About

HR Mom leads a growing community of parents who are committed to launching independent, Real-World Ready Kids. She provides practical strategies for running your family like a team.

Stop Parenting. Start Leading.

HR Mom has helped millions of parents:

  • Create a new vision of parenthood, where they serve as confident leaders in their families
  • Stop overparenting, and settle into the role of a supportive coach
  • Set family rhythms that better balance leisure time vs. household responsibilities
  • Create “Independence Challenges” which help kids build important life skills
  • Reclaim the joy of parenting tweens and teens

Hello! I’m Melissa, better known as “HR Mom.”

The HR stands for Human Resources, where I worked for 18 years, leading Recruiting and Hiring teams for several well-known Fortune 100 companies.

Over the years, I watched the skills and capabilities of young workers decline, while their managers became increasingly baffled by the realities of the entry-level workforce. Again and again, we hired smart, academically-successful young adults, who looked great on paper. Once on the job, many experienced crippling anxiety and lacked the confidence to make decisions on their own. The more I examined these trends, the more clear it became that many popular modern parenting styles were hindering our kids’ ability to successfully navigate the real world. 

I realized that if more parents would put in the work to build these skills while their kids were still at home, this talented new generation would have the confidence and capability to step into adulthood.

As a parent with three kids still at home, I KNOW how hard it is to: 

  • Realize how much kids are actually capable of doing on their own 
  • Resist the urge to step in and rescue them before they fail  
  • Be consistent when they push back against chores and responsibilities
  • Stand by your parenting decisions when others around you are making different choices

On top of this, I realize that each of us parents with our unique filters and challenges. My personal parenting journey includes ADHD (both mine and my son’s), severe food allergies, foster care/adoption, anxiety, divorce and co-parenting. 

In June of 2019, I was a Director of Talent Acquisition by day and tired single Mom by night. As a hobby, I'd sometimes share on Facebook some of the small steps I was taking to build my own kids’ independence. With one simple viral post, an online parenting movement began. Together (there are now over 100 thousand of us!), parents in the HR Mom community are equipping and empowering our kids to take ownership of their lives and build excitement for their futures.

Where do I start?
Take a Course

Parents from the HR Mom Community say: 

Trudy A.

"My son is nearly 18 and, as for my other grown up children, I realized I babied them too much. It’s never too late and I’ve been practicing teaching my son how to prepare for Uni life and he’s doing well. Thank you HR Mom for the wake up call."

Jennifer J.

"HR Mom offers very encouraging and practical lessons to help develop our children into capable adults."

Crystal L.

"Great practical advice from an awesome human. The knowledge and experience she shares is helping me reach my primary goal of raising a happy, healthy and independent adult with important life skills."

If you are looking for easy-to-implement strategies to help your kids build life skills, you’ll fit right in here. I’ve built this community around helping parents just like you.