Author: Jen Hatmaker

This is probably my #1 parenting hack.

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

Please meet the awesome bath.

Also Please note: Awesome Baths are reported to work on grown mamas, too.

This started during Covid, because Covid school was kicking my kids’ asses. Like, brutal. We saw grades plummet like we’ve never, ever seen — plus meltdowns and despair in record waves. It was so overwhelming. They couldn’t keep up. They worked morning till night and were still behind. They were on fumes. The emotional and mental energy learning like that required has them on empty.

My girl came home in absolute tears one time. 

It was all real and too much and she was exhausted. (This sometimes sounded like anger…don’t take the bait. It is fatigue.) I listened for about 10 minutes, held her tight and scratched her back, and told her to meet me in my bathroom in five minutes.

Cue: Awesome Bath. 

Big clawfoot tub, gorgeous bubbles, delicious bath bomb, her favorite candle next to the tub, sweetened iced coffee in a pretty glass, I teed up Alexa to play her best music (“Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra LOL) and put fresh cookies on a little table. I threw a towel in the dryer to get warm and cozy and dimmed the lights. She took one look at it all and grinned from ear to ear.

Sisters, this works 100% of the time. Well past pep talks and even good listening. Remy asked me, “Do I have to clean my body?” and I said, “No, this is a feelings bath.” Let their overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated feelings take a dunk in an Awesome Bath made with great love, and I am telling you they emerge fresh and renewed. These can happen at 10:42am, 1:28 p.m., 5:59 p.m., or 11:12 p.m. Doesn’t matter. They soothe a tired little soul.

By the way, this is not my tub.

Remy was already in there and I figured she would frown upon a pic of her in the tub on the internet. So thank you to [checks notes] Maison de Pax for having this fancy bathtub pic on Google Images.

Cozy up with your failures. It can turn us into better versions of ourselves.

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

A lot of smart people have spent a lot of words talking about the upside of failure.

It’s all in the data: the lessons, the learning, the flex of new muscles, the accrued effect of resiliency. Failure is the best teacher, they say. Failure is a stepping stone to greatness, Oprah says. The number of Michael Jordan’s career missed shots and lost games is a meme. 

As an Enneagram 3, I don’t care for this. 

All nine types have their crucibles, but the 3’s are disproportionately averse to failure because our success (or lack of) is tied directly and irrevocably to our worth, obvi.

It’s so simple: I earn your love by never making mistakes and getting everything right/perfect. That is why you love me. All I have to do is never let you or anyone down ever. Just for fun, I like to make the general standard high, unsustainable, and mostly unreachable just to keep it interesting. A lovely template for a super-easy life. What could go wrong? 

I know experientially that failure has grown me up more than all successes combined, but only because I had to accidentally live it out. I did not go gently into those good nights. There was no mature embracing of defeat, certainly no risk-tolerant preamble: “This may not work out but I look forward to all I will learn regardless!” Absolutely not. I run screaming from failure like Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. 

Unfortunately, the analytics hold up. The WAY I hate this. There is something mysterious about steering into the curve of failure that yields a high return. (Also, please note my nerdy accounting terms to discuss a very emotional landscape. Why am I like this. Give me a heart, Wizard.)

In January 2020, I received a text from my friend Jonathan: “Jen, you are about to get a call from an unknown number. It is the White House. Answer it.” What a boring Monday. I was then invited by Kamala Harris’s team to give the closing prayer for the National Prayer Breakfast the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration hosted by the Washington National Cathedral. A low-key prayer blessing the office of the presidency and asking for wisdom to govern the most powerful country in the free world. I received this invitation with a calm, cool collectedness (opposite day). 

This was highly planned and choreographed naturally, and I received the prayer to deliver; the “Prayer for our Country” in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer. Had I been operating in my integrity, I would have spent my prep time absorbing that liturgy and actually preparing my heart as a spiritual authority. But because it was covid, I’d just lost my marriage, and I was in a freefall, I spent the majority of my prep time thinking about my outfit and makeup. Meaning, once I realized I’d only be reading a prayer, not writing an original, I set it aside because I am good at reading. It was my highest score on the ACT. 

Again, Covid times, so the prayer service was virtual that year. I set up my camera, arranged my background, perfected my (top up) outfit, made sure I had fresh lash extensions. I looked good, and like Jesus said, it is what is on the outside that counts. My clock countdown began from three minutes: “Two minutes, Jen…one more minute…stand by…3, 2, 1…”

And from my printed off paper, I read the first line of the prayer: 

“Almighty God, you have given us this good land as our heritage.” 

My blood went cold. It felt like fuzzy white noise in my head, like I lost the signal in a rainstorm. I honestly can’t remember the rest of it. I finished reading the prayer and clicked off the live stream. I sat there blinking at my camera, aware that I’d just endorsed Manifest Destiny as a spiritual leader on a national platform. In a full face of makeup in my Grown Lady Blazer and tasteful earrings, I crawled under my covers and tried to stave off the horror. 

An hour later, I sent my team a text, the team that had posted and boosted this monumental prayer service: “I can’t stand by this. I need to make a statement against my prayer.” 

They were…unconvinced: “Jen, no one has said anything. We don’t see any negative comments. I think you’ll be creating a fire where there is none. Can you just let it ride?”

Let me be clear: these are people of high integrity. They are not charlatans. But they are business people who simply didn’t see a crisis while their boss was under the covers in her small pearl earrings. They perceived an overreaction. I perceived a character breach. I am willing to let down virtually the entirety of the internet, but when I have wronged my community members on the margins, I am ruined until I address it. 

So within two hours, I posted the following: 

“Happy January 21, dears. It was truly an honor to join so many faith leaders this morning for the National Prayer Service. The words were filled with hope and love and healing, and Dr. William Barber’s homily was straight holy fire. I was proud to offer the final liturgical prayer which was written by the organizers to serve as an anchor. I have one regret and thus apology. The very first sentence thanked God for giving us this land as our heritage.

He didn’t. He didn’t give us this land. We took this land by force and trauma. It wasn’t an innocent divine transaction in which God bestowed an empty continent to colonizers. This is a shiny version of our actual history. If God gave this land to anyone, it was to the Native community who always lived here.

That line. I knew it as soon as I said it. And I panicked and froze and then just kept going. I am so sorry, community. Primarily sorry to my Native friends. It MATTERS to me that we reckon with our history of white supremacy and the lies we surrounded it with, and I am filled with regret that I offered yet another hazy, exceptional rendition of the origin story of colonization.

I can’t go on without apologizing. My stomach hurt all day. If I could change it, I would say this:

‘God, may we continue to be a people who reckon with our violent history, repent from the unjust systems we built, denounce white supremacy in all its forms past and present, and continue to work together to form a more perfect union.’”

I then received the criticism I deserved. Why didn’t you critique the prayer in advance? How cavalier can you be with such a big platform? How could this only occur to you in real time? You collaborated with the prevalent erasure of Indigenous people because you were careless. We trusted you. 

Not one word of a lie. 

I engaged dozens of offline phone calls, emails, and group texts from friends and colleagues who were disappointed. I felt the dark sting of shame. As a supposed leader on the side of disenfranchised communities against injustice, I participated in white supremacy on arguably the largest platform I’d ever been given. It was horrible. It felt so bad in my bones. I was completely embarrassed and full of regret. 

But damn that thing about failure. Because what happened in the apology and ownership, the subsequent hard conversations, the rebuilding of trust, and the personal lessons was growth.

It became (ultimately) a safer community for my people. It was the elevation of an important discussion on colonization and racism. It was the maturity accelerant of humility. It was setting an example of sincere remorse. It was deepening the likelihood of repair in other zip codes. It taught me that every single word I say or write matters, and it is my responsibility to lead with great care, and if I phone that in, I don’t deserve to lead my community.

Hard lessons, all. But good ones. Growth that ultimately produced better fruit.

So I guess the thing about failure is true. If faced, if reckoned with, if even embraced like the teacher that it is, failure can turn us into better versions of ourselves. It can create a safer world, a kinder neighborhood, a wiser community. Failure can serve us. Now, resisting and denying it won’t do us any favors at all; it won’t even preserve our preferred narrative because people are on to us. A person pretending they didn’t fail undercuts everything true and good and possible. 

But admitting and embracing failure, making amends when they are necessary, and changing course based on the lessons is the path toward growth and healing, connection and justice, love and peace. I don’t love the system but here we are. 

Cozy up with your failures. Throw a blanket over their lap and pour them a cup of tea. Pull in close, and listen to everything they have to teach you. 

Sisterhood of the Matching Sweatshirts

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

My best girlfriends and I employ a very tacky tradition when we travel: In every place we visit, we buy matching sweatshirts with that city’s name on it.

Good People of Style, I do not mean trendy sweatshirts that look cute over leggings or paired with skinny jeans. We hunt for the ugliest, most ill-fitting, obnoxious sweatshirts we can find.

We prefer to buy them in a gas station or from a sketchy street vendor. They must absolutely scream “tourists.” We like to get them three sizes too big since they will shrink in half upon washing like $5.99 sweatshirts do. Although not required, it delights us if either the font or the entire thing is somewhere between loud and fluorescent. We will not purchase if there is not one for each of us, for they must be matching or what is even the point of traveling?

Then, and this part is crucial, we wear them while still in that city.

We do this un-ironically and with no shame. The rule is: We shall not explain ourselves. No side wink to our waiter. No “we’re just being silly” comments to our guide. No explanation of our matching XXL coral sweatshirts that say “I ?? SF” while at dinner in the Bay Area. We stand by our fashion choices with great dignity.

The sweatshirts are forever. I don’t know why I even have to explain this. They are a package deal with this sisterhood forged through a thousand fires, a million conversations, and a billion shared laughs.

I credit my girlfriends for the deep sense of belonging that has sustained me through an unexpected public life. Although hyperbole is my medium, with absolutely no exaggeration, I cannot imagine my life without them. I have no vision for it; no imaginable existence.

A connected life drunk with rich relationships is central to my soul theology. If all I was left holding were relationships with my family and closest community, if that is all that remained, I would still consider myself the luckiest girl on earth. My life derives its greatest meaning, its power and energy, from the people I love who love me too.

It is good and important work to live a connected life. If this is the area you concentrate your energy, it is time well spent. But what if you’re hungry for connection — and your sweatshirt-wearing crew?

Here are some potential places to look for it: your actual neighborhood, your kids’ school, your workplace, church, the gym, book clubs, meet-up groups in your city (this is a real thing), activist groups, running clubs (omg, the only reason I know this is my friend Trina), support groups, any special-interest space (knitting, writing groups, cooking clubs, dog lovers), Bible study, playgroups, Bunco, professional networks, volunteer orgs.

To those of you in lucky possession of rich relationships and to those in dire need of them, please, I beg you, look around. People are so lonely, and they are everywhere. We have great power over the disconnection that plagues our culture. Our cities are full of new moms, just-moved-here folks, immigrants, new neighbors, people peeking their heads into church, relocated young adults apart from their families, refugees, college kids, new hires. They are also full of people who’ve lived there for a decade and still crave more connection.

  • Throw open your home.
  • Invite a new friend to coffee, to playgroup, to book club, to dinner.
  • Plan a neighborhood block party.
  • Reach out to the immigrant and refugee community in your city (these mamas are so lonely and starving for friends).
  • Widen your circle.
  • Organize a Girls’ Night Out.
  • Send a quick text.

We are the antidote to so much isolation. Developing eyes to see loneliness and hands to reach out is one of our greatest gifts to the world.

I believe God uses us to meet the most common, primal need shared in every community on earth: belonging. It is more powerful than 10,000 other best practices.

Creating safe spaces for others to be seen and loved and known and celebrated is the height of goodness and the solution to so much sadness.

Don’t cover up your loneliness with busyness or success or feigned indifference. Don’t keep this need buried. Pull this one straight into the light, take a deep breath, and suggest to two or three friends that you buy matching obnoxious sweatshirts. If they bite, those weirdos are yours.

What else can we do but try to make this place beautiful?

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

My god, things are so hard. I watched the news for maybe half an hour, then just turned it off and quietly lit a candle.

I am struggling to process how much pain people are experiencing. How brutally humans destroy one another. And then we tear each other apart in our grief, misplacing our sorrow onto ordinary people who are also just trying to make sense of the senseless.

Life is ruined for so many this morning. They are waking up to rubble or hunger or missing children or their beloved person who was just going bowling last night. It is too much. We aren’t meant for this. We aren’t meant to experience so much destruction.

I don’t know what to do. I know you don’t either. We can’t fix any of it. We exercise the small doses of power we have, but we are just normal people.

I think of Maggie Smith’s poem: “You could make this place beautiful.” I believe this is almost all we can do. In a world filled with hate and violence and abuse and loneliness, all we can do is help make our tiny corner of it more beautiful. All our tiny corners add up.

  • Choose a gentle answer when a harsh one was warranted.
  • Give someone the benefit of the doubt. Assign positive intent.
  • Send the sweetest, kindest text.
  • Leave a little package on someone’s porch.
  • Make bread and bring a few hot slices to your neighbor.
  • Choose to believe that almost everyone is trying their best.
  • Tell someone on “the opposite side” that you may disagree, but nothing could make you stop loving them.
  • Write your favorite artist or author or performer and tell them what their work has meant to you.
  • Surprise your kids with Ice Cream Dinner.
  • Hug someone for 20 seconds. Pick up me and my friends’ habit of kissing each other on the cheek when we say hello and goodbye.
  • Say I’m sorry. Say I forgive you.

What else can we do but try to make this place beautiful? We have to believe it isn’t just “over there” or “about them” or “someone else’s kids”…but right here.

See the beautiful comment feeds on my Instagram and Facebook posts with the tiny, beautiful things — and add your own.

I’ll start: Two young people that I cherish are having their first baby this very minute. Can you imagine anything more pure and precious than that?

Try this DIY Pumpkin Spice Latte and Pumpkin Spice Espresso Martini Mocktail

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

The calendar has clicked over to fall, which means football, sweaters, and all the cozy things — including warm fall bevvies.

I have two incredible ones for you that you can easily make right at home — and they both come with a bonus secret ingredient that makes them that much better.

It’s Pumpkin Spice Latte season. Every coffee shop has them now, but you can make one that’s just as good, ACTUALLY BETTER and healthier, at home. Save a bunch of money. And feel better, too.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

  • Around a cup of your favorite brewed coffee
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin puree
  • 2 droppers of FOCL Pumpkin Spice Drops
  • Milk (of your choice)
  • Maple Syrup (desired amount of sweetness)
  • Cinnamon (desired amount of spice)
  • Mix all ingredients except coffee into your favorite large coffee mug.
  • Whisk with a hand blender.
  • Add the desired amount of your favorite coffee or espresso.
  • Sprinkle a dash more cinnamon on top and enjoy! 

Word to the wise: Also try it iced by using a shaker with ice, poured over ice, and topped with your favorite whipped cream topping! 

The FOCL Pumpkin Spice Drops not only make this coffee DELICIOUS, they are just the thing you need to feel centered, calm, and focused for the day — without the artificial sugar-high from those “other” coffee-shop drinks.

We need a good seasonal mocktail, right? This one is literally everything you could ever want in one autumnal drink.

Pumpkin Spice Espresso Martini Mocktail

  • 2 shots of espresso (or coffee of your choice — or use caffeine-free, if you’re sensitive to caffeine]
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin puree
  • 2 droppers of FOCL Pumpkin Spice Drops
  • 1/2 oz simple syrup
  • 1 oz whole milk (or any milk/cream of your preference)
  • Mix ingredients in a shaker with desired amount of ice. Shake thoroughly. 
  • Pour into a glass of your choice. Martini glasses are a plus. 
  • Top with 3 coffee beans and cinnamon, if you really want to get fancy.

The FOCL Pumpkin Spice Drops spice up this drink in all the right ways and they are an all-natural, healthy way to help you relax, calm your mind, ease everyday stress — without any of the alcohol side effects.

Save 20% on any FOCL product with my code JENFALL.

Healthy Structures and Rhythms

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

Listen, not trying to shock you today, but I am about to do some real sexy talk. This is heart-pounding, titillating stuff. I’m bringing the heat as I whisper into the universe: “Let’s talk about healthy structures and rhythms.”

I know, right? The sexiest conversation in the zeitgeist! Nothing gets my blood flowing like restored order. I am a real vixen like that. The thing is, I so enjoy Beginning of Summer Me when I become a loose, free-spirited bohemian and we are just “going to live like we want” and “relax into less structure” and “unplug our clocks”…for like two and half weeks. And then I no longer enjoy 2:30 p.m. teen wakeup times and middle-of-the-night “dinners.” In my core, I am an old lady with a map-studying habit and a weekly evaluation of my Money Market account. I like a tidy life, okay? 

Having said that, when I read a treatise on healthy rhythms and there are like 12 action steps, I immediately quit. I like tidy, but everyone take it down a notch, damn. So now that we have exited the wild west of summer and handed our children back to the real adults (teachers), these are my top three areas to wrangle back into submission, and you are only allowed to pick two at the most. So get excited! You get to automatically ignore one of these. You are already winning. 

One last suggestion: Choose the areas that feel the most out of control. Some of us managed summer eating okay but went full frat house on basic self-care habits. You maybe kept up your yoga practice, but the general budget went into cardiac arrest. We don’t all slide into sloth in the same ways. So turn inward, feel around for what areas seem the most chaotic, and just start there. 

1. The cooking and the eating sitch. 

It is how it is. The people want to eat every day. Now that the household is up at a normal hour again and mealtimes have resumed a sane schedule, the Fend For Yourself model has to be updated. It takes far more energy to resist this task (always last minute, never planned, generally frantic) than simply to organize it a bit. 

First order of business: if you have a partner, meals should be shared work; maybe not 50/50, but shared for sure. Configure this however makes sense for your family: someone takes breakfasts, someone takes dinners, someone has weeknights, someone has weekends, someone does lunches, someone takes three nights, someone manages the others. Whatever, man. Split it and share it. Feeding a whole family seven days a week is too much home labor for one person. 

I probably cook dinner three nights a week. The others are leftovers, takeout, sandwiches, or the thing I have now called No One Is Here. On Sundays, I open one tab for recipes and a second tab with Instacart. As I decide what to make that week, I pop the ingredients into my online grocery cart. This takes around 20 minutes (19 involve going into the pantry/fridge to see if I have that thing). This has now taken the decision fatigue out of the rest of the week. I’ve planned it and shopped for it. Food is handled. 

Also moms, I told my kids since elementary school that if they wanted to bring their lunch, they had to make it. If not, school cafeteria food it is. Sydney and Remy made their lunches for a decade and the boys ate I guess school instant mashed potatoes and chocolate milk. Idk. I can’t care about everything. 

2. The money and budget sitch. 

Summer money is a weird beast. Everything drifts into entropy. Costs are astronomical. More food, more activities, more trips, more expenses. It always blows my mind. 

The back-to-school season is the perfect time to adult the budget. 

Good news! You don’t have to figure this out alone. Three years ago, I had to track down every single financial data point, reorganize it, clean it up, and create a whole new budget as a divorced person. When I tell you I didn’t even know how much money I made. It was a full mess. I remember sitting in my financial planner’s office just crying. I couldn’t answer any of his questions. He gave me a short list to do and told me to come back in 90 days:

  • Go through every bank account, credit card, and bill and write everything down. Total up your income and all your bills (including flex figures like groceries and Amazon Prime). Get two hard numbers. I couldn’t believe how much this alone helped me feel less out of control. There it all is. Exactly what is coming and going. 
  • Cancel every unnecessary subscription and monthly fee. You can literally do this on your phone. Those “small” monthly costs add up. I had 23. TWENTY-THREE. Tidy up. 
  • Make a budget. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. There are tons of online tools. The simple effort of HAVING A PLAN takes so much chaos and shame out of money management. Your budget will include paying off debt and/or creating savings, so everything is in there. The effect on your wellness will shock you. 

3. The health sitch. 

This one always gets wonky because of all the shit out there (and in here) (points to brain). It’s just that this matters so much to every other area. Back in May, I learned the reason I hadn’t had a period in four months was because I was in perimenopause. I’m a quick study! Tired of feeling weird, fatig

ued, emotional, and yucky in my body, I decided to just care. 

Over the last three months, I pulled some health levers. I met with a functional doctor, had a blood panel done, and found all kinds of issues. So I started supplements to improve stomach absorption, thyroid function, insulin resistance, inflammation, estrogen dominance, and all my vitamin deficiencies. I went gluten-free (my inflammation markers were sky high and I have an autoimmune disorder). I started intermittent fasting (strong links to menopause relief). I joined a pilates studio. Those were my levers. 

This was quite a frontload admittedly, but once the puzzle was worked out, the pieces came together and now this is just the daily stuff I do. My body responded immediately. I feel better in every way. It just feels good to care about yourself, to move and get stronger and sleep better and nourish your body. It’s like how you feel when someone else is really, really nice to you, but the person being nice to you is you. 

Also, pilates! I love it! The reason I always quit exercising is because I hate the exercise. But I genuinely enjoy pilates and thus I am doing it. Maybe just find some way to move your bod that doesn’t make you rage. All movement is good movement. It all counts. It doesn’t have to feel punishing. (If I didn’t live in Texas, I’d probably enjoy long walks but it sucks here. Pass. I’ll take my air conditioned pilates studio.)

—

For me, these three areas take the hardest hit every summer. Even applying a small degree of order calms my overstimulated central nervous system. The tail doesn’t always have to wag the dog. And like all good rhythms, getting started is generally the hardest lift, and then the machine becomes operational and hums right along. 

Until next June of course…

Five inspiring reasons to listen (or re-listen!) to ‘Make Me Care About…’

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

If you’re like me, you scroll through your news feed and within a few minutes you have the urge to crawl back under the covers. There’s so much content fighting for our attention that it’s easy to get overwhelmed — and equally difficult to feel hopeful.

That’s why I leapt at the chance to host the Make Me Care About… podcast in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 30 minutes or less, listeners hear an expert talk about a specific global challenge and present solutions. That’s where the hope comes in.

This podcast reinforces a core belief of mine: What happens to you matters to me.

Books: A Love Story

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

Oh sure, NOW I am socialized and able to speak directly to other human people in full sentences, but I was the weirdest, quietest, most awkward kid.

I got plastic glasses in second grade that reeked of great aunt energy; I had homemade bangs thanks to my mom who I guess hated me; and my little nerd brain finished assignments so quickly, my teachers gave me Teacher Errands and Special Tasks solidifying my place as everyone else’s least favorite classmate.

You want to make friends in third grade? Don’t design Mrs. Branch’s bulletin boards while everyone else finishes their United States map. 

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Moise called my mom: “I’m worried. Jennifer doesn’t play with other kids during recess. She just reads books under a tree.” (Can I live, Mrs. Moise?? The Secret Garden wasn’t going to read itself!) Having mastered zero social skills and unable to satisfy my outrageous craving for stories, I read like it was my sole responsibility to advance literacy for my generation.

Side note on Mrs. Moise: For Christmas, she bought a book for each specific student, and my girl classmates got the enviable Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High delights, and I got the very dense A Wrinkle in Time. I cried to my parents that she hated me then proceeded to read it in one day. 

When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said a librarian. Dewey Decimal System, turn up! Books were my first love, my best friends, and my portal into wonder. 

A non-exhaustive list of my earliest favorite worlds: 

  • The Secret Garden
  • A Little Princess
  • A Wrinkle in Time (FINE, MRS. MOISE)
  • Every Nancy Drew book in existence
  • Sarah Plain and Tall
  • Dear Mr. Henshaw
  • The Call of the Wild
  • The Ramona books
  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
  • Anne of Green Gables (all)
  • Hatchet
  • Stone Fox
  • The Westing Game
  • The Witch of Blackbird Pond
  • The Outsiders
  • Julie of the Wolves
  • From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

And you better damn well believe I read every single book in The Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High series. Ain’t nobody keeping me from Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey.

How lucky we are as humans to be readers. I absolutely revere the written word. The utter magic of putting pen to blank paper and creating whole worlds out of sheer imagination is a wonder I’ll never get over. The way stories and characters reach us with precision, like the author knew us, like he or she uniquely understood our personal delights and demons, is unparalleled alchemy.

The way books bring us together, discussing plot points and story arcs like we were speaking of friends, enemies, or a favorite character gone sideways we might correct with enough robust conversation; what enchantment. 

Not to get too science-y, but reading is also a known accelerant for creativity, health, empathy, vocabulary, mental wellness, sleep quality, and even longevity. Reading makes us better. It is medicine for our minds and lives. In a world now trussed tenuously by screens and algorithms, books offer the old fashioned opportunity for actual nurture. Get a library card, and it is free sustenance. Reading will not return void. Ever. 

Among its many advantages, the increased capacity for empathy has me interested today. “Research has shown that people who read literary fiction — stories that explore the inner lives of characters — show a heightened ability to understand the feelings and beliefs of others. Researchers call this ability the “theory of mind,” a set of skills essential for building, navigating, and maintaining social relationships.” 

This makes sense to me. While spoiled and petulant, you better believe I was Team Colin Craven halfway through The Secret Garden, and I learned that difficult kids aren’t always as they seem. Sara Crewe taught me that kindness trumped circumstances and a rich interior life was its own comfort; long live A Little Princess. Annemarie Johansen left me speechless with her bravery in the WWII novel Number the Stars. (When I was a fourth-grade teacher, I read that book to my students every year, and I never once made it through without sobbing. One year, my most macho boy, Greg, had to stay inside during recess because he was so overcome by the ending. BLESS HIM.)

Books introduce us to other cultures, different types of families, experiences outside our purview. They stretch our understanding of trauma and give us insight into dysfunction. They help us see the good kernel inside the bad guy and the dark side of the good guy. Books give us a front row seat to conflict, repair, and resolution. They locate us squarely in 1961 interior Mexico, 1944 terrorized Poland, 1928 rural China, current-day inner-city Philadelphia. We get to imagine the smells and sounds, the cultural norms and relational structures. We literally walk a mile in others’ shoes, and it changes us for the better. 

It’s hard to formulate or codify; there isn’t an equation to apply or a template to overlay. In this case, the sum is simply greater than its parts: reading a bunch of fiction makes us more empathetic. It just does. How many books? I don’t know. How many years does it take? Man, just keep reading. We will experience the accrued effect without trying, like how crossword puzzles make you accidentally smarter. 

In a world gone plumb mad, reading fiction is a quiet antidote. It interrupts the freefall of dehumanizing our neighbors and slowly, like a river over a rock, makes us a little more gentle with each other. It is a tool in the hand of every parent intent on raising kinder kids.

Books tap into our most human parts and remind us that we mostly hope for the same things: love, belonging, forgiveness, meaning. It helps slow the avalanche of hasty judgment and holds the possibility of connection a bit longer. Reading does indeed make us better. 

And at the bare minimum, it offers a business plan to pre-adolescent girls interested in starting a babysitter’s club with elected officials like the one in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. 

Beat that.

 

Want to read together?

Join my Book Club

Delightful summer mocktails to put in rotation

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

Where are my mocktail people?!

I have an arsenal of summer mocktails I absolutely love to make with elixirs, sparkling waters, lime, a tajin or salted rim. You know how I roll.

In addition to just “winging” it with my mocktails and flinging a few things into a glass, I’ve been inspired by creating some intentional flavors — heavy on the fruity, citrus, and unbelievably refreshing notes.

And, make no mistake: I DO have a magic ingredient that really takes mocktails to the next mega level: FOCL flavored CBD drops.

Put a dropper-full in your mocktail — and you get a double-down on flavor and chill factor. Not only do you have a dreamy, delicious cocktail, the CBD drops promote calm centeredness and relaxation.

And FOCL just released a brand-new flavor in time for summer: WATERMELON BASIL. I dare you to tell me two things more summer than that. Even better? You can buy one get one 75% off with code: JENBOGO

You can always use my code JEN20 if you’re not taking advantage of the BOGO!

Cheers to all this goodness!

Watermelon Basil Summer Cooler

Ingredients

  • 2 cups fresh watermelon cubes (seedless)
  • 6-8 fresh basil leaves
  • 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon honey or simple syrup (adjust to taste)
  • 1 dropper FOCL Watermelon Basil CBD Drops
  • Ice cubes
  • Sparkling water or soda water
  • Watermelon wedges and basil leaves for garnish

Instructions

  • In a mixing glass or cocktail shaker, muddle the watermelon cubes and basil leaves until well mashed.
  • Add the lime juice, CBD and honey (or simple syrup) to the shaker.
  • Fill the shaker with ice cubes, close tightly, and shake vigorously for about 15-20 seconds to combine the flavors and chill the ingredients.
  • Strain the mixture into a serving glass filled with fresh ice cubes.
  • Top off the glass with sparkling water or soda water.
  • Stir gently to combine the liquids.
  • Garnish with a small watermelon wedge and a fresh basil leaf.
  • Serve chilled and enjoy!

 

Sparkling Limoncello Mocktail

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon Simple Syrup
  • 2 shots Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 3 fl oz Sparkling Water
  • 1 dropper FOCL CItrus CBD Drops
  • Ice
  • 1 sprig of mint for garnish (optional)
  • 1-2 slices lemon for garnish (optional)

Instructions

  • Add Simple Syrup and Lemon Juice to a serving glass. Top with sparkling water and CBD Drops.
  • Add the ice cubes. Stir.
  • Add garnish, serve.

 

Mocktail Mule

Ingredients

  • 4 Fresh mint sprigs (muddled)
  • 1/2 oz Lime juice
  • 1/2 oz Simple syrup (optional)
  • 1 dropper FOCL Mint CBD Drops
  • 4 oz Ginger beer
  • Copper mug (optional)

Instructions

  • Gently muddle (mash) the mint sprigs in the bottom of the mug using a cocktail muddler or wooden spoon.
  • Add the lime juice, simple syrup and CBD. Stir to combine.
  • Add ice and the ginger beer and stir gently. Garnish with lime and mint.

 

Orange Green Tea Sparkler

Ingredients

  • 1 green tea bag, or the equivalent in loose tea
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
  • 1 dropper FOCL Orange Cream CBD Drops
  • 1 orange wedge for serving
  • Sparkling water

Instructions

  • Boil a kettle of water and put the tea bag in a mug. Pour 8 ounces of boiling water over the tea and stir in the honey.
  • Taste and add more honey if you like, but remember you’ll be adding orange juice later.
  • Allow the tea to steep at room temperature until cool.
  • Fill an 8-ounce glass with ice and add 1/2 cup of the tea, the orange juice and an orange wedge. Add CBD Drops.
  • Top up with sparkling water, stir gently, and serve.

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Remember: FOCL’s premium hemp is grown in the U.S., using organic farming practices. This means all products are made with organic ingredients, have no GMO, pesticides or herbicides, and all products are third-party tested.

Shop the FOCL goods and use code JEN20 to save 20%!

How our dad’s unconditional love made us bulletproof

Posted on by Jen Hatmaker

Happy Dad’s Day to all the fathers and father figures out there.

Our Dad, with his signature brand of enthusiasm, has always provided us with what lasted: love, security, and confidence, the kind that settles down deep in your bones and insulates you from fear. We were bulletproof, not because we felt entitled to special treatment, but because we knew positively we could not mess up bad enough to ever lose Dad’s ridiculous joy in us. Thus, we were free to take risks, to try and fail.

I wrote this a few years ago, but it bears resurfacing again — in honor of my Dad.

Me, as a grown adult subject to book reviews as a matter of my profession:

“Dad, I got a bad review from some mean guy on the internet.”

“Well he is obviously just a jackass who couldn’t find his behind with two hands.”

Did that reviewer have a point? Was his assessment of my work partially credible? Didn’t matter. Irrelevant. My dad deemed him an idiot sight unseen. This matter-of-fact pronouncement on my enemies is simply the way I was raised (by a pastor mind you, albeit a rogue one).

I am the oldest of four kids born in the ’70s and ’80s, and you’ve never met a dad more into his kids. All of us sincerely believed we were special children, that the universe blessed us with talent and charm, intelligence and wit. We bought all our Dad’s hype. He believed in us irrationally, which made us accidentally confident.

We were solidly in our twenties before discovering we were just sort of medium, but by that point, it was too late; we missed the window of insecurity and entered adulthood like, Here we are! (And the world was like, So? Which did not deter us in the slightest.)

ca428990c8affcbf4c12fcb31ffc6100f6a3572c.jpgDad is also a cattle rancher who won’t suffer fools (unless it is one of his spawn).

e6627d76439d4c988f652e177c870e0f3511634e.jpgMom and Dad with my oldest at Senior Night when I was out of town and I had a nervous breakdown about MISSING SENIOR NIGHT. Parenting, man.

Dad was overly generous and still is. On an absolutely working class salary, he and mom paid for four kids to go to college and not one of us emerged with a penny of debt. I have no idea how they did it.

To be sure, I had no idea money was ever an issue growing up, even though hindsight has given me the understanding that my parents scrimped and scraped and suffered many sleepless nights. We didn’t take fancy vacations or have a lot of extras. We were an ordinary family whose parents worked hard to make ends meet; our life wasn’t cushioned by privilege or luxuries. None of this ever occurred to me as a kid. Our life never felt scarce because it was full of so much love and laughter. Still today, we all think we’re incredibly funny, which must be as annoying as it is FANTASTICALLY ENTERTAINING. We’ll be here all night!

In fact, we’ve made fun of Dad for years at Christmas because he fusses and watches the bank account like a hawk in the preceding weeks, but every single year around December 23rd, he looks under the tree and tells Mom: “Go buy some more. We don’t have enough here for everyone.” Mom confided that one year in the early ’80s, she and Dad were so zeroed out during the Christmas season, they pawned almost all their precious jewelry and valuables to put presents under the tree. I could sob my eyes out just thinking of it.

As a member of a generation convinced we must provide stimulating, elite, expensive opportunities for our children, let me tell you as someone who experienced none of that: Not only did we not miss a thing, we were the luckiest kids on earth. Our dad, with his signature brand of enthusiasm, provided us with what lasted: love, security, and confidence, the kind that settles down deep in your bones and insulates you from fear. It communicated to us rowdy, dirty kids that we would never go alone a day in this life. We were bulletproof, not because we felt entitled to special treatment, but because we knew positively we could not mess up bad enough to ever lose Dad’s ridiculous joy in us. Thus, we were free to take risks, to try and fail, to come home with our tails between our knees as kids are wont to do.

You want to set your kids up for success? Be their biggest fan. Not because they are prodigies (they’re not) or destined for the NFL (they’re not) or the smartest children ever born (they’re not), but just in their ordinary, regular lives, where they are testing the waters and occasionally succeeding and often failing and watching the eyes of their parents to decide their worth in it all. Some of my dad’s best work was after we’d made an enormous mess of something, ruined beyond words. He helped us find a path forward, he noticed any redemptive thread we spun trying to fight our way to the surface. Failure wasn’t a deal breaker in our house; it was just rewoven into our development as healthy adults who knew what to do with mistakes.

Parents, be generous. Go way overboard with your words, your presence. These are unquestionably more valuable than what you can or cannot provide financially or experientially. I swear to you. Build a home generous in spirit and you’ll set your kids up for life. There is no such thing as too much love spoken into your children’s lives. You know who will be there to knock them down? Everyone else. The whole world. That isn’t our job. We occupy the tiny, minuscule portion in their life scripts labeled “parents”; every other character exists outside that relationship. I promise, they’ll have no shortage of adults prepared to take them down a notch, burst their bubbles, and crush a dream or two; no emerging adult is exempt from humiliation. Your kids will have plenty of bosses, teachers, coworkers, critics, authority figures, professors, reviewers, analyzers, judges, and maybe perhaps as in our case, arresting officers. They’ll all be there to keep it real, knock it down, level the playing field, toe the line.

There is a vast array of jackasses who cannot find their behinds with two hands.

But maybe we can take a page from my dad’s notes: there is absolutely no reason for our kids to ever doubt that we are their biggest fans, their loudest cheerleaders, their stanchest defenders, their truest believers. When they have nowhere else to look, they should know the path home will always be paved with loyalty. We’re their people. Now. Forever. When everything is coming up roses and when it is in a heap of ashes; our belief in them is unwavering. It isn’t excessive to have two people to count on in this hard, mean world. We teach them what to do with failure, we celebrate their successes, and we heartily, vocally condemn their enemies who obviously don’t know how to properly review a book.

Thanks, Dad.