There’s a really interesting conversation starting in one of our discussion groups, where a member asked if anyone feels pressure at work because they’re black. The question struck a chord with me and really made me think.

As you can see from my picture at the top of this page, I’m a woman of color. What you can’t see is that I’m a woman of many colors — my mom is from India, but she’s of Persian decent and looks Greek; my dad is from Haiti, but his family’s roots go back to France, Germany, Africa, and the Arawak Indians who were the natives of Haiti before everyone else got there. I’ve never been able to choose one facet of my ethnicity over another — when it comes to race, I’ve always checked “other”, and if “other” isn’t an option, I either check several different things or nothing at all. So when it comes to race in the workplace, I really have to think about where I stand and how, or if, it has affected me. Read the rest of this entry »

When people talk about working mothers, it’s usually in the context of how we juggle work and family, how we want to maximize time with our kids, how we can (or can’t) have it all, daycare vs. hiring a nanny, and working at home vs. working out of the home vs. being a stay-at-home mom. What they don’t talk about, usually, is how having two parents who work full time impacts your relationship with your spouse.

I may not have much “me” time, but lately I’ve come to realize that my husband and I have had even less “we” time than usual. And that’s probably not a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always going on and on about how much I hate it when people advise me to sleep when the baby sleeps or just go to bed earlier. But, rather than write yet another rant about it, I thought I’d do a little research and find five tips for boosting my energy and beating fatigue — preferably tips that don’t involve ridiculous amounts of caffeine, sugar, and/or anything illegal — and share them here with you. Ready?

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Like most people, I’ve been glued to the Olympics for days now. And while watching world records fall and medal counts rise, I’m thinking… what if parenting was an Olympic event?

Look at it this way: It’s more of an endurance challenge than running a marathon, as your kids get older it becomes more nerve-wracking than any routine on a 4-inch-wide balance beam, if you have a partner then you have to work on synchronizing your routine perfectly, and if you don’t then you’re swimming the 4×400 relay solo every single day. Read the rest of this entry »

You’d think that after a summer of packing five lunches every weekday, I’d have this what-do-you-want-to-take-for lunch thing down pat, right?

Wrong.

“What do you want in your lunchbox, Sweetie?” I asked my preschooler the other day. And, without even looking up from the picture she was coloring, she answered, “Something not boring.” Read the rest of this entry »

I just got home from the airport. My three big kids are winging their way back to their mom and stepdad as I type this, and my husband and I have just tucked two heartbroken little kids into their beds. My husband is venting in the garage, working on one of his many car-related projects. I’m throwing myself into my work. The only things that makes this bearable is the fact that I know they had a fun summer and I know how excited they are to see their mom and stepdad again. The fact that there are people who love them dearly on both sides of this flight, people who have missed them the way we miss them now.

This stepmothering thing… you get used to it. You learn how to manage and juggle. But it never really gets easier. At least, it hasn’t for me, even nearly 10 years into it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed recently. Not with work, per se, but with trying to juggle all of the things I’ve got going on right now — when you put it all together, well, there’s a lot on my plate, and it can leave me feeling uninspired and unmotivated.

I’m sure you can relate to that feeling. I like to pretend I’m SuperMom but, of course, I’m not (I don’t even come with interchangeable heads — I feel like the frazzled one has been attached for the past few weeks).

So I thought I’d share with you a few of the places I turn to when I need a bit of inspiration (besides Work It, Mom! of course)… Read the rest of this entry »

The hardest thing about working during my second pregnancy — aside from the fact that I had four kids at home for a good chunk of it — was my morning commute. I was constantly tired from either getting up in the middle of the night with my toddler (or, in the third trimester, from getting up to go to the bathroom every 37 minutes).

The second hardest thing about my second pregnancy was the way I felt that the size of my expanding body was indirectly proportional to my value as an employee. That is to say, I worried that people would see my enormous belly, notice that I was no longer walking so much as lumbering, and assume that I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly because I was pregnant. Read the rest of this entry »