Chriselle Lim (-1h -1m -0s):

it'sWe actually introduced her to Korean food first because my mom, she was just cooking up all these Korean food when we introduced her to just more basic food without any seasoning. She just wants to take it. Yeah.

Katie Ferraro (15s):

Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor and mama of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby Led Weaning Made Easy podcast, I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Chriselle Lim (41s):

Hey guys, welcome back! Today, we're talking about mom shaming and some of the not so nice things that you might hear from other moms or really from anyone for that matter about the way you're deciding to feed your baby.

Katie Ferraro (53s):

My guest today is Chriselle Lim. She's a stylist and the digital influencer. She has an insane number of followers across multiple platforms. She actually describes herself as one of the OG content creators, which she definitely was and is like she's from back in the day when YouTube was just getting off the ground, she has a now massive YouTube fashion blogging platform following. I know Chriselle from Instagram, or she has over 1.3 million followers on her personal page, but she has this insane collection of other businesses with recent expansions and branches going into parenting and the digital learning space, which is actually how we crossed paths. So what I love about Chriselle is that she keeps it real. Yes, she is an incredibly influential person in the fashion and lifestyle spaces, but she's also a mom of two small children and she is a real person.

Katie Ferraro (1m 39s):

And no matter how big your platform gets or is you still read comments and you still get mean comments and mean comments still hurt. It hurts a little bit differently when they are about your kids. Judgmental comments can make you second guess your parenting decisions. It happens to all of us if you have 1 follower or 1 million followers. So today I asked Chriselle to come on to talk a little bit about her parenting journey, how she works food preparation into her busy working mom lifestyle, how she deals with negative comments and feedbacks, and still keeps moving forward and thriving because she's got all these different roles, mother, a partner, owner of multiple businesses. Oh, and she's also a podcast host too. Her podcast is called bean Bumo, and Bumo is the Korean word for parents So she has some really interesting projects under her Bumo brain business umbrella that she'll be sharing a little bit about.

Katie Ferraro (2m 26s):

So without any further ado, I want to introduce you to Chriselle Lim, who's chatting about moms shaming and how to deal when others don't get your feeding choices. Alright, Chriselle thank you so much for joining me today.

Chriselle Lim (2m 43s):

I am so happy to be here. I've been following you on Instagram and I'm just so excited to chatting with you.

Katie Ferraro (2m 48s):

Oh, okay. I'm so excited to be chatting with you because you have like one of the most varied backgrounds. I don't know how to describe it or do it justice. So could you tell our audience what you do on a professional level and then also a little bit maybe about your personal and family life, if you don't mind sharing?

Chriselle Lim (3m 2s):

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Chriselle and most people that followed me on Instagram, know me as a content creator because I am one of the OG fashion and beauty content creators. That first started on YouTube. I had a blog back in college called the Chriselle fashion, which I documented all of my outfits and going to fun fashion shows. And that was pretty much my whole life for the past, I would say 14 years. And then fast-forward six years ago, I became a parent. So I have a 6 years old and a 2 years old. And from then on I've just kind of shifted gears to focus on finding solutions and providing solutions for busy working parents, which led me to starting my company, Bumo, which we could talk more about into the detail later.

Chriselle Lim (3m 48s):

But you know, it's essentially to bring work solutions, parenting solutions for working parents that want to be co-located with their children while like thriving in their career. So not having to give up one for the other.

Katie Ferraro (4m 0s):

How did you decide? Oh, I mean, that's kind of a transition, right? From like beauty blogging, YouTube stuff, like how do you make that transition into the parenting space? Cause I love all your Bumo stuff, but like, this is not what Chriselle is known for. So like how did that come about?

Chriselle Lim (4m 12s):

Oh yeah. I mean, honestly I started my blog and kind of my, I guess interest in fashion when I was in college. So actually it started in high school and then I really kind of followed my passion in college. Once I left my parents' home and made it into a full-time career, that was just on the cusp, like when Instagram was about to be born. And I think I was like three years ahead. So I started my YouTube channel and it was just a fun hobby and it really took off. I was one of the first creators to be on that platform, talking about fashion and teaching girls my age, how to dress appropriately and like how to buy things for less? And, you know, I think at that time that's where my interests lie naturally just because I was a broke college student, but you know, a lot of my audience now are also mothers.

Chriselle Lim (4m 58s):

They've been following me for over a decade and they've just become different, I guess, you know, your interests and your hobbies changed as you grow. And I think that's the beautiful thing about digital media, especially when you're putting your life out there, your audience kind of grows along with you and that's, you know, my kind of transition into parenthood.

Katie Ferraro (5m 16s):

I love how you've really like dovetailed the parenting stuff and your not all up in your face all the time about parenting stuff. Like it's part of who you are, but it's not your total identity. And I think that's important because especially as a full-time working mom who also happens to have seven kids and a business, it's like, there's not one thing that defines who you are and you don't totally lose your identity when you become a parent. Although a lot of parents can't and I'm wondering if you experienced that, like among your audience in your community, because like I know they appreciate knowing about fashion in the context of also being a parent and that's hard to do from a content standpoint.

Chriselle Lim (5m 50s):

Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, in the beginning I was super nervous because I was like, oh, am I going to lose all my followers after become a mom because a lot of my followers are not moms yet, like, or they just going to lose interest once they become a mother. But quite frankly, the opposite happened. I think because I was one of the first in my age group to have kids. I think a lot of people were just preparing as they are following me. But yeah, I have to agree with you, especially in the early days of motherhood, especially with my first, you kind of lose yourself and that's natural, right? You're just figuring it out. You know, all you like our focus on is like keeping this little tiny baby alive, right. And yourself alive, but you kind of lose yourself during that process.

Chriselle Lim (6m 30s):

But then I think once you get through that, and I personally went through postpartum depression with my first and I even know I had it, but after I came out of that, I was like, wait a minute. This is me, like I'm back. Right. And once you realize who you actually are, you're like I could do both. I could have other interests outside of parenting and outside of my kids. And that inspires me to become a better parent. So yeah, it goes hand in hand.

Katie Ferraro (6m 53s):

I totally agree with that. There's actually another guest on my podcast who was a parenting expert talking about in do your kids see you having fun when the to-do list isn't done. And I was like tears in my eyes. I was like, oh, hey, the to-do list is never fun. And maybe not. And you're talking about like hobbies and I've always struggled with not having a hobby. I don't have a hobby not related to nutrition. She is like, what did you use to like to do it? Like I used to like to play piano. She is why don't you start doing that? And I actually have started taking piano lessons. I mean, I'm terrible. One of my kids is like, can you please not play when I'm trying to go to sleep? You are so bad, but like, it is important for your kids to see you struggling and doing other things. And I think sometimes all my kids see me as like working, but like, it is hard to layer on like time when your kids and working and then having hobbies, having a relationship like it's a lot. And I really love your content because you don't sugar coat it like it is hard some days it's not all beautiful and everyone's made up, it looks perfect.

Katie Ferraro (7m 39s):

Then your kids are well behaved and eat well. And that's why I wanted you to come on because I wanted to talk about this concept of mom shaming, which a lot of us feel, but maybe don't talk about, and I think the way you've dealt with that topic in your content is so helpful. So it was just wondering if, from the context of like how we feed our children, what sort of, I don't know, judgement or mom shaming issues, have you faced as a mom of two kids surrounding food?

Chriselle Lim (8m 5s):

Yeah. Well, I was really insecure going into motherhood because first , I didn't really have any friends around me that I could use as an example or a sounding board. So it is kind of figuring it out all on my own. And to be honest, there are so much information on the internet so I did even look on the internet because I just felt like it was overwhelming me on a day, which I found it sooner because I feel like you give such tangible tips that moms can actually apply to their lives immediately. But yeah, there is a lot of moments where I was like, I am embarrassed that I'm doing this. Am I doing it right? And I, I have experienced mom shaming it, especially because I do put my life out there on the internet so much. And there's a lot of opinions of like, oh, well you shouldn't be doing this because X, Y, and Z.

Chriselle Lim (8m 47s):

And then another person would say, oh, you're doing great. Right? And so you kind of have to block out that noise of everyone's opinion. And of course like, like for me, it was asking my mom, right? Like what, what did you go through? And she would give me her advice and obviously it's very different, but yeah, it there's a lot of moms shaming within the mom community, which is kind of sad. But at the same time you have to do what's best for you. I was a busy working mom. I was building my businesses. I continue to run my businesses even right after birth because I just didn't have the team at the time to be able to support me. And so I worked through all of those days and I couldn't give my, especially my first child, the nutrition that I always imagined, I would give her like all the homemade food and all of that.

Chriselle Lim (9m 36s):

And I, I carried so much guilt and almost sometimes the lie to people like this is homemade. Like I cooked this or I made it and I'm like, why am I lying? Like, who cares? Right? But now, like my second, I'm just a lot more confident, you know, if I am able to make a home cooked meal. Great. If I'm not totally fine. Right. But yeah, there was a lot of mom shaming involved.

Katie Ferraro (9m 56s):

Do you mind sharing a little bit about your journey to feeding your own kids? Cause everyone's stories different with each kid, it's different. Like how did it go for you at the beginning? Yes. The first 6 months and then how did that change in the second 6 months? Did you do anything different between your first and second kids?

Chriselle Lim (10m 11s):

Yea. So my first child, I did breastfeed her for six months. And then soon after that, I just like, wasn't producing enough and I was like stressing myself out. So I was like, you know, I'm just going to go on the formula. And then from then on, we actually introduced her to Korean food first because my mom, she was living with me at the time and she was just cooking up all this Korean foods. And so there was actually lots of natural kind of homemade stuffs Like the Korean food does a lot of like squash. So she would make me something while it would make the baby something. So it was very lucky in the sense where my mom was helping me with that. But my struggle was because my first child was, so she only knew about these Korean foods.

Chriselle Lim (10m 55s):

I mean, not that squash as Korean, but my mom would put seasoning on it and such that when we introduced her to just more basic foods without any seasoning, she just wouldn't take it. And so that was my struggle of introducing solids to her. Was that everything.

Katie Ferraro (11m 13s):

You kind of went like the opposite direction. Most people are like start with bland food and then realize, oh my gosh, maybe you don't have to eat bland food when you like, it kind of went back to it.

Chriselle Lim (11m 20s):

Well like child wouldn't eat bland food after that. So like, because I realized, I was like, oh, well she needs to try different things like avocados and all of that. But because she was so used to these like rich flavors already early on, she wouldn't take these other types of food. So that was my first. She has become a great eater. She's 6 years old now, but that was very stressful. And then my second child, I struggled a lot with getting her off the milk. This girl loved her milk. She would not eat any solids. Yeah. I was so stressed out because she's 2 now. But about like still till this day she'll drink so much milk. If we don't like actually put a limitation on her and she's eating a little better now, but she still has her moments, where she just rather have milk and that's something that we're struggling with.

Katie Ferraro (12m 7s):

And I swear what you're saying is verbatim. What so many parents explain, it was starting in the second year of life. Like the two biggest things that can sabotage toddler intake in mealtime are milk and snacks. It's either too much or too close to meals or someone's giving them snacks right before you expect them to sit down and eat food. And I think parents, you know, we know like, oh gosh, milk is like a good thing. If your family drink milk, but too much of a good thing is not a good thing. And you're right, some kids can drink, get in the habit of drinking a lot of milk and there is no room in their stomach for anything else and it can become problematic. So I feel the struggle that you are describing

Chriselle Lim (12m 41s):

And this girl can drink milk all day. I'm like, is it even that good? And she just, she just will keep drinking milk. She's a milk monster. So yeah, we had to put her a limitation on her milk intake for that reason. She is eating a bit more, but she's still not eating that much because she'd rather have milk. So.

Katie Ferraro (12m 58s):

Okay, share little bit, if you don't mind about your, like day-to-day with your food's, does your mom still, you are running like a million different businesses at your mom there or does she still help you with food? Do you stress about food preparation for your kids on top of everything else that you're trying to do?

Chriselle Lim (13m 13s):

So yes and no. My mom does come in and out of our house here and there. And I'm very lucky because my partner, he is a great cook, so he, he loves to cook. And so, you know, like half of the week they'll eat the food that their dad makes. And then for me, I'm not much of a cook. I'll be lying. If I said I was a great cook, but I have like my go-to that I know that they'll eat. So they love spaghetti, like really basic classic spaghetti. I make a really bomb spaghetti in an instant pot. And that's the only way I know how to cook, which is so sad.

Katie Ferraro (13m 45s):

No, it's perfect for baby Led Weaning, like all the best baby foods come out of the instant pot

Chriselle Lim (13m 50s):

Oh yes. I love the pot I can make. Or like pretty much the breakfast, lunch and dinner in my instant pot and the kids will eat it. So yeah, I have like my 5 go-to meals and the kid, I know the kids will eat. Like for me as a busy working mom, running multiple businesses, my goal is just to make sure that they get their food intake. So I unfortunately don't have the bandwidth to try out different types of foods. Though when my mom does come, she always tries to like put something in here and there cause she loves cooking. But for me, I kind of have more like 5 go-to things that I made, which has like salmon, oh, rice and noodle soup with veggie or chicken stock. And then the spaghetti, like those are my go-to.

Katie Ferraro (14m 31s):

I know that you have shared a lot on your different channels and platforms about this thing, the parents are always torn between, which is like beat with your kids or go to work or if you have your kids at work and how can you make that happen? And so I know you have recently launched a, you know, kind of another arm of your business. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit about Bumo, what the inception for this business, this group of businesses was. And then are there any food choices involved in the new endeavors that you're undertaking or considerations there for parents who are working?

Chriselle Lim (15m 1s):

Yes. I'm so glad that you asked. So Bumo actually means parents in Korean. And honestly we have the hardest time naming our business, we're sitting there like, oh, oh, should we? We went through thousands of names and I just couldn't think of anything. And then I asked my parents and there are like, how about Bumo? Oh, it's actually pronounced Bumo in Korean, but it's pronounced Bumo obviously in English. And I was like, this is probably taken, it's such an easy name. And I looked it up and it wasn't taken. So we're like, that's going to be it Bumo. As I mentioned earlier, it was born out of the need that I had as a working mom 6 years ago. Once I became a mom, I was like, I got this.

Chriselle Lim (15m 42s):

I could continue to thrive in my career and be a full-time parent. Like I know I can do it because I run my own businesses. Right? reality hit. And I realized that I just couldn't do both. And I started to look for options out there, whether it be co-working spaces with a licensed childcare, couldn't find any, there were a lot of co-working spaces that had unlicensed childcare. Of course they don't call it unlicensed, but they just call it childcare. And what the biggest difference is that when you're unlicensed, you cannot feed a child. You can not give them milk, you cannot change their dirty diapers and you can't let them sleep. You can't nap them. So given that I am a full-time working mom,

Katie Ferraro (16m 21s):

Oh, you basically can't do anything. Right? Like that's all that babies or children there.

Chriselle Lim (16m 25s):

Oh really? So I would essentially be interrupted every 20, 30 minutes, right?, which is better than nothing I guess. But I knew that that was not a long-term solution for a full-time working mom like me. So I decided that I was going to build my own because I needed something like this for myself and all of the working women around me that were parents. We're like, we need this as well. So, you know, we raised the money that we needed. My co-founder Joan is an incredible educator. She built this amazing curriculum to launch at our physical spaces and then Covid happened last year and we were supposed to open up spring of 2020 and that didn't happen.

Chriselle Lim (17m 7s):

And our first location is at Westfield century city. So my co-founder and I, we looked at each other and we're like, what are we going to do? No. And so we launched Bumo brain, another arm of Bumo online. I think what happened was once people experienced Bumo brain with their little learners, they were like, wow, this is guilt-free screen time. My kids are learning there, excited about it. They are not bored, but there are also entertained. And it's the closest thing that you can get to a real life classroom. And so during Covid, Bumo brain really just blew up and that really took off. And we taught over, I believe 25,000 classes up to date we're in over 50 countries.

Chriselle Lim (17m 53s):

And yeah, now that is another extension of Bumo, but great news is that Bumo work is now open at Westfield century city shopping center here at Los Angeles. And it's just been incredible to see these kinds of like two businesses come to life in such a beautiful way in ways that we couldn't even imagine, because it was definitely not according to plan of how we thought we would launch it, but it all worked out. Now the childcare side of Bumo work is powered by Bumo brain. And now the parents can actually go to our beautiful co-working side get their work done. Let's say midday they want to have lunch with their child. They could head on over to the parents and meet area, have lunch with their child and then hop back on over to their conference call and then hop on back over if they want to do a mommy and me class.

Chriselle Lim (18m 44s):

And it's all about integration for us, to be able to integrate your work life also with your child's. So you, you don't feel like you have to choose one for the other.

Katie Ferraro (18m 52s):

Okay. So Chriselle, you have big platforms, big audiences, lots of big ideas, big business, but at the end of the day, you're still a mom. You're still a person. And I think people don't realize that the bigger your platform gets, it sometimes hurts even more. When you get one or two comments that like, despite the millions and millions of positive things, people are saying, someone will kind of needle you. Like, I can't believe you're doing that with kids or this with kids. Or how do you deal with that? When sometimes that one little comment can just like, almost feel like undo all of the amazing work that you're doing. What's your coping mechanism for that?

Chriselle Lim (19m 26s):

Well, I have to say, as you continue to put yourself out there or you definitely do have to, and you will naturally kind of get used to getting some negative feedback and it's something that you just kind of have to realize our realities of putting your life on the internet. And I'm sure you do too, especially talking about, you know, children and babies. It's such a sensitive topic. And with that said, I have always been really good about managing my emotions when people would say things badly about me or like, they didn't like how I dressed or my makeup or whatever. Like I was like, okay, whatever, it's fine. But once I had kids and they would start saying things about my children or something about.

Chriselle Lim (20m 12s):

I remember this one time, some anonymous comment or was saying your child has such a chinky eyes. And I was like, is there anyone else is saying this like, that's racist. You can't say that on the internet. And it's not to me, it's to my child. Right? and so those type of comments obviously kind of boiled me up, one because they are not about me to there, but my kids, but my community, they are so strong for me. And because I've been around for over like a decade on the internet, I feel like whenever those comments come through, my community does come back me up and they just kind of support me. And I don't usually have to say anything and they'll kind of be like there,

Katie Ferraro (20m 53s):

There's self-policing going on when your community gets big enough, but you build it the right way with the right people. I see all the time people are like, how do you run literally the largest digital community dedicated to baby led weaning without people being haters? Because baby led weaning has such this reputation of being judgmental. And like, because the people that are here or here to learn. And they're treated with respect and they treat others with respect. And so the second someone comes at me or someone, who is on one of my platforms, they do the self policing. It's kind of amazing. I mean, there is some moderation, of course you need to do in some platforms or not as conducive to that as others. But it's one of the reasons why I love Instagram. It is such a positive space for learning about babies, as opposed to some of the other ones, which are a lot harder that you are doing a great job in.

Katie Ferraro (21m 34s):

Well, I think, you're doing an incredible job when I think it's so much trickier when you're kind of sharing advice that, you know that works, but another mother or another parent might think otherwise. And I could see how that could be kind of become a heated debate. Whereas for me as a creator individual, I'm not necessarily giving out facts all the time or necessarily advice, but it's just a lot of the comments, the hateful comments or the hurtful comments are about like how they look or how, and you know, I could live with it. I could like see pass through it. Any final tips for moms feeling the pressure of feeling like they're getting judgment, especially about the way that they're deciding to feed their baby.

Katie Ferraro (22m 18s):

Like you have a really nice way of clearly having thick skin. Like what can they do to deflect some of that mom shame or the mom guilt, they might feel about there feeding choices and decisions?

Chriselle Lim (22m 32s):

You know, I have opinions on people posting things on the internet just because when you do so, you are subject for criticism and you just have to know that going into it. Of course, we live in an era where we post quite frankly everything about ourselves and our lives on the internet. Right. I'm guilty of that as well. But as I kind of see it in hindsight now, I'm like, maybe I didn't have to post that, right? It's stressed me out so much of what other people were saying? So I think you just have to be really smart about what you do post, because when you do post something, you are opening yourself up to become more vulnerable to become attacked. And that is something you just have to know that it's part of it.

Chriselle Lim (23m 15s):

So I think more so being smart about what you do choose to post and when you do it, it's kind of, or you just have to expect things to come your way. So, yeah.

Katie Ferraro (23m 26s):

And I know we could discovered each other mutually on Instagram, and I think there is such a powerful visual associated with that platform, especially the power of seeing babies feed themselves. And a lot of parents who don't post a lot, one of the few things that they will do is the new food that their babies is trying everyday. And I encourage them to do that. Listen, this is your reality, this is your truth. This is how you prepared pork for your baby in the 7 month of life. And you're actually inspiring other parents who think, gosh, I didn't realize babies could eat all of these different foods. And so even if you're a micro-influencer, your behaviors and your actions that's how you're feeding your baby and that's how you choose to share it more power to them.

Chriselle Lim (24m 8s):

Oh yeah. I love that. They love getting ideas from other parents that do post about feeding their babies. And that's something that I do love seeing because I get a lot of my ideas from the internet. So, you know, I don't want to discourage anyone to not post. Right. But just setting expectations when you do post that people are going to say things and that's okay. As long as you feel good about the choices that you make, you can't be perfect. And yeah.

Katie Ferraro (24m 33s):

So Chriselle tell our audience where they can go to learn more about your work, especially the Bumo line. Cause I think that's really of interest to a lot of our parents are working parents. That's why they're on a podcast trying to learn about baby led weaning, cause they don't have all day to do it themselves.

Chriselle Lim (24m 46s):

Yeah. So if you guys want to learn more about me. My Instagram is at Chriselle Lim. We won't have is actually several Instagram handles. But if you're interested in the co-working space, which is opened at century city, that is at Bumo work. And then if you're interested in the virtual learning program, which is quite frankly the most amazing virtual learning program for early little learners, it's at Bumo brain and our community page is at Bumo parents. So, and as a handful, but those are the places that you can find us and me.

Katie Ferraro (25m 18s):

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I we'll link to everything Chriselle has mentioned, including all of our handles because you really have such a varied background of different businesses. That's really impressive, but yes, they are all integrated with the same message that you can do this with a little bit of help. It will all be on the show notes for this episode at BLWpodcast.com. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Chriselle Lim. She is totally different than a lot of other people I've interviewed on the podcast, but I really appreciate her online persona is exactly the same as what you get if you're talking to her in real life. And I think that is not true for a lot of influencers. So, you know, me, I only want to bring you guys like the real deal. And I am really appreciated what she was saying about community and that even with her super massive community, there's kind of a lot of self policing going on.

Katie Ferraro (26m 6s):

Like if people are gonna be mean to her, her audience is going to stick up for her. And one thing I can say about having myself, a fairly large digital community, nearly the size of Chriselle, but it is that it's a positive space. We've worked really hard. I've worked really hard to make it a positive space because the way I felt when I was trying to learn about baby led weaning, was it, it was this super judgmental space full of people who like just cause they had done it with one or two of their kids were all of a sudden telling me like what to feed and not feed my baby. And I didn't like that. And when I shifted the focus of my nutrition career to exclusively focus on baby led weaning, I wanted it to be different and I wanted to empower parents to know about all the foods their babies can eat. And so I've focused on the positive ones.

Katie Ferraro (26m 47s):

We definitely get negative comments. Like I don't talk about it a lot because I don't really even want to give credence to, or elevate those comments or even like let them get in my head. But they do sometimes. And the reality is the good majority of the people in this community are wonderfully supportive, positive people, even when they're going through tough times, like stressing about what to feed their babies. So I just want to say thank you to you for being a part of this very positive community intended to help parents give their babies a safe start to solid foods. If you want to check out any of Chriselle's platforms, her links, like she's seriously everywhere, but I'm going to link them all up on the show notes for this episode, which you guys can find at BLWpodcast.com/138