Woven Peasant Top – Photo credit: target.com
This week-end pick is an easy-peasy one, literally. Loving this woven peasant top from Target! The look is great to transition seasons, and it’s perfect with your favorite jeans or capri pants for the week-end! The price is pretty easy-peasy to0, topping at $29.99!
I’d pair it with these summer bright Sam Edelman ballet flats for a colorful (and citrusy) week-end look!
Happy Friday everyone!
The Corporate Sis.
Photo credit: https://www.welcomebabycare.com
“I really can’t stay because I have to pick up my kids”. ” Happy hour, what happy hour? I have to get to my kids!”
“I’m not getting promoted because I have kids!”
Sounds familiar? Do you remember having to use these lines as a mom yourself, or hearing them from other moms at work? Have you ever thought negatively of moms who may use the so-called “working mom card” as an excuse not to pull their weight at work?
Before you start throwing tomatoes at your computer screen, hear me out! I’m a mom to two juice-and-animal-crackers-addicted precious little people, and while I wouldn’t have it any other way (not even if Google came up with a lundry-folding app), I’m well aware my career changed after I had kids. And while we may be tempted to categorize everything (including French pasteurized cheeses and arabica coffee) into a good, bad or let-me-decide-later category (in which case you have a problem because that baby is coming out), becoming or being a working mom is a just that, a life change that changes everything. Period.
Does such a drastic change in the life of a woman as motherhood puts one’s life into tumble-dry cycle? Certainly. Can it be used to justify who we have become as working women? It depends. Obviously, you won’t find me in the neighborhood dive bar (which doesn’t exist in my neighborhood anyways) betting for drinks? Yet can playing the mom card be used to our advantage in a fair, non-sleazy, ethical way?
Wait for this… You should! Being a mom changes you, it adds layers to who you are, how you think and behave. And since you bring YOU to work, all of YOU (mostly after you’ve had your first cup of coffee, after which your mind begrudgingly agrees to reconcile with your body), wouldn’t suppressing such an important part of who we are end up being a disservice to ourselves, and others?
Motherhood and caregiving teach you some things even the most forward of professional environments could not impart upon you. So why the pressure to deny or delay it at work? Why not use the “working mom card” not as an excuse, but as an added layer to push ourselves further in our careers?
The Corporate Sis.
Eno Blouse – Photo credit: www.nordstrom.com
Loving this bold yet perfectly professional (with a twist) Catherine Malandrino “Eno blouse” from Nordstrom. The asymmetrical, faux-wrap style is perfect as a layering piece, or a bold topper to easy slacks or a pretty pencil skirt.
This blouse is $128 at Nordstrom!
The Corporate Sis.
Yesterday, my dear friend E. and I were texting about meeting up at the gym, as we do every Tuesday evening. It was a beautiful day out, we had both gotten out of work, had gotten the hubby’s ok to keep the kids for an hour, it was all set. Yet, we didn’t end up going, and felt prey to the WMG, yet again!
If you’re a career woman with kids, or dependent, WMG, or Working Mom Guilt, is all too familiar. It’s the tightening in your chest when you’re about to do something for yourself, the constant second-guessing in the back of your mind. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly apologizing for being working mothers, for leaving our kids upwards of 8 hours in daycare, and not spending every single minute of the day with them.
Especially when prime childbearing years increasingly coincide with prime professional years, and the moment when you need that paycheck to stock up on diapers and onesies is precisely the moment when you realize motherhood is not as economically empowering as it seems. Even after this study proving moms spend too much times with their kids, most of us felt temporarily relieved, yet went right back to feeling like we’re not quite doing enough.
Is Working Mom Guilt driving you deep into the pits of careerlessness? How many times have you wondered if fitting it all in, the kids, the laundry, shaving your legs once a full moon (who has time for that), is worth it? If you won’t regret hours spent at work or on your business, while the kids stuff themselves with animal crackers and watch cartoons? Or giving up on your dreams to raise children who will care for their own?
I know I have asked myself all the right (and wrong) questions, and have come up with exactly zero definitive answers. So I went back to the basics, making sure to keep a large supply of love and animal crackers, going back to work on my dreams, and trying to make it to the doggone gym so I don’t blame all my “baby weight” on my kids (who are no longer babies by the way)…
Where are you with your Working Mother Guilt?
The Corporate Sis.
Belted Sheath – Photo credit: macys.com
Macy’s Friends & Family Sale is ending tonight. Hence this beautiful pick, this ombre belted sheath with playful polka dots and a very flattering shape! Loving the graphic print and sleek patent belt which gives it much added flair. And last but not least, this beauty is $69 at Macy’s!
Be-au-ti-ful!
The Corporate Sis.
It’s Mother’s Day week (yes, we’re mommies for ever, so we might as well take the whole week), and flower orders are at an all-time high. After all, Mother’s Day accounts for one-fourth of the floral purchases made for holidays. For the last few years, I’ve been exercising my right of choice when it comes to floral gifts for Mommy Day. Basically, as far as I’m concerned, forget flowers, get me some shoes!
Don’t get me wrong, flowers are cute (especially for that price)! It’s also largely assumed they’re what most moms want for Mother’s Day, that and the Pandora bracelet from the commercial when blindfolded kids try to recognize their moms and moms get to feel extra special because 1) their kid claimed them, and 2) now their significant other will have to fork out the cash to buy jewelry to celebrate all that love. Anyways…
Just like in the workplace, or at least most workplaces, where it’s also largely assumed all moms want is work-life balance and smashing the glass ceiling while teaching our little ones how to code. Yet what is often overlooked is that the same way you can’t lump all moms under the same $19.95 deal at Proflowers, you can’t get a work-life bundle for all working mothers either.
Some of us moms do want the pretty flowers, and ideal work-life balance (which by the way is just as elusive as it is never ideal). Others don’t feel the need to do it all, or spend afternoons at the park with a kid in one hand and our BlackBerry in the other (yes, I’m a die-hard BlackBerry fan). And some of us actually find peace at work 5 days a week trying to hear our thoughts (finally), away from our kids’ cries (shocker!).
In the midst of all the “lean in”, “lean back”, gender equality talks, the biggest power working moms can harness is that of choice. The choice to decide what we want, and create our own sense of balance. The choice to do it all, do some, or heck, take a nap and do nothing for a little while…
As for me, at the risk of repeating myself (which is more of a regular occurrence than a risk these days), I’ll pass on flowers, jewelry, and most shiny Mommy Day stuff. Shoes, tall, badass, defiant shoes, get me those in a size 6, please and thank you!
The Corporate Sis.
Happy Sunday everyone! It’s a gorgeous week-end on this side of the blogosphere, and as we’re sipping on our #morningcoffee, here are the news that made our week (some more than others):
Happy Sunday!
The Corporate Sis.
