are $15, available at the door, or make reservations at 650-578-9704.
|
Communication 
