Ok, so the “Sandwich Generation” concept isn’t exactly a fresh one. Yet in all of our focus on the duality that “Executive Mom” suggests – an intricate if imperfect choreography between our roles as professional and parent – what about that other most vital and valued of roles many of us are lucky enough to still assume: that of daughter? What happens to the Executive + Mom Pas-de-Deux, when being a Daughter introduces itself with greater need?

For those of you who have attended an Executive Moms event in the past several years, you know who my mother is; she doesn’t exactly recede into the woodwork. I put her to work upon her retirement a couple of times a year, checking in guests at the door (a questionable move in the interest of good flow, as she would insist on chatting up each guest, in quintessential Jewish mother-style). I knew it was futile to hope that somehow in this context my mom might try to be a bit chameleon-like and adapt a somewhat more professional persona; she was, as she always is, defiantly and proudly in her full Technicolor self. (That’s what you get when you don’t pay the help). And wouldn’t you know, months later I would find myself getting emails from past guests, asking about the next event – mostly wanting to know, “is your mother going to be there?”


I finally reconciled myself to that fact that it was indeed entirely appropriate (and ultimately pretty wonderful) in the context of Executive Moms, to have my mom at my side. But of course, that’s true only of this part of my professional life — not the bigger corporate part. Obviously, there, neither she, nor my husband or children have a presence other than in photos on my credenza, and a very occasional visit. If anything, my mom is a facilitator and help to my Executive Mom life, pinch-hitting as a babysitter, picking up something at Target for me.

Yet for the first time in many years, my role as a daughter has a sense of urgency and responsibility that is interjecting into and drawing from the other parts of my already complex work life and home life. This is what happens when a major medical necessity is at hand. Next week, she will have open heart surgery (her wistful joke is that her heart was broken 20 years ago when my father died; so it was only appropriate that they confirmed it needed fixing on her anniversary). Fortunately this, unlike medical dramas past, has been something we could plan for. Even so, the primary stress over her well-being has been matched with the additional stress of trying to clear an impossibly overbooked business calendar. The stress of worrying about her recovery is matched with the additional stress of worrying about what the implications of her recovery will be on my ability to get back to the meetings that are now getting condensed into future weeks. I am worrying about whether my husband will be okay getting the girls to school, and how I will host her granddaughter’s 4th birthday party while she is still in the hospital. To her infinite credit, my mother hates being a patient or victim, and were she to be posed with these quandaries of rightful place, the answers to her would be easy: Go back to work! Go to the party! But it’s not that easy, is it? — when you want and need to nurture your parent as well as your own immediate family — when the caretaking and support falls to
you in more than one way.


If only our capacity to accomplish all we need in our daily lives could be as boundless as our capacity to love those we do.


Or perhaps it could at least prove to be as resilient (I hope) as our strong maternal HEARTS.