Working Mother

Here’s a guest post from Lisa Roberts, who was recently named “The 2010 Household CEO”:

A couple months ago, I entered a contest sponsored by Bill Me Later and Zappos.com. These two companies were looking for examples of today’s “Household CEO,” mainly (but not only!) women managing their homes, looking after their families and generally living busy lives, and I thought my roles and responsibilities around the home made me a good candidate. With help from my family, we submitted our video; when I got the call, I was beyond excited! Yesterday, I was a simple stay-at-home mom of four from Lexington, KY. Today, I am a nationally-recognized CEO!

Of course, I’m honored to have this title (and the shopping spree allows us to buy new beds for our children!). But the important part is that this celebrates all the hardworking moms and dads out there, ordinary folks who lead pretty extraordinary lives. Most people say that being a parent is a “full-time job,” but the phrase has become a cliché, not the badge of honor it should be.

In a survey of typical American households conducted as part of the Household CEO campaign, one of the key findings is that while most women now work outside the home, a majority also have primary responsibilities inside the home, including cooking, overseeing kids’ homework, and organizing the family’s social life. In addition, many working women also manage family vacations, budgets, retirement planning and car care. The number of “Mom” jobs is not a huge surprise however, because we all do whatever it takes to keep our organizations — Households — efficient and successful.

I am very thankful for my young children (a 5-year old and 3-year-old triplets), a loving and supportive husband and all of our family’s activities and needs. Take a look at my adorable assistants in my video entry here. My professional background is in public relations and customer service, and I use just about everything I learned there to do my job! The sweetest thing about being recognized as a Household CEO is having the reassurance that the work I do each day is important.

Three years ago my husband and I co-founded Project Seahorse, a non-profit designed to equip, honor and redeem families coping with the tumultuous experience of loving a critically premature baby. We create care packages and offer support to families that never expected to find themselves in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. (We’re personally familiar with that experience.)

But like most people in my situation, I find time to do everything that’s needed. I set priorities and guidelines on a daily basis and change them when I need to, which is very often. The business world calls it flexibility; I call it reality. All working parents master the art of multitasking, which is not a corporate office specialty. Talking to clients on the phone while preparing dinner for a family of five while helping one child with a school project and stopping the other three from fighting, well, that is just another day in my “corner” office!

I could say more, but I have “action items” to address and the kids are calling!

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