My Story.

Thanks for stopping by. My name is Heather McGuire. I’m a retired teacher, writer, and mom of two.

First a Montessori teacher

I graduated from college in 1996, when smartphones and Facebook weren’t a thing, but smoking inside an office building in Northern Kentucky sure was. I had a degree in Speech Communication and was working in a small marketing research firm, trying desperately to ignore both the second-hand smoke and the small voice telling me that I’d made a terrible mistake.

A few months later, with the bravado of youth and the privelege of a room in my parents’ house, I took the leap and quit my job. Becoming a teacher wasn’t just a career change, it was a spiritual experience. It reached into my heart and shaped it into something new. It impacted how I see the world, interact with people, and the kind of parent I became. Being a teacher is one of the most honorable and beautiful things I’ve ever done. I’ve written many articles about Montessori on the website, The Place for Parents.

Then a Writer

We moved to a small town outside of Venice, Italy when my girls were five and three. In some ways, it was as magical and dreamy as it sounds. In some other ways, it was lonely and challenging. In an effort to connect with friends and family, I started a blog. I kept blogging when we moved back, which turned into a weekly column on a now defunct website. I’ve worked in social media marketing and freelance writing for a decade and have recently come back to my blogging roots.

Heather McGuire Writes… this is a place to share stories, ideas, and experiences about parenting– especially teenagers. It’s a place to talk about books– the ones we’re loving… or not. And it’s a space for discussion around marriage, friendship, and life in general. When we share and open up, we connect, better understand ourselves, and feel less alone.

Always a mom

Nothing has had a bigger impact on me that becoming a parent. Like many of you, I suppose, being a mom has defined most of my adult life. Our daughters are 18 and 20… Emma is a junior in college and Kate will be graduating from high school this May, so we are staring straight into the empty nest years. Such a thrilling and bittersweet time.

It’s a strange sensation to remember the weight of a lumpy baby on your chest or their little, dimpled hand in yours while also looking into their adult eyes. It’s a heart-tugging and sometimes soul-wrenching time of life. You know you don’t want to be changing diapers or in the toddler years again, but you also know how hard it will be when they’re both in college. As we head into this next phase, I want to soak up, celebrate, and be here for all of it.

Raising adult (or pseudo-adult) children is a different kind of parenting than when our kids are little. These older children require a different set of skills and a deeper well of patience than we might have imagined. They need us to set our expectations and egos aside. They need us to take off those old cloaks of the parents we thought we’d be and put on the ones they need us to be. It’s the most beautiful, gratifying, soul-filling experience of your life that will give you joy and break your heart. But everything is easy with a tribe… so let’s do this together!