Women's Careers: A Mother's Typical Day

How many times have you been asked "What did you do all day?"  You know you didn't have a moment to yourself all day long but you can't really answer the question.   Where would you start?  

This past week I've had conversations related to this topic with three different women raising children.  Two of them are at home with large families. The third woman has two pre-schoolers and works full-time in the business she owns with her husband.  The stories they relayed were funny.  They were also poignant. 

Their experiences highlighted just how little time a mother has for herself. One woman told how she tried hiding in the furnace room to make an important phonecall. Her four year old twins discovered her and were pounding on the door before she could finish. Another mother of five mentioned she has not had time to read a book for herself for more than nine years.  The mother working full-time outside the home, relayed a story of being without her nanny for six days and the resulting chaos of their daily routine. 

None of these situations could be remedied with better time management. They are simply the reality of the enormously time consuming job of mothering.