We wanted to close the year again by turning to you, to write our last Executive Momorandum of the year. We asked for your reflections on 2010 – any little wisdom or perspective you accrued, seen through your own unique Executive Mom lens — and chose to pick one great representative one. Read it as a reminder of the power of shared experience, which we hope will propel you to share with us even more in the coming year. In the meantime, wishing you good health, success, fulfillment and fun in 2011… in all the wonderfully varied facets of your life.
An Executive Mom Reflection: Karen Lehman
The last year has been a culmination of sorts for me. I was thrown a monkey wrench in the form of my 2 year old son who was a surprise (his Dad disappearing in my 4th month of pregnancy was an even bigger surprise). I proved to be excellent at juggling my career and being a single mom with one child who went back and forth between Dad and me at least every other weekend. Those 2 day breaks became blitzes when I would work Friday night till 3-4 am to catch up/get ahead then pamper myself with manicures, gym time, movies, and occasionally dates. What seemed hard then now looks like paradise relative to the juggling act I perform to keep one pre-adolescent (12) and one accident-prone toddler (five ER visits – and no, sadly, he still can’t fly). I seem to only have time to keep the kids and work on track; now I’m just happy if both of my low heeled shoes match!
In other words, I am not superwoman, I cannot do it all (at least not alone). Having few resources in the extra-hand department, I’m happy if I can just keep up. At work I am phenomenally gifted at multi-tasking, and manage to even excel. The sacrifice I have to make is to give up “me” time to make sure they (kids-work-pets) have everything they need. My boss certainly wouldn’t understand me putting manicure time before deadlines … and my kids won’t understand why there’s no dinner because I was shoe shopping. But I know this won’t last forever, and when I look at my kids I see in them a constant source of joy and inspiration. To me, right now, being a mom (and I don’t mean stay-at-home mom or working mom), means being there (in the ways that matter). If that means sometimes I come in second or third or even last sometimes, I can still feel like my real work is getting done. I realize that when I am able to fully reclaim me, I’ll be older. But so will they.
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