Balancing Act as a Professional Woman and Mom of Two Girls

I have worked all my life from the second I graduated from College as an Engineer. My career has shifted a few times: from a Design Engineer in the telecom industry to an academic researcher on optical communications to now, an entrepreneur in the fashion world, designing handbags for professional women. I have always worked a 40-hours-per-week job. So for all of my daughter's lives I have been a working mom (16 years for my oldest daughter (Kamila)  and 12 years for my youngest daughter (Layah)). I am hoping to teach them as my mother thought me (she was a professor in textile chemistry before she retired), that we women should always follow our passion in life! However, we always wonder if our job as a mom is really to spend as much time as humanely possible with our kids and not work during the critical years. I do have some friends that did that and some that stayed at work like me.  I honestly do not know the right answer, I do not think there is a right answer. I know this is a much talked about subject and there are many blogs about this topic as well. Here is a blog on the top "working mom blogs"! Here is another excellent article on the subject from  the working mother website titled "What Moms Choose".

Both of my girls are in sports such as soccer, tennis and for a while swimming, so that means even less time together. I do want them to always value a healthy lifestyle so I figured if sports was a way of life for them, they can not go wrong. I am only questioning all of this today because I went to a very thought-provoking movie last Thursday night with some friends called "The Race to No where" by Vicki Abeles. I highly recommend this movie to anyone with kids (K-12) or in education. I wish my girls (pictured above) went with me. It showed that we in the US are putting way too much emphasis on wanting our kids to do everything possible to get into the very best universities from a very early age (like starting at kindergarten). OK, I am guilty to some extent, asking Kamila to work more  on "standing out" for her college applications,  besides her good grades, participation in sports, and her community service... - I know, I have stopped talking like that! We end up putting way too much pressure on them and do not give them a chance to play and grow up like kids... I think my girls are doing ok, but I am definitely starting to put  more emphasis on fun and play and less on perfect grades lately since I saw that movie. Basically, life is a bunch of balancing acts, and as a professional woman, I am always balancing what lessons my girls are learning from me working vs. time we spend together. Bottom line we all try to do our best to show our kids unconditional love and support, and hopefully our kids grow up strong, healthy, and most importantly very happy!

xo, Gigi