A funnier side to the first year story popped into my head when I was thinking back on that year.

Derek and Todd were in school – Kindergarten and second grade – so for a big chunk of the day our nanny Susan was home alone with Margot.  We lived quite close to the office.  Susan would bring Margot to the office every day during my lunch time so that I could nurse her.  At the time we had a 1978 green Sedan Deville as our nanny car, a hand-me-down gift from Steve’s grandmother.  It fit the bill perfectly – big, comfy and, hopefully, safe but it truly looked like a ghetto car – something like this

She would park in the far corner of the parking lot and I would feed the baby in the car.  Then I would go back to my desk and go back to work.

After several months of this one of the sales managers who had a window-office overlooking the above-mentioned parking lot called me into his office.  He sat me down and began to tell me that he “knew about my problem” had “faced a similar problem himself” and wouldn’t tell my manager if I “got help.”  Of course I had no idea what he was talking about.  After a few moments of my blank stare he said “you know, your drug problem.”  He told me that he had observed my daily visit to the dealer’s car.  Of course I promptly burst out laughing and when I calmed down told him that, in fact, I did not have a drug habit, just a habit of being with my baby during lunch.  I explained why and he still wanted to know why a bottle at home wouldn’t suffice.  When I started to describe some of the realities of breastfeeding he became red-faced with embarrassment and shooed me out of his office.  I still chuckle when I picture his face.

Picking up where I left off…

Third – get the best childcare situation you can possibly afford. Childcare is incredibly expensive, especially for very young children, and even more so early on in one’s career when you are not earning as much. Sometimes if feels like you’re a hamster on a wheel, just working to pay for childcare. But if you get past that and focus on the long view of your career, childcare choices can have a huge impact on minimizing the day-to-day juggle. Depending on where you live, once you have two children in daycare it can actually be less expensive to have a nanny. Yes, I know this is a complicated choice with many factors, but as it relates to work/family balance, not having to worry about getting the kids fed and dressed and dropped off at daycare in the morning while trying to get to the office for a big presentation is really a godsend. If in-home childcare isn’t right for your family, at least make the logistics the easiest possible (see my last post regarding commute).

Fourth – cut the cable. And by that, I mean the cable TV. There are simply not enough hours in the day. According to AC Nielsen, the average American watches 4 hours per day. Not even touching the controversy over how harmful this might be, cut this out and suddenly you have a chance of fitting in the more important stuff.

Fifth – is there a “two for” in your day? When my kids were little, like a lot of working moms, I really missed having time just to socialize with my friends. I also wasn’t getting enough exercise!  My “two for” solution was to start hiking with friends, sometimes with the stroller (a “three for”?). Years later this has become one of my favorite activities – I hike most weekend days and many weekday early mornings before work. I don’t have time to do many lunch dates but I really enjoy my hiking dates – it’s a great way to catch up with friends, not to mention enjoy the outdoors.  In fact here’s a picture I took with my iPhone of a beautiful Cooper Hawk I saw during a recent early morning hike at the Stanford dish.

I’m often asked and I’ve never known quite what to say to this question.  After all, like the proverbial “how are you,” often times the questioner doesn’t really want to know and certainly doesn’t want to engage in a discussion on the answer.  Sometimes the question is a way of paying a compliment – like when someone says “Thanks for having us over for dinner on a work night, how do you do it ?” (e.g. you must have worked hard in advance to pull this off).  It’s nice in those cases to be appreciated.

But what if it’s really a question seeking an answer as advice? This is where I struggle with answering.  I am twenty-five years down the path of working (or being in school) full-time while being a parent.   I’ve learned (and am still learning) things from those experiences that could be worth sharing.  On the other hand, I feel it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that what works for me will work for others.  Also, the real answer is a combination of the important and the mundane and the mundane feels too…well…mundane to describe. With this as caveat I’ll start with what I consider the important, and I’ll save the mundane for when I’m feeling humorous.  So here goes:

First – marry the right person.  I cannot imaging doing “it” (it being defined as balancing a demanding job and parenting) solo.  My husband and I have truly been partners – respecting both of our careers as equally important and both contributing to managing the household.  That doesn’t mean each doing half of each chore but it does mean each doing what feels like more than 50% of the load.  The responsibilities have ebbed and flowed over the years – Steve has picked up much of the cooking and grocery shopping (he’s both good at it and picky about the result hence the switch).  I do most of the laundry, doctor’s appointments, kids shopping (though he has always done the toys).  He does sports, I do music.  He’s the home math tutor, I’m the essay editor.  He pays the bills, I am IT support for the family.

For a great read on this topic I recommend Getting to 50/50 http://www.amazon.com/Getting-50-Working-Couples-Sharing/dp/0553806556.  When I was at the WSJ Women in the Economy conference in April it was incredible how often I heard this same refrain, with the women CEO’s who had children pointing to their true partnership with their spouse as the key ingredients.

Second – be willing to make the tradeoffs necessary to minimize your commute. Not much explanation needed here – all of us have the same 24 hours in a day.  The commute hours represent a huge percentage of potential parenting hours and yes, it unfortunately tends to replace personal time not work time.   Not to mention being nearby in case of sick children, parent/teacher conferences, etc.

More on this tomorrow…