Hey yall, I’m Claire Holmes, Founder of Mama Collaborative.
Maternity Leave Coach + Working Mom Cheerleader
I am a Maternity Leave Coach who helps women embrace working motherhood with confidence, grace and a plan. Through one-on-one coaching programs, impactful workshops, comprehensive online courses, proprietary resources and a supportive online community, I share the critical mindset shifts, strategies and encouragement working moms need to succeed – especially in the early days of motherhood.
I am a multi-passionate entrepreneur who likes helping others achieve their goals. Over the past decade, I have worked in marketing, strategy consulting and creative roles across the financial, legal, retail, non-profit and consulting industries.
A native Texan, I consider myself lucky to have spent time in San Francisco, Barcelona, and Athens, Georgia, where I lived while earning my degree in Advertising at the University of Georgia. I now happily reside in Houston with my husband, three sons, and our rescue dog, Murphy.
RETAIN Certified Parental Leave Coach
I am a RETAIN Certified Parental Leave, certified through the Center for Parental Leave Leadership. Through this structured, evidence-based and holistic form of coaching, expecting moms (and their managers!) are supported through the three phases of Parental Leave (Before, During & After) to ensure a successful, engaged and sustainable return to work while thriving at home.
This direct and personalized support has been shown to decrease stress at work and home, increase communication with key stakeholders, support more equitable divisions of labor, improve sleep strategies, increase uptake of existing workplace resources, increase employees sense of mattering, improve health and wellness (including perinatal mental health), and ultimately help create a better experience for all.
Mama Collaborative was born from my own unmet needs as a Working Mom.
And in order for you to understand why Mama Collaborative exists, I think it’s important you hear a bit of my backstory…
I am a proud mom of three beautiful boys. I am the CEO of my household. And I have a professional career.
Each of those roles is important to me but each is a full-time job in and of itself. And there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day.
Plus, society has stacked the cards against women, especially working moms. We are underpaid, underappreciated, and over-exhausted.
Like many of you, I've watched my friends and family members go through working mom guilt and burn out and I've experienced it firsthand as well. When my oldest son was one, I felt a major bout of anxiety, stress, and fatigue. I hit a wall of burn out. My well had completely run dry.
Perhaps it was running on fumes at work because I was up all night with a baby. Maybe it was getting the dreaded phone call from daycare that my son had one too many “loose BMs,” meaning I had to leave work immediately to go pick him up.
Or it’s possible that the weight of society’s expectations for what a “good mom” looks like and acts like was crushing my soul and spirit.
Take your pick.
I can’t pinpoint exactly what pushed me over the edge but I wanted to do something about it: both for myself and for other working mamas.
Enter Mama Collaborative.
Mama Collaborative is dedicated to helping working moms set themselves up for success in their personal and professional lives.
Through our coaching programs, online courses, tools and resources, Mama Collaborative empowers working mamas to make smart, streamlined and strategic choices about successfully managing their lives – and finding fulfillment.
For over a decade, I’ve been a marketing consultant, project manager, and training developer in the consulting, legal, retail and non-profit industries. Leveraging that, my personal experience, and my RETAIN Parental Leave Coaching Certification, my goal is to help both expecting and experienced working moms feel calm and confident about the path ahead of them.
If Mama Collaborative can help just ONE working mother with just ONE positive change in her life, I will consider all of this effort to be a huge success. To help even more moms would be a dream come true.
Please feel free to email me, comment or connect with me on social media to share your feedback with me. I want to make sure every resource we have here is helpful in setting you up for success and will work hard to ensure that is what's delivered to you.
xo, Claire
