Emily Redondo is an author, a stay at home mom with four kids who are teenagers and young adults. She worked as a nanny, care salesperson but since she was married she really wrapped her identity around being a mom. She became a mom when she was 23 and the last when she was 34. With her first, she was a single mom and moved back home for help but with the other three she had a different support system. In the beginning she had this perfect picture of what motherhood was going to be like but then had to wing it (as a single mom), and she struggled attending school, commuting and working and kept a journal about being in love with her baby. She found out she was pregnant with her fourth when she was admitted into a detox center for alcoholism. She was working really hard at having the "picture perfect life" while drinking in the closet and hiding it from everyone. After going to treatment 7 times, she is finally healthy and sober. It took a long time to get to this point but she is now a good mom and is proud of that. When she sees her kids doing something that they love, and watching them shine is her favorite part of motherhood. Being an alcoholic while raising children causes many bad mama moments, so much so that she wrote a book! "At some point, I became their trauma." This led to her writing the book, Wife, Mother Drunk (coming out November 4). She wishes she would have known how her mom felt when she was a young mother. It wasn't until a few years ago that she started to hear more of her own mom's story. Her grandmother didn't say"I love you" until she was 50 years old. That upbringing shaped her mom into who she was and therefore that's how she thought being a wife looked like. She also wishes she would have realized earlier that motherhood is not a competition! You can find her at emilyredondoauthor.com and slightly on Instagram @emilyredondoauthor. Her book can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com