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Marisa Thalberg

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My Year in Review

Since it has been a while, I thought it appropriate -- and by way of partial explanation for this lapse-- to offer a synopsis of my past year, at this closing of the door on 2011.



My 2011 Year in Review:



Navigated the murky waters of NYC school admissions to get one…

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Added by Marisa Thalberg on December 31, 2011 at 9:31am — 8 Comments

Party Time

 

One of things that fascinates me about many of my thoroughly modern (executive) mom friends, is how many of them still infuse their fast-paced lives with activities that seem almost nostalgic in nature - like my corporate lawyer friend who crochets.   I'm not particularly a cook (and abundance of good NYC takeout and a husband with chef tendencies have summarily erased the need), I don't sew, or craft, or garden (see NYC comment, above).

However, I do seem to tap my inner…

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Added by Marisa Thalberg on April 14, 2011 at 11:14pm — No Comments

Working Mother... of the Year

 

On February 17, 2011 I had the great pleasure of being honored along with 19 other very accomplished women in advertising, marketing and communications as an "Advertising Working Mother of the Year."  Due to the nature of the award, families were not only welcome but encouraged, and indeed a personal highlight for me was parading into the ballroom of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City…

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Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 4, 2011 at 12:05am — No Comments

Giving, a Little



With Thanksgiving approaching (my favorite holiday for its non-denominational nature and near-universal underlying sentiment) I've been wrestling with how having a genuine philanthropic spirit doesn't always line up with actually dedicating yourself philanthropically, at least as much as we might aspire. After all, with a plate that runneth over with responsibilities, where are we supposed to find the room to heap a big charitable commitment on top? I realized this is a… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on November 18, 2010 at 11:00pm — 3 Comments

Girlfriend with a "G"



When I heard that one of my favorite Twitter "girlfriends," Cindy Morrison, had written a book called "Girlfriends 2.0," I knew it was a subject I wanted to highlight, harkening back to one of our very first Executive Moms events which centered on the theme that spending time with our own friends is the thing women like us tend to sacrifice most often. In my own life, much as I preach with conviction about banishing the cliche of working mom's guilt,… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on September 8, 2010 at 12:00am — No Comments

If There is a "Mom" Penalty, How Do We Lift it?



When The Today Show was putting together a piece related to working moms this week, I was glad to be enlisted as an expert. Take a look at the segment here). However, I can admit now that I had some ambivalence when I heard its direction summarized as: "how working women are penalized for motherhood." My visceral reaction was to think I was now going to be complicit in… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on August 12, 2010 at 11:44pm — 6 Comments

On Being Mom

I derive a certain sense of pride in being not just a parent, but a New York parent. Yet with its many benefits and privileges, there are a few extra volts of intensity that come with parenting in this city: the relentless scheduling, the incomprehensibly convoluted and competitive process of getting your children into schools (and I mean good public ones as much as the private ones). With knots in my stomach, this week I waited for the school receptionist to deliver the verdict of my older… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on August 6, 2010 at 12:23am — No Comments

Birthday Bashing





A few months ago there was an article in the New York Post, titled "Mommy I Want a Swag Bag" http://bit.ly/97J0xz that I found particularly bothersome in its view that over-the-top goody bags were now "de rigeur" at children's birthday parties. I felt, and continue to feel, that this was a view out of the…

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Added by Marisa Thalberg on July 29, 2010 at 12:43am — No Comments

Mottos of a SuperMom

We loved that you loved the "SuperMom" Action Figure we featured in our recent "Better than Barbie" Momorandum. So much so, that it struck us that every superhero worth her weight in magic powers needs at least one emblematic motto or sage saying, by which to live, or at least relate. "Supermom" being a super mom, there are of course a range of options that could suit her many suits, so chose your favorite(s) of the quotes below. (Just outsource having… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on July 14, 2010 at 10:58pm — No Comments

Executive Mom, Executive Daughter

Ok, so the "Sandwich Generation" concept isn't exactly a fresh one. Yet in all of our focus on the duality that "Executive Mom" suggests - an intricate if imperfect choreography between our roles as professional and parent - what about that other most vital and valued of roles many of us are lucky enough to still assume: that of daughter? What happens to the Executive + Mom Pas-de-Deux, when being a Daughter…

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Added by Marisa Thalberg on April 7, 2010 at 11:30pm — No Comments

A Little New Year's Perspective

Did you have a happy new year? I really did. And also didn't. Allow me to recap:



My holiday break started the Monday morning of Christmas week (days I had saved and coveted as a combination of "me" time and "mom" time) with our nanny calling in sick with the flu. It was bad timing - because let's face it, is there ever GOOD timing for those heart-stopping 7:00 am phone calls? I lost all of the "me" time, yet at least got to enjoy a little extra "mom" time (viewing of the "Squeakquel"… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on January 13, 2010 at 9:58pm — No Comments

The Greatness (and Occasional Ugliness) of Moms Online

As I just noted in this week's "Executive Momorandum," it is a source of delight and some amusement to me that Moms have "suddenly" become the hot target audience; new darlings in the media, and the new dominators OF the media. Our aptitude for connectivity and embrace of technology as its conduit have made moms not only a marketer's key target, but their best new media strategy, too. For me, this has created the ultimate, if unsought, confluence of my two professional lives; and in fact… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on November 20, 2009 at 12:30am — 10 Comments

Executive, Mom (and oh yeah, Wife)

If there is any belief fundamental to the ideology of Executive Moms, it is that we are women with a terrifically complex, diverse array of interests that defy reducing into any simple label. Just because we are "working moms" does not mean our entire sphere of interest has to do with "work" and "mom." Thus the potpourri approach to our "Executive Momorandums," as week to week, we might care about the substantive and the frivolous; finance, an important new book, babysitter management, a… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on September 16, 2009 at 11:35pm — No Comments

A Jacket and Heels in a Sea of Spandex and Asics

One advantage of living in New York City, this great teeming bastion of worklife, is that you rarely feel like the only woman on the train platform who has just kissed her kids goodbye for the day.



One of the most consistent anecdotes of isolation I've heard from other executive moms --generally moms who live in the suburbs or outside of major metropolitan areas -- is just that. That feeling of looking up and down the length of a commuter rail station and being the only one LIKE… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on August 18, 2009 at 11:53pm — No Comments

In Support of Sisterhood

First, let me start with what some might deem a girlish tendency-- the need to apologize. I haven't blogged in a while (though I have sufficiently chastised myself for not doing so). I'm really sorry. It can get a little busy doing this on top of navigating the shifting tides of the corporate ocean I swim daily.



A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a piece which put an interesting gender-based spin on this navigating, finding that there is a great deal of "bullying" in… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on July 8, 2009 at 11:52pm — 1 Comment

"Your Biggest Working Mom Questions" - Favorite Quotes

We shared this over email and I wanted to share it here too-- the Executive Moms 2009 Luncheon was this last Tuesday in New York, and it may well have been our best event ever. Over 180 women packed the Harmonie Club ballroom to connect with each other and engage in a program themed around "Your Biggest Working Mom Questions of 2009," anchored by an exceptional panel of experts, and moderated by the (unexpectedly) hilarious ABC News anchor Cynthia McFadden. We knew it was an ambitious to try to… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on April 29, 2009 at 10:02pm — 2 Comments

My Moment of Post-Modern (and Surely Fleeting) "Popularity"

This proves to be an interesting post to come on the heels of my last one, reflecting on how we might want to consider the blurred lines between our private and public personas in the ever-expanding social media playgrounds.



I've been playing in the Twitter playground (@ExecutiveMoms) for a while. I find it overwhelming yet immeasurably interesting (especially, in fact, on a business level). As evidence, though, of how the… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 23, 2009 at 5:16pm — No Comments

How Public Should Your Public Persona Be?

One of the advantages of being a corporate digital marketer by trade is that it provides license, if not a mandate, to spend time on places like Facebook and Twitter during the day. (The rest of you have to pretend you are working). Yet as the lines between brands and the individuals behind them are blurring like never before, so have the lines between our business and personal personas blurred like never before.



In mass social networking environments (unlike say, a more specific… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 18, 2009 at 10:53pm — 1 Comment

Thank You, Lilly Ledbetter

Do you know the name Lilly Ledbetter? Do you know why she was sitting as a guest in Michelle Obama's box during President Obama's Congressional Address last week?



Lilly Ledbetter may not have fit the typical profile of an Executive Mom, but she will and should go down in history as being one of the more influential ones. Ms. Ledbetter is an Alabama woman who worked as a supervisor in a tire factory for 19 years -- and realized throughout that she had been paid less than her… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 2, 2009 at 2:05pm — 1 Comment

Our Work, Our Selves

Living in New York City, which can be duly considered the "ground zero" of our current recession, it seems impossible to stand clear of the giant economic chisel from on high that is chipping away indiscriminately at so many jobs, careers and sense of stability. My friends have been impacted. Suffice it to say my immediate family has now been directly impacted. The rest of us in all but the most recession-proof of occupations are left to simply buckle down harder and hold our… Continue

Added by Marisa Thalberg on February 16, 2009 at 10:32pm — 3 Comments

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