ABOUT LISA
I’m Lisa Mitchell.
I’m a mother of three, a writer and the person behind Never Come Empty Handed.
My daughter is five. She’s still little, but I already think about the relationship I hope we’ll have when she’s older. I want her to be able to tell me the truth, even when she’s made a mistake or thinks I won’t like what she has to say.
I can’t wait until she’s a teenager to build that kind of trust with her. We’re building it now.
Why I started writing
I had a mother who loved me deeply, and I still faced things I wasn’t prepared for.
That wasn’t because she didn’t care. Some conversations are hard to begin when there’s no obvious reason to have them yet. You wonder if your daughter is too young. You don’t want to make things awkward or put ideas in her head. Sometimes, you simply don’t know what to say.
Then something happens and you wish you’d said it sooner.
I started writing down the things I wanted my daughter to know before she had to learn them the hard way. I wrote about attention and love, friendship, money, boundaries, mistakes and making sure she always knows she can call me.
The more I wrote for her, the more I thought about the girl I used to be and what I could’ve used someone saying to me.
Why Never Come Empty Handed
The name starts with manners.
Bring flowers. Take a hostess gift. Offer to help. Thank someone properly when they’ve welcomed you into their home. Don’t arrive expecting to be looked after without showing that you appreciate the effort.
But I don’t only mean what you carry through the door. I mean what you bring as a person.
I want my daughter to have good manners and to notice other people. I also want her to bring her own opinions, standards and sense of self. I want her to be kind without becoming easy to use, and to recognize when what she’s being offered isn’t good enough for her.
That’s what Never Come Empty Handed has come to mean to me.
The Book I’m Writing
Before the World Teaches You Something Cheaper is the book I’m writing for my daughter, and for the women who needed some of these words earlier too.
It’s about love, money, friendship, boundaries, manners, motherhood and all the ways women can slowly leave themselves out of their own lives.
I know I can’t protect my daughter from every mistake or heartbreak. I just want some of these words to come back to her when she needs them. When she’s deciding what to accept. When something doesn’t feel right. When she needs to leave. When she needs to call home.
While I’m finishing the book, I’ve made a free guide for mothers of teenage and young adult daughters. It includes five conversations you may want to have before there’s an urgent reason to have them, with real situations and words you can actually use.