Rebranding Myself as Ilana

When I started my blog shortly after Mazzy was born, one of my very first posts was called “Rebranding Myself as Mom.” This is the picture I used at the top:

Remember when every photo had a vignette? This was pre-Instagram times so I’m not sure what editing app I was using to do this. Photoshop maybe? Clearly, I was ahead of my time.

It’s funny because back in 2010, the whole idea of a “personal brand” didn’t really exist (unless you were Jessica Simpson or the Olsen twins) so I felt the need to explain the concept of branding to my audience. Years of knowledge gleaned from my very professional career in advertising passed on to the lucky people reading at the time. All four of them (hi, mom!). Now, for better or worse, we all get it. From my pilates instructor (@zengirlfitness) to Mazzy’s orthodontist (@drroyal), everyone has a personal brand.

Back in the early aughts, my carefully cultivated brand was single girl (not woman, my friends and I would never) who was focused on her career (creative, obviously!) and didn’t need a man (but very much wanted one, shhh). Then I got engaged, which already seemed off brand. Calling Mike “my fiancé” was like— who do I think I am? The Queen of England? And then calling Mike “my husband” felt weird to say without first caveating that I was not used to saying it yet.

Before I could even get used to the married brand, we had Mazzy. Suddenly I understood why every new mom I knew posted nothing but photos of their babies on Facebook. What could possibly be more interesting than my baby??? I was a mom now. It felt like nothing else mattered. I started my blog for many reasons, but one of them was so that I could incessantly post baby photos and stories about motherhood on a business page instead of annoying all my single childless friends on my personal page. It was like giving my friends the choice to opt in to a constant barrage of Mazzy content, instead of forcing my cute baby down their throats.

And to be clear, she was VERY, VERY cute.

When I started writing this post, I went back to the original post I wrote over ten years ago to give me some clues as to why I was so attached to the childless version of myself. It’s hard to remember her now. But sadly, I didn’t write that much about why I was hanging on to the old brand. A baby had come out of my body and whether I felt comfortable with the new brand or not, I was fully committed.

It’s been over eleven years since I fully committed myself to the title “mom.” Both personally and professionally. Now, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night wondering where the time went, thinking about how quickly it’s all moving and wondering who I will be when my kids leave the house. It’s a feeling full of panic.

Nothing makes a person want to stop time more than watching their kids grow up. Yes, it’s wonderful and exhilarating and oh my god I love my kids harder with each passing day. But it’s also heartbreaking. Because just as you start to fully appreciate who your kids are becoming, you realize their world is getting bigger and you will not be the center of it soon. As you start to give up more control so that they can truly become their own people, it can feel kind of scary.

That’s what every mother goes through I think.

But I have this added element of having tied my livelihood to being a parent. If I didn’t leave my advertising career and become a mom blogger for a living, I wonder if the feeling would be as intense. At the time, I thought I was very clever to combine the two so that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice either one. I was laid off right after coming back from maternity leave and questioned who would want to hire the mother of a newborn. The mom blogging life seemed to use my new status to my advantage, and over time, it proved to be an excellent move within the industry. I was still doing advertising but for myself instead of an agency. I was getting paid more for it too.

But obviously, everything comes with a price and one of them was losing my identity outside of being a mother. It took my oldest getting to the tween years for me to recognize this, but now I see it plainly. If I don’t start to pivot now, my kids will grow up and leave and my career will be over all at once. Plus, there’s always the possibility that my kids could opt out long before they leave the house.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and absolutely none of them are about parenting. They are about things like current events, tech, business, pop culture, etc. Every time one of the guests or the host casually mentions their children as part of a larger point (which is quite often), I’m always surprised. Like how did all of these people become experts in their field while also raising kids? Why does it sound so crazy to me to have someone introduced as an actress, a comedian, a professor, a journalist without first mentioning that they are a parent? Obviously, I am the outlier here and parenthood does not need to define you. This was a choice I made.

I find myself looking at a lot of the younger bloggers and influencers in the parenting space. Most of them had established personal brands beforehand. They were fashion vloggers, beauty YouTubers, home designers, etc. suddenly pregnant and then just had to weave their kids occasionally into their content.

I have been tasked with the opposite. I started my online presence purely about my kids and now I’m trying to make sure I’m a part of it too. Except I don’t have any of those aforementioned skills (trust me, no one wants my non existent recipes or home design tips), so what am I weaving into my parenting content? This is what I’m trying to figure out.

Another thing I’ve realized is that you become a mother in one day. Yes, there is the pregnancy, but really the reality of motherhood sinks in the day your baby is placed in your arms. Letting your kids go and finding yourself is a much more gradual process. Instead of jumping in head first like I did on December 9th, 2009, I’m reluctantly starting this process of letting go. While simultaneously recognizing that I’ve still got a ways to go and parenting is about to get a lot harder.

When I first decided to write this post, I thought I would make a grand announcement at the end— I was switching @mommyshorts to @ilanawiles on Instagram. Just like I eventually switched “Skyler’s mom” and “Harriet’s mom” in my phone contact list to Lucy and Bianca. But I’m not quite ready for @ilanawiles yet. What I’ll do first is change my profile description. I switched “blogger” to “writer” and then I changed the order. I put “writer” first, “mom” second. It doesn’t feel really true yet, but it’s a start.

Rebranding back to “Ilana” is going to take some time.

Questions for the comment section: Would you miss @mommyshorts if I changed it to @ilanawiles or would it not really matter? Are you feeling pangs of loss as your kids grow up as intensely as I am?

If you are jumping over here for the first time, you can subscribe for the free or paid newsletters below. I also encourage you to check out the discussion thread earlier this week where everyone introduced their former selves. FYI, I was blown away by the number of responses. Discussion threads will eventually be part of the paid option, but for now, they are free.

If you want to upgrade to a paid membership, you can do that by clicking the button below as well!