For years I wrote several regular columns for the now defunct parenting publication Treasure Valley Family Magazine. For twenty years, from 1993-2013, TVFM was the premier resource for all things family in the greater Boise area. It was a printed magazine and free and you could pick it up anywhere in much of Idaho monthly. It featured a lengthy and detailed calendar of family friendly events, classes, camps and was THE place for businesses to advertise. There were stories on so many different topics, many of which I had the honor to write from about 2010 until it closed in the summer of 2013. One was called Park Playtime, where I reviewed a different park or outdoor play place in the greater Boise area. This was so fun and easy for me because I also organized a local mama and kids weekly playgroup where we got together to hang out once a week so I had a built in review committee to help. I am always the mom with all the snacks and the toys. If you follow me you know that we still love exploring new off the beaten path places and parks and swimming holes. I recently dug out a bunch of the archives and shared some fun old articles on my favorite things to do with kids in Boise and beyond I wrote in my Instagram Stories, many of which are still family favorites. (Here’s the link to see them if you follow me on Instagram, which I totally recommend watching.) I also got to write so many different types of stories, from Idaho road trips with kids to my favorite places to shop for really specific things, like birthday cakes and handmade holiday gifts and slices of pizza.
I almost always supplied my own photography for the pieces I wrote also!
The other favorite I wrote for the magazine was always the feature on the last page, a more personal essay, something my editor offered to me and I jumped at the chance and called it Somewhere Over The Laundry Pile. I was already a prominent local “mommy blogger” (this blog turns 14 next month!) and I was thrilled to have her faith in my personal way of storytelling. (Related: a fan one described me as a contemporary Erma Bombeck and it’s one of my favorite compliments to date.)
In it I wrote 500 words about things like trying to make time for a date with my husband and talking to my kids about hard things and how being a stay at home mom sometimes sucked and about getting my kids - and myself - to give up all devices for an extended period. I wrote these columns every single month and got paid to do so and had freedom and integrity and was able to use my own voice and I loved it so much. It’s been almost nine years now since the magazine closed down but I’m so grateful for that opportunity to use my own unique voice for my take on motherhood to such an important audience and the magazine such a lifesaving thing for parents with young kids in Boise for so many of us.
As I sat on my basement floor reading so many of these articles I wrote for so many years, I was brought to tears by my honesty, my openness, my vulnerability. I was shocked that I shared so many raw and unfiltered things - and that my editor trusted me and let me write them. This column quickly became a beloved column and I gained a lot of fans from those days - many older moms like me who still stop me in the grocery store to tell me how much they’ve loved my work from those days. The Somewhere Over The Laundry Pile piece that really really stuck out to me was the one I wrote in the July 2011 issue, eleven-and-a-half years ago now. It was called Accepting Me, and I wrote bravely and loudly about my discovery of the fat acceptance movement and shared my weight publicly and how I had spent a lifetime struggling with body shame and beauty standards that I didn’t want to pass on to my daughters. This was after two and a half years spent immersing myself in the literature and blogs and making changes in my own life to feel like I could whisper this subversion to the universe, except instead of whispering it to a few friends I published it in the most popular and widely read women’s magazine in most of Idaho at the time LOL. Here it is, transcribed below, because it no longer exists online and I really, really think it should. (I’ll share the text below the image.)
“TO: L. Buckingham, Editor, Treasure Valley Family
FROM: Amy Pence-Brown
DATE: May 31, 2011
SOMEWHERE OVER THE LAUNDRY PILE
ACCEPTING ME
As my girls, Lucy and Alice, are now ages seven and three respectively, I’ve been forced to accept that they are moving outside the protective nest of my home. Lucy is now headed to second grade and I’ve just enrolled Alice in preschool for the fall. Reigning in my ‘mama bear’ instincts a bit has been hard; now that my girls are ‘out in the world’ I can no longer always be the voice of reason when a mean kid on the playground says hurtful things or help them out if they are challenged beyond their physical capabilities. What I can do, though, and what I hope I will always continue to do, is to teach my daughters to accept themselves. I want them to learn from their limitations and differences and to offer the same respect to others they encounter throughout their lives.
One of my favorite authors, Naomi Wolf, wrote this powerful sentence in her book The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, “A mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually vaccinates her daughter against low self esteem.” I read this book years ago, well before I gave birth for the first time, yet I recently discovered this quote, hand-written by me in an old spiral bound notebook. It was like a note to my future self, one that I’m glad I found. As a mother, of course I know that acceptance begins with yourself and that by doing so, I am teaching the policy of acceptance to my daughters. Those with higher self esteem and self acceptance are more likely to accept the differences of others, all things I want to instill in my children. As a woman, however, it is often harder to practice what I preach.
I sometimes have moments of incredible insecurity and weakness. I worry that this shade of lipstick does not look right on me and have days when I’d rather die than be seen in a bathing suit. There are times I sense the disapproval in the widening of eyes when I tell new acquaintances how I gave up a strong career working outside of the home full-time in the nonprofit world to live on less (money) but with more (time with my family). Years of struggling with anxiety, panic attacks and a slew of medications to help control both have made me sensitive to my own mental health issues. I berate myself over the piles of laundry on the floor, late fees for lost library books, and occasionally bribing my kids with Chicken McNuggets® if they promise to behave while accompanying me to work-related meetings.
As I have now officially entered my mid-thirties and have crossed that threshold nearer to forty (gasp!), I have been surprised at the confidence I exude and the comfort I feel in my own skin, even though it may be more saggy and stretch-marked than ever before. I’m rotund and real and at 240 lbs. have recently become a hard-core supporter of the Fat Acceptance Movement and believe whole-heartedly in health at every size. The silver streaks in my hair are a source of pride for me, honoring my mother, aunts and grandmother who all grayed before me. My intellect is continually growing and being fed by reading, taking classes, staying informed and active in my community and the world.
Like everyone, I have good days and bad ones, but I really think it is important to remind myself what I can do rather than what I can’t and focus on how to go about making myself a better person. By accepting me, I can show my daughters, and the world, how to accept others.
”
Feeling nostalgic for this writing gig and for my tiny babies lately. True to motherhood, as life just moves so quickly and you’re so caught up in the moment of right now, I’d forgotten so many of these things ever happened and that I’d written about them. I wish I could just post all the archives here because I’m still so incredibly moved and proud of everything I wrote in this magazine, of the way we touched and helped families’ lives, of the way I was so true to myself while figuring out the most important job I’ll ever have - being a mother. While I may no longer have a print outlet so supportive (oh, and if you’ve been here long you know how many publications I wrote for before and after Treasure Valley Family Magazine that were a shitshow), I always have this blog and social media as a place to currently share my voice with bigger audiences and I’m forever grateful. To those of you here, new and old, who find hope and strength and themselves in my words. Thank you for reading.