Two weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of being honored with 19 other women by Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) and Working Mother Magazine as one of the “Advertising Working Mothers of the Year.”   Considering how much Executive Moms has shaped the significance of that distinction for me, I wanted to share a few highlights from the day… as well as some of the findings from their new study: The Working Mother Report: What Moms Think, Career vs. Paycheck.

Becoming a Working Mother… of the Year   

On February 17, 2011 I had the great pleasure of being honored along with 19 other very accomplished women in advertising, marketing and communications as an “Advertising Working Mother of the Year.”  Due to the nature of the award, families were not only welcome but encouraged, and indeed a personal highlight for me was parading into the ballroom of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City escorted by my two daughters, to the cheers of additional family and colleagues amidst the crowd of close to 1,000. 

It struck me how strange yet fitting it was to have spent close to the past decade of my life (and career) espousing the idea of being an “executive mom,” and to be celebrating that confluence with some of the most important people from both my ‘executive’ and ‘mom’ sides assembled together…

 

Read more about the day (and how I answered their big question) on my blog

What Moms Think: Career vs. Paycheck   

Working Mother Media, in concert with Ernst&Young, IBM and P&G, released the results of their recent Working Mother Report on “What Moms Think,” and many of the results affirm what we have consistently found through our own Executive Moms surveys about the relative positivity and confidence of  women like us.  A few of the key findings:

  • Moms who view their work as a career report greater satisfaction across the board

  • Career-oriented working moms were notably more positive about such key measures as their career opportunities, their choice to be a working parent, their sense of respect, and their sense of job and financial stability than moms who work for financial reasons

 

  • They also tend to have a more positive perception of their spouse’s level of partnership

 

  • One of the biggest gaps in perception between career-oriented working moms and those who work for financial reasons is that the former feels that work fulfills a ‘”higher purpose”

 

  • Career-oriented working moms’ biggest negative perception vs. other working moms? That they“cannot get away from work”

In addition, there remains a gender divide between men and women on how each perceives roles and responsibilities in terms of bringing home the bacon (and who should fry it up in a pan).  According to the study, there is still an expectation that men will earn more – yet women are more comfortable when that role gets reversed than our husbands.  A variety of related metrics show that we still have some ground to gain in how women’s progress on the workfront is translating to changes in how we perceive partnering on the homefront.


Read more about this Working Mother Report