Affectionately known on-air and online as ‘The FAB Mom,’ Jill Simonian is the Parenting Lifestyle Expert for CBS Los Angeles news and author of The FAB Mom’s Guide: How to Get Over the Bump & Bounce Back Fast After Baby — a personal, practical and motivating guide with celebrity stories and expert lifestyle tips to boost first-time moms’ mind/body/spirit confidence and capability for that ‘bumpy’ year of new motherhood (F-A-B = Focused After Baby). Jill is a contributor for NBC’s TODAY Show’s Parenting Team and Mom.me and has often appeared on TODAY Show, Hallmark Channel, HLN, KTLA Morning News Los Angeles and more.
Connect with Jill on TheFABMom.com, Facebook, Tw
Gugu Guru: How and why did you start FAB MOM? Where did you come up with the name?
Jill Simonian: I wish I could say I was so creative to come up with “The FAB Mom” on my own, but it was literally the ONLY URL that was available for purchase when I first started blogging back in 2010! I remember typing in every possible blog name I could think of and “taken” kept coming up. I finally thought of ‘fab’ (because it was such a buzzword back then) and it turned out to be available… so I took it. I initially thought I’d write about fashion and entertaining after becoming a mom — you know ‘fabulous’ things — but soon found that most of what I was writing about had to do with me trying to stay motivated, creative and focused after having a baby. Turns out, the URL that found me was right on — FAB really does mean ‘focused after babies,’ which is what my new book for first-time moms The FAB Mom’s Guide: How to Get Over the Bump & Bounce Back Fast After Baby is all about. Staying focused and committed to bouncing back from bad days, confused parenting moments and the every day chaos of mom-life is something that we all must cope with and conquer.
GG: How do you balance work and family?
JS: Still trying to figure this one out (lol). Here’s one rule that I’ve learned the hard way this last year: Do not try to be a stay-at-home mom and working-mom at the same time! It sounds crazy, but that’s what I tried to do when I first got my job at CBS Los Angeles news in February 2016. I’d been a work-at-home mom (blogger/brand-ambassador) for years, but failed to realize that starting a new job on television and writing a book at the same time added up to full-time working hours. Sure, the time I could do my work was fairly flexible, but the responsibilities took time away from me being able to volunteer at my girls’ schools, cook dinner every night and organize the house like I used to. Whenever your time gets filled with something, you must account for the time you’ve lost in other areas — we cannot do it all at the same time (that’s not sexist, it’s just common sense). I also learned to do one thing at a time — multi-tasking does NOT work.
GG: What’s the best part about being a “Mompreneur” and running your own business?
JS:I do love the flexibility. Being more available for my kids is also very important to me. I’m a big believer in moms continuing to work after having kids (we need goals and accomplishments too!) but I’m also unwavering in my belief that the mom should be the kids’ primary caregiver. Don’t get me wrong — dads and sitters and grandparents are loved and needed and incredible, but no one can do what ‘mom’ can do when it comes to raising kids and giving them the security, guidance and discipline they need to grow into capable adults.
