SANCTUARY
  • Open Book
    • Featured Interviews >
      • Archives: 2021
      • Archives: 2020
      • Archives: 2019
      • ARCHIVES: 2018
      • ARCHIVES: 2017
      • ARCHIVES: 2016
    • More Interviews >
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2019
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2018
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2017
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2016
    • Autism Awareness 2022 >
      • Autism Awareness 2021
      • Autism Awareness 2020
      • Autism Awareness 2019
      • Autism Awareness 2018
  • Blank Canvas
    • Featured Artists >
      • 2022 Featured Artist Updates
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2021
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2020
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2019
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2018
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2017
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2016
    • Selected Works
    • Culture Crawl >
      • Archives: Culture Crawl
    • 2022 Focus on Youth >
      • 2021 Focus on Youth
      • 2020 Focus on Youth
      • 2019 Focus on Youth
      • 2018 Focus on Youth
      • 2017 Focus on Youth
      • 2016 Focus on Youth
    • 2022 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives >
      • 2021 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2020 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2019 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2018 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2017 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
  • Body & Spirit
    • Healthy Body >
      • Archives: Healthy Body
    • Healthy Mind >
      • Archives: Healthy Mind
    • Nutrition and Exercise >
      • Laura's Corner Table
      • Archives: Nutrition & Exercise
    • Personal Safety >
      • Archives: Personal Safety
    • Alternative Therapy >
      • Archives: Alternative Therapy
    • Navigating Relationships >
      • Archives: Navigating Relationships
  • INSPIRED LIFE
    • TRAVEL JOURNAL >
      • Travel Journal Archives
    • YOUR MONEY & BUSINESS >
      • MONEY & BUSINESS ARCHIVES
    • CAREER JOURNEY >
      • CAREER JOURNEY ARCHIVES
    • Smart Steps >
      • ARCHIVES: Smart Steps
  • GUEST ROOM
    • Ask an Expert >
      • ARCHIVES: ASK AN EXPERT
    • Kindness & Karma >
      • Archives: Kindness & Karma
    • We Hear You >
      • Celebrated Readers
      • TALKBACK
    • Submit Your Work
    • Book Giveaway 2022 >
      • Book Giveaway 2022 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2021 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2020 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2019 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2018 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2017 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2016 Winners' Circle
    • Surveys
  • Events
    • Events-Services-Specials
    • Sanctuary Events
    • Coffee & Conversation
  • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Sponsor Ad Packages
    • Meet Our Sponsors
  • About
    • Myrna's Musings
    • Our Team
    • Support Us
    • CONTACT US

Play & Book Excerpts


Lessons from the Prairie
(Hatchette Books)
© 2017 Melissa Francis

Picture

Taken from Chapter 4: Sit Down and Take a Load Off

I confess all this to help debunk the Myth of the Superwoman, a fantasy that has way too many of us lying awake at night, browbeating ourselves as if we were the target of an FBI investigation. There’s a real danger in holding ourselves to an impossible standard. Whether it’s Caroline Ingalls or Kelly Ripa. How could any viewer not feel less than by comparison?
When we constantly thirst for what we don’t have and vow to achieve what we haven’t conquered, we fail to enjoy what’s right in front of us: the joy of our children, the love of our families, the pleasures of today (eating chocolate). We make ourselves - and everyone who lives with us - miserable, neurotic messes.

That’s why, when I listen to any of today’s Superwomen telling ladies everywhere we can have it all if we just try a little harder, if we just “lean in,” I let out a long, deep sigh. I want to hand the other women who are listening - and now covered in nervous hives - a nice glass of boxed wine and say, “Here’s my advice: Don’t lean in. In fact, sit down and take a load off.”

I want to sing and chant that hive-relieving mantra from the rooftops and take out a full-page ad in every paper. I’m going to have my new catchphrase printed on T-shirts. My sons tell me everyone has to have a catchphrase now. It’s the thing. I’m calling dibs on this one. I will stamp it on coffee mugs and drink cozies. I’m not even kidding. And I’m going to sell all this merch online, with T-shirts in every shape and size. (Go look right now. I’m selling all this stuff. The proceeds will go to buy fed-up women cases of Mommy’s Time Out Pinot Grigio, which is awesome, by the way.)

My mother always told me I could be anything I wanted. “You could keep acting, or you could be the first woman president of the United States,” she’d say. “Or a doctor! Or an astronaut! Anything you want.” So as a girl, I pictured myself in the White House with my husband and children, with a stethoscope around my neck, so I could continue to see patients when I wasn’t too busy running the country and winning wars. And then I’d juggle my schedule here and there, so I could pop out of Washington and guest star on an episode of Knots Landing.

Some dreams die hard. And some merely evaporate when they bump up against reality. Even if they would have let me take the nuclear launch codes with me to the set of Knots Landing, I hadn’t budgeted any time to ever do school pickup. I had zero idea about what we now annoyingly like to call work-life balance.

Picture
Photo Credit: David Hurley
Follow Melissa on:

INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

Melissa Francis is a broadcast journalist and author of the acclaimed memoir Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University and is an anchor on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, where she is a regular contributor discussing financial, economic, and political issues on shows such as The Five, Outnumbered, Happening Now, and America’s Newsroom, among others.

As an actress, she appeared in numerous motion pictures, television series, and television commercials. She is best known for her role as Michael Landon’s daughter Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie (a popular TV series that ran from September 1974 to March 1983).

Melissa lives in Manhattan with her husband and their three children.

​NEWS...

January Themes:
Hope, Reinvention,
No More Winter Blues


Next newsletter goes out:
February 3rd
​
Next Coffee & Conversation:

February 15, 2023
How Attachment Styles Affect Relationships
​
Next Team Talk:
TBA
Picture
SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS:
Let us know what you would like
to see and read about in SANCTUARY.
seniorstaff@sanctuary-magazine.com
Free Newsletter
Support Us
Please LIKE us and FOLLOW us!
USE:
#WheresYourSanctuary
SEND US A GOOGLE REVIEW!

© 2022 Sanctuary Online, LLC
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
​Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily the opinion of this publication.
  • Open Book
    • Featured Interviews >
      • Archives: 2021
      • Archives: 2020
      • Archives: 2019
      • ARCHIVES: 2018
      • ARCHIVES: 2017
      • ARCHIVES: 2016
    • More Interviews >
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2019
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2018
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2017
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2016
    • Autism Awareness 2022 >
      • Autism Awareness 2021
      • Autism Awareness 2020
      • Autism Awareness 2019
      • Autism Awareness 2018
  • Blank Canvas
    • Featured Artists >
      • 2022 Featured Artist Updates
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2021
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2020
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2019
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2018
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2017
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2016
    • Selected Works
    • Culture Crawl >
      • Archives: Culture Crawl
    • 2022 Focus on Youth >
      • 2021 Focus on Youth
      • 2020 Focus on Youth
      • 2019 Focus on Youth
      • 2018 Focus on Youth
      • 2017 Focus on Youth
      • 2016 Focus on Youth
    • 2022 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives >
      • 2021 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2020 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2019 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2018 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2017 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
  • Body & Spirit
    • Healthy Body >
      • Archives: Healthy Body
    • Healthy Mind >
      • Archives: Healthy Mind
    • Nutrition and Exercise >
      • Laura's Corner Table
      • Archives: Nutrition & Exercise
    • Personal Safety >
      • Archives: Personal Safety
    • Alternative Therapy >
      • Archives: Alternative Therapy
    • Navigating Relationships >
      • Archives: Navigating Relationships
  • INSPIRED LIFE
    • TRAVEL JOURNAL >
      • Travel Journal Archives
    • YOUR MONEY & BUSINESS >
      • MONEY & BUSINESS ARCHIVES
    • CAREER JOURNEY >
      • CAREER JOURNEY ARCHIVES
    • Smart Steps >
      • ARCHIVES: Smart Steps
  • GUEST ROOM
    • Ask an Expert >
      • ARCHIVES: ASK AN EXPERT
    • Kindness & Karma >
      • Archives: Kindness & Karma
    • We Hear You >
      • Celebrated Readers
      • TALKBACK
    • Submit Your Work
    • Book Giveaway 2022 >
      • Book Giveaway 2022 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2021 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2020 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2019 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2018 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2017 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2016 Winners' Circle
    • Surveys
  • Events
    • Events-Services-Specials
    • Sanctuary Events
    • Coffee & Conversation
  • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Sponsor Ad Packages
    • Meet Our Sponsors
  • About
    • Myrna's Musings
    • Our Team
    • Support Us
    • CONTACT US