working mom

Sick days don’t have to be all bad. And if you can manage to stay healthy yourself, you might just find yourself back at work feeling even better.

This article first appeared on Fairygodboss and has been republished with permission.

After 17 years as a working mom, I see my biggest job as bringing up my two sons and making them responsible, ethical adults who contribute to the future of the world.

On a day-to-day basis, though, this mostly involves cooking for them, driving them around, cleaning up after them and always remembering how much I love them. I’m fortunate to have a great partner in crime in my husband, and he helps create an environment of gender neutrality at home; daddy cooking doesn’t signify a “special occasion,” for instance. Add to this an employer that empowers you, as well as management that values your contributions, and what you have is a team of indispensable allies for working moms like me who want to keep their sanity.

As my son’s first birthday approaches, I can look back with wonder and gratitude for the lessons I’ve learned through mompreneurship.

I quit my job to become a stay-at-home mom. I do not tell my girls how many rooms I vacuumed, but I do tell them about my writing. Am I failing feminism?

The money is great, but it is not the best part of becoming a working mom. Having my own career has shifted the power balance of my relationship.

“You need to come home right now,” I sobbed into the phone, no doubt sending a jolt of panic into my poor husband while he sat at his desk in his air-conditioned office with the free coffee and free access to adult conversation.

I have three children (and a husband, a dog, a cat, three budgies, and three fish) as well as a job, friends, and family. If it weren’t for the busy mom hacks I’ve honed and developed over the years my family wouldn’t be washed, dressed or fed, not to mention all the work I have to busy myself with each and every minute of every day.

Starting a new year makes me look toward the future, looking at all the choices that lay ahead of me. But it also nudges me to examine my past in a very certain way. It's the time of year I always find myself thinking about the choices I didn’t make — about the life I didn't live.