I am going to admit it right here publicly, without guilt: one of the major benefits of working is getting a break from your darling children.  Oh yes, we working moms have CRAZY amounts of guilt about leaving our kids each day for our jobs, and constantly re-assess if it is worth it, whether that is for a few hours each week or full-time-plus and whether it is working from our home office or traveling to the other side of the world.  But I truly believe it is ok to ENJOY escaping to…I mean going to…work. 

I wonder why strangers feel compelled to try to help us young mothers when our child is “showing out” (Translation: throwing tantrums, having fits) in public places like grocery and department stores. As if our child diverting every single shopper’s attention away from their tasks at hand isn’t embarrassing enough; here comes more attention from a total stranger. This unassuming stranger is usually in the person of an older woman whose experience raising her own children makes her believe she knows and can raise yours in a 47 second interchange.

I think about body image a lot. Like a lot, a lot. I can’t really recall a time that it wasn’t on my mind. I was thin as a kid and then when I hit middle school I put on a lot of weight. From that point on I’ve been thin (not that I believed that at the time, of course) and voluptuous. I’ve spoken at dozens of events about the importance of saying a big f*ck you to the media for their role in creating an unattainable beauty standard that leaves millions of us feeling like crap about ourselves (because we aren’t all a size 0, white, with blond hair and blue eyes).

Regardless of how much you like your career and working or how much you want to stay home, most women struggle with their decision. After you do make the decision to work – despite your confidence level – you face every mom’s guilt that stems from the conversations in your own head and from what others say around you.

By now you have heard about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.  Love or hate the book, it is wonderful we have a national dialogue about working women!  Rather than focusing on leaning in for the duration of my 700 or so words here, I’d like to stress the importance of leaning on.

The number one, biggest reason I hear from moms as the reason for not fitting in a workout is, “I don’t have time.”  I hear this from moms who are full time corporate employees, part time consultants and those who stay home with little ones not yet in school.  All of these women insert their day job into the round-the-clock job of being mom.  So between the morning madness of lunch prep, sock finding, driving to school and the evening madness of homework, dinner prep, bath time and bedtime, who can find time to fit in a 30 minute, let alone 60 minute, workout?  Doing so

The minute you find out you’re pregnant, most women smile, get excited, share the news with their partners and then think about when to tell people and who to tell first. Some women wait until eight weeks or 12 or 18 and usually close family members and friends are the first to hear the news. Women usually want to wait for a few reasons. Some are superstitious and others want to make sure they have a healthy pregnancy.

For many working moms, business travel is a necessity of the job.  It can be a welcome opportunity for some “me time” (see BadAssMama’s awesome blog this week) or it can bring on separation anxiety.  For me, I usually experience some combination of these emotions when I travel without my little one.  Moms tackle the job of balancing business travel and motherhood in a few different ways; here are my best tips for you:

There are some who will criticize you for being a woman.

There are some who will criticize you for being a working woman.

There are some who will criticize you for being a mother.

There are some who will criticize you for being a working mother.

There are some who will criticize you for being a stay-at-home mother.

There are some who will criticize you for joining the PTA, not joining the PTA, packing children’s lunches, letting children buy their lunches, etc, etc, etc…

Funny how Pride and Prejudice is everybody's favorite romantic book.  Actually, it's not that romantic at all, at least not in a fairy-tale way.  It's the story of how Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy forge a genuine partnership, including lots of conflict over family and money and where to live and how feelings get expressed.  The usual stuff, right?