professional working moms Archives

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Contract Negotiator in the Midwest

05/31/2018 by Guest Poster 13 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Lala, who lives in the Midwest with her husband and two sons and works as a contract negotiator. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: Lala
Location: MCOL town in the Midwest
Job: contract negotiator at a large company
Age: 31
Home Situation: I live in a 1,800-square-foot, 3-bedroom/2-bath house with my husband (35-year-old programmer), our sons P (3 yrs. 11 mos.) and J (1 yr. 8 mos.), and our large dog. The kids share a room.
Childcare Situation: full-time daycare center, $2,300 per month

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: A Marketing Director in the Bay Area

05/03/2018 by Guest Poster 30 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader C, who lives in the Bay Area suburbs with her husband and two kids and works as marketing director. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: C
Location: Lives and works in the suburbs of the Bay Area
Job: Marketing director for a mid-size consumer goods company
Age: 37
Hours worked in a typical week: 35–44
Home Situation: I live in a 2,400-square-foot home with my husband (39-year-old finance director), our kids (5-year-old daughter, 3-year-old son), and our 13-year-old cat.
Childcare Situation: Daughter goes to after-school care and son is in preschool full time, $1,700/month

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Corporate Auditor in Texas

03/28/2018 by Guest Poster 20 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader C, who lives in New Mexico with her husband and two daughters and works as a corporate auditor. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: C
Location: Lives in New Mexico, works in Texas
Job: Corporate auditor, 45–60 hours/week
Age: 37
Home Situation:

I live in a 4,000-square-foot home with my husband (family medicine), our two daughters (ages 8 and 4), and our dog.

Childcare Situation:

Our children attend an after school program twice per week, and Grandma picks them up from school three days per week (and taxis them to after school activities).

School tuition: approx. $6,000 per child per year. After school program: varies, depends on our use (payment is on a per-hour basis). Grandma is compensated for gas and given a credit card for expenses incurred on behalf of the kids — she uses this to buy the kids dinner, snacks, pay for events, purchase supplies they may need, etc.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Dietitian and Assistant Manager in Florida

11/30/2017 by Guest Poster 12 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader E, who lives in Florida with her husband and son and works as a registered dietitian and assistant manager. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: E
Location: Live in a medium-sized town in South Florida.
Job: Registered dietitian and assistant manager in an office setting
Age: 34
Home Situation: I live in a family-friendly neighborhood with my husband, K, and our 2.5-year-old son (almost 3!), P. We have a 1,500-square-foot house with a yard. No pets. I am holding out for cat. Everyone else wants a dog. (Note: E says her son has since turned 3.)

Childcare Situation:

We both work full time, so my son goes to a home daycare during the week ($200/week). He has been going there since he was 6 months old. I took him to work with me for 3 months after my maternity leave. Although I loved having him with me, it was also very stressful, so we decided to switch to a home daycare since we wanted something a little more “homey” for him. He has now been there for over 2 years. He is happy, so we are too. Neither one of our parents live nearby, so aside from that he is always with us! That is with the exception of a date night here or there.

We were intrigued about how E brought her son to work for a few months, and we wanted to hear more about it:

It was my boss’s idea for me bring the baby to the office! We had an empty office a couple of doors down from mine, so we turned that into the baby room. … My coworkers were happy to hold him if I was in a meeting or had to take a phone call. Ultimately though, babies will be babies :) and the unpredictability of when he would sleep (and not sleep) became stressful. At that point he was also becoming more mobile, so we decided to switch to our home daycare. I am so grateful that I was able to bring him with me, even if just for that short amount of time. I heard a podcast episode recently from The Longest Shortest Time that dealt with this topic, and they featured a company who encourages their employees to bring their babies to work. I think what they have worked out is great, and I hope that more companies can offer this as an option.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Accountant in New Jersey

11/16/2017 by Guest Poster 9 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Laurie, who lives in suburban New Jersey with her husband and two kids and works as an accountant. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: Laurie
Location: Live and work in medium-sized town in the suburbs of New Jersey
Job: Accountant for world’s largest cosmetics company
Age: 34
Home Situation:

1112-square-foot apartment with my husband (35-year-old graphic designer at a small internet company — I am the breadwinner) and our kids (daughter will turn 5 at the end of this month; son is 2 years old). The kids share a room.

We were in the process of buying a new home, the offer was accepted, and we just completed inspections. Fast-forward one week, I was completely blindsided with news of a big layoff in the accounting department. We had plans to put our home on the market the next day. We had to pull the plug on everything, and it was very hard to swallow this… We had a five-year plan for living in the condo, and now it’s been nine years.

Childcare Situation: Daycare full-time, five days a week (approx 7:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.), $30K a year! :(

A Week in My Life

A Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Land Services Agent in Kentucky

07/13/2017 by Guest Poster 15 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Autumn, a working mom in Kentucky. She works as a land services agent for a public utilities company and is 37 years old with one child. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics about this Working Mom…

Name: Autumn
Lives: Kentucky
Job: Land services agent for a public utilities company
Age: 37
Home Situation: I live in a 2500-square-foot home with my husband, who works in IT, and our 3-year-old daughter. We have four bedrooms; one is used as a playroom for our daughter and one is for my husband’s office/man-cave. We’ve lived in this house for almost seven years and we are slowly trying to declutter and renovate.
Childcare Situation: My daughter goes to preschool 8:30-4:30 Monday through Friday ($180/week). Every now and then I keep her home with me just for fun.