Work life balance

This week it was life’s turn to get in the way of work for Seeds for Success finalist Abby Port, President/CEO of Red Koala Canvas Co. After meeting with her mentor, Christina Blank, Abby learned that it was time to make a few changes to the Red Koala Canvas website. They discussed how making her website easier to navigate by adding a video and changing the format will pay off in the long-run even if it requires more time and money now.

But before Abby even got a chance to get started on her web assignments, her dog fell ill and on the day of his surgery a tornado struck. Thankfully Abby and her family were not harmed, but the incidents certainly put things in to perspective for the entrepreneur who immediately dropped everything else to focus on her primary role as a mother. Read More »

My husband subscribes to this fabulous magazine called Inc., which is intended for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Because he hardly ever has time to read it, it usually ends up sitting on the kitchen counter for weeks at a time, and I like to peruse it while I eat my cereal in the morning (or late at night, when I’m starving from the stupid diet I am on). Though I don’t own a business, and I am not at all entrepreneurial – I do have lots of great ideas, but I suck in the execution – I enjoy Inc. because I find that many of the topics actually relate quite well to being a working mom. There are, for example, lots of columns about managing your time, getting organized, being resourceful, figuring out what values are important to you as you grow your company, etc. and so forth. But in this month’s issue, there was a piece that was so brilliant and so on point that I just feel compelled to share it with you.

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Sure as Mother's Day comes and goes every year, working moms will always want the most elusive thing there is: more time. Time to get all our work done, well, and still have all the time we want with our family. Most days, that's tough to come by, and no amount of macaroni and glue will produce it.

So it's no surprise that the Society for Human Resource Management has found two surveys that say full-time working moms would gladly take pay cuts if it means more time with their children:

• 43 percent of working moms would take a pay cut for more time at home
• 51 percent would quit their jobs if their spouse/significant other made enough money to support the family

I've been there, and made the decision to work part time and then freelance when my three kids were young. I gave up a lot of income during those years. And, no, our financial future is not fully figured out, but I wouldn't change a thing about that decision because I felt it so strongly in my gut that it's what we needed as a family. But pulling back from the work force is not a decision that should be made lightly. The pay you give up in the short term, based on family economic and care needs at that moment in yours and your family's life, has long-term consequences. Read More »