I recently spoke at a great conference for women entrepreneurs and there met up with a few of my friends who don’t have kids. One of them runs her own successful business and two are plugging away in the corporate/financial world. All three are in their mid-30s and I guess the clock is ticking because all three asked me the same question at some point during the day:

I am petrified about having kids and balancing my demanding career with being a mom — can you tell me the truth about what it’s like?

Talk about pressure. Read the rest of this entry »

My daughter’s birthday party was two weeks ago and I have not yet written a single Thank You note.

There, I said it. I am a horribly impolite mom and I’m casting an impoliteness shadow over my daughter.

But I promise that I have GREAT excuses. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine was visiting this weekend. She just got engaged and we were sitting around talking about wedding plans and our other friends who recently got married. One of them is an uber-successful career woman, someone who has always been very ambitious. My friend who was visiting said that it made sense to her to wait to have kids until your career is more established. She told me she has no idea how I’ve kept it all together with my previous insane job, now running a company, and taking care of my daughter. She herself doesn’t plan on having kids for a while.

My daughter was born when I was 28. Our family comes from Russia and this is considered an ancient age to have your first child. But among our friends we were definitely on younger side when we became parents. I thought about how having a child would impact my career but I grew up with young parents and I’ve always wanted to be one. Same for my husband.

I’d be lying if I didn’t sometimes think that having a child later in my life, after my career and my business were a bit more established might have made things easier. Read the rest of this entry »

Right now I am sitting on the couch in our living room, surrounded by wrapping paper, gifts, ribbons, balloons, dishes, glasses, and numerous unidentified objects. I had to ask my husband to please bring my laptop from upstairs because I simply don’t have the physical energy to get up and get it. The idea of opening up my notebook with the to-do list of things I MUST get done before tomorrow is truly freaking me out.

Today is my daughter’s fourth birthday and we had our families over to celebrate. (She is having her kids party at a gymnastics place next weekend and I am so excited to have someone else clean up the mess.) It was only 10 of us but with all the cooking and preparations, a friend visiting in the middle of it all, and Father’s Day being on the same day (requiring numerous crafts activities and presents purchases) this weekend completely wiped me out. My husband asked how I am doing and I told him that I am too tired to complain.

As I got ready to start working my night shift I turned on some background TV and Jon & Kate Plus 8 was on. Read the rest of this entry »

I am really thankful for my husband this week because I’ve literally been living in a tunnel of work, work, and more work, coming up for air for just a few hours each day. I (almost) completely neglected to take care of the things that are on my weekly family to-do list — you know, things like cooking dinner, remembering to send out our daughter’s birthday invitations, or making sure that my daughter is appropriately dressed for school. (Read: No short sleeve shirts in 50 degree June weather. Yes, I live in Boston.)

And he has picked up the slack. Read the rest of this entry »

… and I hate that I wonder if she is right.

Today was a big day for me and my parents. 19 years ago on May 21st we got on a plane from Russia to Austria — it was the day we left our country and began the process of immigration to the US. Every year we celebrate this day in some way and this year was super cool (don’t I sound like I am 12?) because we actually live close by and could celebrate together.

We went out to lunch and as soon as I walked in my mom asked me if I got any sleep last night. I actually thought I looked pretty good (thank you, MAC concealer!), but mom knows best. I havent’ gotten that much sleep all week and I made the mistake of telling her about it. Which led to a conversation we’ve been having a lot lately, in which my mom tells me that I am nuts for disregarding the fact that I am a woman and trying to live my life as a man and a woman at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

I am usually a pretty frugal person. OK, perhaps not entirely frugal if you use the most purist definition of the term, but I am always trying to find the best deal, rarely buy things that aren’t on sale, try not to buy what we don’t need, and so on. I think that counts as being frugal, don’t you think?

But I’ve realized that sometimes it’s worth spending a bit more money to get a little more balance. And by balance I mostly mean more time. I don’t do this often and I am not talking about a lot of money, but when I am particularly frazzled (check) and have had a particularly tough week (check), it helps tremendously. So right before I wrote this post I… Read the rest of this entry »

I was at an event earlier today where the main speaker, an uber-successful mom CEO and entrepreneur with two kids, gave the intro speech and talked about what she has learned about being a working mom who has a demanding career. When it came time for questions a woman in the audience asked her if she ever worried that her working so much negatively affected her kids and their relationship with her.

I couldn’t figure out if the question was a bit passive-aggressive or genuinely from someone who wanted to know how this woman managed to be a mom and high-powered career woman, but it struck me nonetheless. Her response was very honest — she talked about issues her older son is having at school and how she felt that her and her husband not being around as much when he was younger probably had something to do with his current lack of motivation. She said that they learned their lessons and she doesn’t feel like their youngest is getting the short end of the parenting stick.

Driving home I was thinking about this question as it applies to my own life. Read the rest of this entry »

According to CareerBuilder.com Mother’s Day survey 43% of working mothers would be willing to take a pay cut if they could spend more time with their children and 51% of working moms from two-income households would quit their job if their partner’s income was enough to support the family.

I wasn’t surprised when I read the first part. I was at an event recently where I met working mom after working mom who changed careers or modified her job to have more time for family and kids. On days when my stress level is through the roof and I can’t seem to get enough work done or spend quality time with my daughter I often start thinking whether I should be doing something to dramatically change my career path and make it less demanding and consuming. I love to work and I’ve never thought about staying at home full-time, but I do know that if I worked less, it would be easier to juggle. Read the rest of this entry »