A friend recently told me that she is afraid to get a promotion at work. There are rumors of a reorg in her group and about her getting a promotion and instead of being excited, she is terrified. She already works a lot and her job is fairly intense; she is also a mom to a toddler. She told me that this promotion is the last thing she needs in her work-life juggle and she would be much happier if she could keep her career in a holding pattern for a while.

I bet there are many working moms out there who feel this way and to be honest with you, at times I do as well. I’m a self-admitted type A overachiever but I’ve seen a definite decline in my ambition since becoming a working mom. The most basic reason for this is simple: Exhaustion. As I’ve written about here, I don’t sleep enough and it’s absolutely affecting how ambitious I am in my career. I am not sure at this point I could come up with a lot more mental and physical energy a big promotion would require.
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We’ve just come back from a wonderful brunch at our friends’ house. They have two girls, one of whom is the same age as our daughter (who is five) and of course there was lots of conversation about them starting kindergarten this year (both seem to like it a lot) and the after-school activities juggle. My friend had signed up her daughter for a few things, including gymnastics. But since going there several times her daughter keeps telling her that she doesn’t like it and wants to stop going. “What should I do?” she asked us, “have her keep going and trying or drop it and find another activity?”

I think this is a really tough question with, obviously, lots of variables. We talked about maybe trying a different gymnastics class (maybe another teacher would be a better match?) or switching her to our daughter’s class (where she would have a friend and could have more fun?) But for me it brought to mind a bigger question of finding balance between what our kids say they want to do and what we might want them to do, when it comes to extracurricular activities.

As we all probably do, I think back to my growing up experience.
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This is going to be a really short post. (OK, maybe not really short because I am not capable of really short, but short.) And the reason it’s going to be short is because I only have 18 minutes to write it, edit it, publish it, brush my teeth, wash my face, and get into bed.

Starting tonight, I am implementing a 3-day a week 10pm bed time for myself. Which means that three times a week I will get my butt in bed by 10pm. I can read once I am there, but I can’t work, or make to-do lists or look through recipe books (tried all of those and none lead to a good night sleep.)

This is going to be a HUGE challenge for me. On an average night my husband and I go to bed around 11:30 or midnight. We usually wake up around 6:15am, and two days a week I get up at the horrible hour of 5:30am to drag myself (usually cursing) to a 6am spin class. (Those are the days I definitely prioritize working out over sleep.)

Few parents get enough sleep and absolutely no working mom I know thinks she gets enough sleep or even close to it. But I consistently sleep an average of only 5 hours a night and it’s taking a serious toll on me. I’ve tried to deny it for a long, long time and make up excuses like, “Oh, I’m still young, I definitely can deal with this for a while” or “I have no other choice because of the amount of work and home stuff that needs to get done.”

But I need to cut down on the excuses because I am really really really tired and cranky and not my peppy self way too often. The lack of sleep is definitely affecting my mood, my energy levels, and how I am doing at work. I need to stop the denial and just admit it:

My name is Nataly and I need more sleep.
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When I read about a new study showing that working mothers and fathers often resort to unhealthy eating because juggling work and family leaves them little time and energy to prepare healthy meals I wasn’t going to write about it. At first glance it read to me like another indictment of working families — i.e. here is one more thing we’re not perfect at.

But then I changed my mind because I think this is a really really really really — did I write enough reallys? — to address. Just like you always hear the advice that a happy mom (and dad, but we usually tend to talk about moms here) leads to a happier family I firmly believe (and I am sure there are tons of studies that show this, although it’s kind of common sense) that a healthy mom leads to a healthier family. So if we skip meals, resort to unhealthy snacks instead of nutritional meals, and constantly eat on the go — all things that this study found that working parents do — our kids are more likely to pick up these habits. Not a good thing.
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I was completely blown away when I read recently about a ruling by an Ohio court that the state’s law that protects pregnant women from workplace discrimination does not protect them from being punished for breastfeeding at work during unauthorized times. At the center of the case was a woman who was fired by her company for pumping at work during an unauthorized break. Her son was 5-month old at the time.

(Many other moms and bloggers are reacting to this — check out Leah’s awesome post over at Working (on) Motherhood.)

I am not a lawyer and won’t go into dissecting the actual case. I am sure the core of the case revolved around the fact that this woman took an unauthorized break and what she did during it has nothing to do with it — she broke the rules and there were implications. But I can’t help but think that in this case, the employer should have shown some more flexibility. After all, it’s not like she went shopping during the break.

The issue that this raises in my mind is the fact that while the government strongly promotes the benefits of breastfeeding and advocates for women to breastfeed as long as possible, we don’t have federal regulation that sets standards that companies have to follow when it comes to new moms. For example, new moms could be allotted more regular breaks during the day, so that if they are choosing to pump at work they have plenty of opportunities to do it. Or perhaps new moms can be allowed to take several unplanned breaks during the day so they could pump. Whatever it is, I am fairly certain that the government can do more to actually help moms who want to pump at work do it and the fact that it’s not the case makes me really angry.
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Image from LA Times

I’m a fan of Diane Sawyer — she is smart, seems to treat her show guests with respect and just stunningly gorgeous — so I was happy to learn that she is taking over the nightly news anchor spot at ABC. Not all, but part of my happiness had to do with the fact that yes, here goes another woman into a highly visible position not often occupied by women. Katie Couric paved the way as the nightly news anchor for CBS and to have another woman in a coveted position is just cool. (If you want to have an “I can’t believe this moment”, consider this: Women occupy only 3% of the “clout” positions in media.)

But then I started to wonder whether we (read, we = women) should be celebrating Diane Sawyer’s new gig, as some women’s organizations are doing.
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A few of our friends — all busy working parents — have a regular date night on Friday night. One of the couples has two young girls and they have an agreement with their nanny to stay late on Friday so they can go out to dinner after work together. Another couple tries to make it out to the movies or the theater or some other fun event every Friday. They told us they don’t always plan ahead what they will do but they know they have the night so just pick something that looks fun.

I love the idea of a regular date night, although my husband and I have never quite done that. We get out, just the two of us, a few times a month, but we don’t have a regularly-set day and I think that would be kind of nice. But a Friday night? Forget about it.
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Our daughter starts kindergarten next week and I am not sure who is more excited and nervous - she or her parents. Last week we received the monthly parent events schedule - orientation, PTO meeting, curriculum review, after school program teacher meeting, etc. We knew that there would be a lot going on during the beginning of the academic year but I couldn’t help but not get annoyed at one thing as I read through the schedule:

Most of these events and meetings take place in the middle of the day.
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