As everybody else here has shown: We don’t have to decide between family and a career these days, we can have it both. There is simply not enough time to get things done exactly the way we’d like. You're using the Facebook in-app browser. I felt it fitting that this book has inspired me as a mom, as a woman, and as a working professional. Look for a job in a company that appreciates you and supports your professional growth while accepting that you are also a mom. It’s nice to have help from dad’s but sometimes its all up to you and what you bring to your day. She is the author of “The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Success After Baby.”. Well, I … Being a mom and a wife is a tall enough order, but managing a business or pursuing a career on top of that is on a whole different level. Tell your children that nothing is more important than them, and be available in emergencies or when something is really important. The first thing that needs to be done if you plan on becoming a successful work at home mom, is … Don’t deny the woman within you, your desires, and needs. The business woman with more than 20 years of leadership experience in strategy development and implementation, project management, and change management made first place in the “Sales Director” category of the Europe chapter of “Women in Sales” in 2015. My daughter is currently completing her bachelor’s degree at Cardiff University – not least because I showed her that the sky is the limit. Use this guide to avoid the bias traps and earn your true value. It is just not necessary to sacrifice either family or career if you can have it both. How to Set Your Sights on an Audacious Goal as a Working Mom. Draw inspiration from your role models, and develop your own strategies and insights based on that. Combining work and family life gave me the chance to stay true to my values, meet an incredible number of inspiring people throughout my career, and make invaluable experiences. This torturous goal is best assessed with a long lens. It’s a term coined by social scientists to describe the disadvantages women with children face at work relative to their childless peers, including being offered lower starting salaries and being perceived (erroneously) as less competent. Many examples of successful professional mothers show that women do not necessarily have to decide between one or the other. Staying organized as a working mom has its challenges. Successful working moms are really superheroes and while it may feel like you are trying to move Asia a little bit to the left each day without a sweeping red cape, making lists will help you get there. January 14, 2011 by Jen Ewell Leave a Comment. This will make you a role model for your children when it comes to self-care. One of the biggest secrets to being a successful working mum is, to be honest with yourself about your limits… It is absolutely possible. Rely on other caregivers, babysitters, or the grandparents. Moreover, she has lectured on marketing and international marketing in Europe, Asia and North America for many years and has won several teaching awards. Never forget that you are an individual, and there is no one else like you. But here’s the good news… You can learn how to be a good mom. Illustrated by Hannah Minn. Often, mothers find themselves in a situation when they need to choose between their work and their children. As it turns out, tiny humans need to eat daily (in the beginning, 10 times daily), and deliverables at work need to be, well, delivered. There’s no one cure-all, but here are a few starting points: Sign up for the newsletter where women rule the headlines. How to be a Successful Working Mom against All Odds. Some of us leave home to work and others stay home and work. This is part of a series of guides for working women brought to you by The New York Times and Bumble Bizz, a professional networking app by Bumble. The first female dean of the WU Executive Academy and mother of two teenagers (aged 15 and 19), Barbara Stöttinger, went first. Olena Khlon is CEO of Fairo, Member of the Board of the WU EA Female Leaders Network and Global Executive MBA alumna. 4 successful female managers report on their experiences as working moms, and encourage women to have both: child and career. Sentences full of emotion that will stay with the mothers for a long time – and maybe inspire other women to become successful working moms as well. Also take quality time just for yourself: I have my hair and nails done regularly, meet my girlfriends, and always take a moment to appreciate these things. Begin Slideshow. Female professionals with a college degree usually have fewer kids and stay childless more often than other women – which does not necessarily mean that they do not want children. At the end of the Female Power Hour, a surprise was in store for the participants: the children of the speakers, aged between ten and 19, joined the meeting virtually and talked about their experiences with their working moms. That also means: “Being happy and full of love makes me a good mom – which is lucky for me, because I am in love with my job!”. If this is not possible, be honest and talk to them. Stay Healthy. My favorite quote is, “I was born to be real and not to be perfect!”. Separate your work time from the time you spend with your children. These 7 tips will help you stay productive and organize your life as a busy mom. Today, I want to talk about working moms and how to be a successful working mom. But I always knew that I wanted to work and earn my own money,” she recounts. For me, context helps. Lauren Smith Brody is the founder of The Fifth Trimester, a consulting firm that helps companies retain and support mothers. Please open the page in a normal browser to have the best experience. But with only 24 hours in the day, how do we do it all? In 2003, she earned her post-doctoral qualification in international marketing. Ruth Gabler-Schachermayer was the moderator of the Female Power Hour. Foster good working relationships. There will be days that are consumed by a trip to the emergency room with a sick child, or weeks eaten up by a new boss or a big deadline. In October, she became CEO of the Kyiv-based financial services provider Fairo. Find role models that inspire you – but also make sure to find your own path in balancing work and family life. But if your kids are anything like mine, they won’t let you nap. Often children come along just when your career is taking off, you’re setting up the perfect home and you’re still trying to be the dream partner to your significant other. What gadgets or resources save me time and energy? If mom is happy, the kids are happy. Here’s how: The workplace still isn’t equal. Part of fostering good working relationships is networking. The New Year is here! This website uses cookies to improve your user experience. In this article, I'm going to offer seven ways to be a good mom… a better mom… a happy mom. I felt connected to her as she shared her struggles, successes, and the decisions she made as a mother who also wanted a career. Don’t forget to have fun. How to Be a Successful Working Mother. Believe in and trust your decisions, which will give you the confidence to leave your own doubts behind. 10 real women on what it’s like to work full-time and be a mom. As a working mom myself, I am always looking for gadgets or resources that will save me time, make my life easier, and help me manage it all. Find out more about having a successful career and being a hands-on mom. Tips for How to Be Successful as A Working Mom . As for the never-ending daily to-dos, try the following: Women face unique challenges when it comes to negotiating. Having kids and working from home is even more of a challenge. Currently, she is Head of Sales at the global insurance provider MetLife in Bulgaria. But in order to make change — and, yes, make money — you’ve got to stay in the game. Stay focused and mindful: this way, you will be able to enjoy your time together even more. “You can do it all, just not all at the same time,” the chirpy-slash-pragmatic saying goes. Working mothers bring a diverse and powerful set of experiences that can contribute to a successful team in the workplace. Join now to receive free weekly newsletters tracking your baby’s … Some moms don’t go back to work for several years after their babies are born. More and more women are working full-time, but a mom's responsibilities often stay the same, even when working outside the home. ... working mom. A wave of gratefulness and emotion rippled through the virtual space, hearing sentences like: “We are proud of our mom, she is our role model,” “thanks to her, we were able to travel and have so many great experiences,” “I never felt like I was missing out as a child; I was always lovingly cared for,” “my mom always played with me and that was fun.”. Whatever you decide: it will certainly be for the best for you and your family. The fourth edition of the Female Leaders Network’s Female Power Hour put ambitious working moms on the virtual stage: four successful female managers shared their personal experiences and insights into reconciling job with family life with female MBA students and graduates of the WU Executive Academy in the course of this online networking event. Consider the mom who has packed lunches and diaper bags, and is driving safely to her destinations: daycare for the baby, pre-school for the four-year-old, and elementary school for the 8-year-old. “On the contrary, I believe that if I keep myself happy, I can handle all the rest.”. This is a motherhood community with a passion for writing and being a working mom. Focusing on Being A Work At Home Mom. As a working mom, you are a role model for your children. In her book “Forget Having It All,” Amy Westervelt sums up the working mom dilemma: “We expect women to work like they don’t have children, and raise children as if they don’t work.” That’s a recipe for mommy guilt — a term I’d like to outlaw for its implication that moms are committing some wrong by contributing to the economy and the human race at the same time. Surround yourself with people who support you, and avoid those who judge you because of your decision to have a family and a career. Most opt to put their careers at the backseat of their lives to take care of their child. Olena Khlon has held high-ranking positions in business and people development as well as in sales in the finance and consulting sector on the CEE, SEE, and APAC markets for more than ten years. Barbara Stöttinger is the Dean of the WU Executive Academy and the Academic Director of the Professional MBA Marketing & Sales. You can learn how to be a good mom, a better mom, a happy mom, without losing your mind. How? What to Do as a Working Mom When You're Running Out of Energy. Make sure to eat healthy for your 3 meals, exercise a couple times a week & get plenty of sleep. We recently found an interview with Sarah Grossman, a successful working mom of two, who is also running a brokerage company Baystate Business Brokers in Needham, Massachusetts. Work Life Balance Tips for WAHM. ), homeschools AND runs a blog as well as a freelance writing and Virtual Assistant business. It’s thus important to maintain and expand your professional support system over time. “We expect women to work like they don’t have children, and raise children as if they don’t work,” she quoted the famous “working mom dilemma” from Amy Westervelt’s best-selling book “Forget Having It All.” For Barbara Stöttinger, it was always clear that she wanted to work: “As a teenager, I never thought about marriage or having kids. Working motherhood isn’t a choice, it’s a reality for many women. You made the decision – now you have to stand by it. Research shows that a team of people with different backgrounds and perspectives leads to lower costs, higher revenues and increased profits—which translates to delivering for our customers in a better way. These tools and tips will help you stay on the right track to success. In my case, my parents and my mother-in-law have helped us a lot. Without having positive working relationships with colleagues at all of your jobs, you cannot be successful. If you’re lucky, you enjoy your work enough to feel the pull of wanting to be both at work and at home. During her Global Executive MBA studies at the WU Executive Academy, she lived in Vietnam with her family. Often, well-educated women have to ask themselves: is it better to focus on work or to have children and, potentially, nip their careers in the bud? Yes, it is possible to enjoy being a stay at home mom and be successful at the same time. If you're not, you might do the math and consider joining the nearly one-third of workers with caregiver responsibilities who have quit to stay home. Many of us working mothers need to work or actually just want to work because we’re smart and talented. First, let me define “working mom.” If you have a child, you are a working mom. While there are many perks to being a stay-at-home mom, it isn’t for everyone. The founding and board member of the WU EA Female Leaders Network said that “there is a synergy between working and living: as women, we can have it both.”, To this day, she remains impressed by a TV documentary, where women and their five-year-old children were asked what made a “good mom.” “While the moms said things like ‘cooking healthy meals, tidying, and cleaning,’ the kids said: ‘a happy mom who gives me a kiss, hugs me, and plays with me,’” she recounts, visibly moved. Anybody can. Being a Successful Working Mom: How to Reconcile Work and Family Life - WU Executive Academy After seeing that, she hired somebody to clean her home and promised herself to spend as much quality time with her daughter as possible. Creative Ways to Negotiate a Severance Package. But we set ourselves crazy high standards of being amazing earth mothers, domestic goddesses and career high fliers. This Is The Secret To Being A Successful Working Mom. Then subscribe to our monthly newsletter. (In contrast, through what’s called the “fatherhood bonus,” men’s careers are believed to benefit when they have children.) You’ve got to know how: at the virtual “Female Power Hour” recently hosted by the WU Executive Academy, four successful female managers and entrepreneurs encouraged other women to follow their examples: women CAN have both children and a career – it just takes the right mindset, good support, and strong organization skills. Working from home can be a struggle on its on with the amount of self discipline and dedication it requires. What’s more: in the public eye, the compatibility of children with a career remains a women’s issue. See All Slides. By clicking on "Close" or continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to the use of cookies. We’re on the edge of a new year, and a lot of moms are looking for ways to balance everything. Make your children see the benefits of having a working mom: the family can afford common activities such as a nice dinner at a restaurant or traveling, for example, exactly because mom AND dad work. How to be a successful working mom. She holds a doctoral degree from WU Vienna. My daughter always said to me: “Let it go, take it easy.” Thanks to her, I am less of a control freak than I used to be. Never stop being curious and wanting to learn something new. Can a working mom have both a successful career and a fulfilling family life? Recognize and appreciate all of the great things you do have, and just take it one day at a time. How to Be a Successful Working Mom (with Happy Kids) It’s hard to be a mom and even harder to manage your day with work and being a mother. It may not look exactly like how you pictured it, but don’t let that deceive you. Children need love and unshared attention, not a tidy table. The board member of the WU EA Female Leaders Network said, “I am a big fan of the slogan ‘happy mom, happy child.’”, There was a time when she tried to be a full-time housewife, when she moved her family to the Philippines for her husband’s job: “I really tried my best, but at some point he said: please find a job – you are a much more balanced person when you work.”. Having other people in their lives can be a huge benefit for children, giving them something that the mother alone could not contribute. If you ask any working mom what they’d want the most, a number of them would want to add a few more hours to a single day. We all know, when mom is out of commission, the whole house seems to go into chaos & out of whack. Here’s how to ditch the guilt, negotiate for flexibility and find equality at work and home. My children spent a semester in Canada with me, when I taught at the University of Victoria as a guest professor. Trust your children and keep your promises to them. Successful parents focus their spare time and energy on raising the children - not wishing they didn't have to work. Learn from your children – they often know what truly counts in life. Research that Kathleen McGinn, a Harvard economist, conducted in 2015 found that the daughters of mothers who work outside … Farnoosh Torabi. So I started thinking, what are some must haves for me as a working mom. Find time to recharge your batteries and do something that is just for you and that brings you joy. However, being a mom is a job in itself so we are all working moms. Between having children and handling work, we still manage to hold high-powered positions across different industries; we start our own businesses; we raise families. Being a working mom is not a race, so take an extended maternity leave if you’re in the position to. It will cost you a tremendous amount of energy and you will hardly gain anything through it. I often brought my daughter with me to Vienna for the MBA weekends, took her to Wiener WIESN and the State Opera. Don’t try to be perfect, in your job or as a mom. Anita Kirilova can look back on an impressive international career that she has had despite and also because of her daughter (now 19). Before joining the Institute for International Marketing Management, Barbara Stöttinger worked in the marketing department of an international consumer goods manufacturer (consumer electronics) and as a consultant. But I’ve been there, too. But are we good moms? But I never even contemplated giving up my work,” she says. If you have to ask the question, you may have doubts. As part of her research, she has spent considerable amounts of time in the USA and in Canada. After all, no one knows better what it's like to be a working mom than another working mom! 4 successful female managers tell how they succeeded in the balancing act. She is also a good friend to me and has joined us on trips. But if you pause and look back just a few times a year, chances are you’re more balanced than you think — and if you’re not, you can feel good about making more deliberate corrections. If you have any energy left, don’t forget to pay your struggles forward. There are just so many distractions in your daily life that it seems as if it will be an impossibility to focus any real time into your work. A young working mom, her eyes misty and tired from little sleep, quietly shared that with me. Always provided, of course, that you have the necessary support – or get it from wherever you can... For more information about the Female Leaders Network, please click here. The Habits of Successful Working Mothers . If you have recently transitioned from working to stay-at-home mom or you have been away from work for a while, you might be wondering how can a stay-at-home mom be successful. There can be guilt with being a working mother, however, for many women it is a must. How do other working moms do it? We just need to support and promote each other through networks, information-sharing, and discussions. Working makes you a good mom. Communicate as much as possible with your children – they are often more grown-up than we adults are! In fact, about 70 percent of American women with children are in the workforce. You can have your cake and eat it, too – many people forget that or simply lack the confidence to go for it all. See the full series at nytimes.com/workingwomen. Tips November 29, 2017 by Abigail 0 comments. The mother of two (a ten-year-old child and an 18-month-old toddler) has worked in ten different countries and lived in three of them. And I’ve had a version of this conversation with too many women recently. Let your children see the benefits of having a mom who works and is proud of her choice. Here’s how to dodge landmines, fight bias and not burnout in the process (or pick yourself up off the floor if you do). Don’t feel bad because you are a working mom. Those in the know of how to be a successful working mom understand the power of priority. The pressure from others and the guilt you feel as a mom when work gets in the way can be stressful. You would like to stay up to date on the latest trends and developments in executive education and receive great stories and updates on application deadlines and events? Anita Kirilova is Head of Sales of MetLife, founder and Member of the Board of the WU EA Female Leaders Network and Global Executive MBA alumna. And yet, I’ve interviewed hundreds of mothers who work outside the home, each of whom can tell you that the things on that list of “it alls” don’t like to wait in line. Farnoosh Torabi. Track your baby’s development. Master Your To-Do List. In the end, she went for having it both ways. Many women must work for financial reasons, and while just having a job can be stressful, the added attention and needs of a child can make you lose your sanity. This varies from situation to situation, of course. What Are the Top 10 Ways to Get the Promotion You Deserve. See sample | Privacy Policy | Opt out or contact us anytime. T.W.L is an outlet for moms to share their inspirations and creativity in balancing life, motherhood stories, life & style tips, being a military spouse and staying healthy and fit. How to be a successful working mom and partner. Time flies and children grow up so quickly: make the best of both worlds – and have no regrets. It just won’t work. Ruth Gabler-Schachermayr is initiator of the network CareerMum and of the mentoring program Mumtoring. Talk to women who have already met the goals you strive for. One of the most important things you can do to be a successful work at home mom is take care of yourself. However, usually for economic reasons, there are moms who would not to let go of their job. When I read Lisa Tanner’s story, I knew I had to include her advice if I was going to talk about successful work-at-home moms. Women are inspiring. And as one of my many (and ever-recurring) New Year’s resolutions, I vow to be better organized both within the home and at work. That’s it. How To Be A Successful Working Mum. It seems that the fear of the oft-quoted motherhood penalty is deep-seated. Her passion is helping moms be successful while working at home with children. Let’s be clear: If you have any spare time on your to-do list, you should pencil in a damn nap. She has nine children (yes, nine! Story from Work & Money. For a mom, particularly a single mom, practicing law within such an arduous time frame can be challenging, to say the least. This Is The Secret To Being A Successful Working Mum. Just because you are the mother, you are not the only one who can care for your child. By Natalie Bracco posted Oct 14th, 2016 at 12:40pm. She is the initiator of the women’s network CareerMum and the mentoring program Mumtoring and mother to a one-year-old son: “Having a family is a gift for me. So if you are a working mom and love your job, shout it from the rooftops.