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" movie not…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on January 13, 2010 at 9:58pm —
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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…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on November 20, 2009 at 12:30am —
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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 conveni…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on September 16, 2009 at 11:35pm —
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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 YOU.
And yet,…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on August 18, 2009 at 11:53pm —
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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 the workplac…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on July 8, 2009 at 11:52pm —
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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…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on April 29, 2009 at 10:02pm —
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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 most innocuous…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 23, 2009 at 5:16pm —
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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 affinity netwo…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 18, 2009 at 10:53pm —
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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 male colleagu…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on March 2, 2009 at 2:05pm —
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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 breat…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on February 16, 2009 at 10:32pm —
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There is nothing like being interviewed (for a job, or in this case, for a feature) to force a little self-reflection about how you got to be where you are, and why. This month the website "
Big City Moms" (
www.bigcitymoms.com) featured me as their "Mom of the Month;" I'm duly flattered and waiting for the accompanying crown and sash to arrive momentarily. (In truth of course, so long as my daughters think me worthy of the t…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on January 12, 2009 at 10:32pm —
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With Hanukkah starting this weekend and Christmas just a few days a way, many of us are in that last frenzy of holiday gift buying. "Frantic" actually seems to be a good descriptive for the zeitgeist right now-- frantic retailers offering unprecedented promotions to get us to shop, frantic consumers looking to take advantage, while also approaching spending with a sobriety unlike any we have seen in years (if not ever).
What does it all mean in terms of what our our individual experiences will…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on December 19, 2008 at 3:19pm —
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We were sorry to disappoint some of you more longstanding NY area members of Executive Moms by skipping our
Holiday Rap and Wrap event at
Toys R Us this year. However, to give everyone a short-cut to finding the best toy gifts, we asked our friends at Toys 'R Us for their
complete list of picks for best toys of 2008. Here they are, sorted by target age:
THE TOYS“R”US 2008 HOT TOY LIST
Babies
Candy Rock ‘N Bounce Pony from Radio Flyer®The classic Radio…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on December 11, 2008 at 1:41pm —
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Ah, precious vacation. Temporary escape from the pressures and myriad stresses of work... as well as "regular" life. This happened to be the first trip I've ever had the chance to take with not just my own immediate family, but with my brother, his family, and our mother; the idea of this kind of extended family vacation together long had a sentimental lure for me and I was thrilled we could finally do this together. After having been through much over the years, it felt especially hard-won. Of…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on December 3, 2008 at 11:30pm —
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I was invited this week to a party thrown by
Us Magazine, celebrating celebrities they had anointed as "hot." Bolstered by the knowledge that a good friend was also going to attend, I decided this was worthy of a weeknight not spent at home and also not spent working.
However, upon learning that several of the key celebrities in question were the stars of
"High School Musical," it was instantly clear that this event would hold exponentially more appeal to my nearly 8-year-old daug…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on October 22, 2008 at 10:40pm —
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I've often considered that it takes running at some percentage far over 100% to keep the complex machinery of a working mom life humming... and for me, that generally equates to a brain that is in constant overdrive. For years I've marveled about my husband's ability to switch into sleep mode with the very ease of flipping the light switch to "off." At the moment upon which I finally get to LIE DOWN at night after every other thing is done (or as done as it's going to be), the transition to slee…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on October 7, 2008 at 4:53pm —
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Recently, a friend shared with me the following wisdom (said tongue in cheek, its anti-PC-ness readily evident and acknowledged):
“So just remember, here is the hierarchy of preference when it comes to having a boss: #1 (best case): straight man with kids, #2 married woman with kids, #3 gay man and #4 (last): single, driven woman without kids.”
I admit it, I laughed in the moment (even as I felt guilty that by doing so I was offering some amount of implicit agreement). In fact,
…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on May 23, 2008 at 9:30pm —
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It’s 8:00 am, on my birthday, and I’m on a plane to Cincinnati. On the heels of several days of early wake-ups and late nights, I found myself uncommonly confused when the alarm went off at 4:45 this morning, and my husband David had to rouse enough to remind me that yes, that ring was intentional—and its intention was for me. He rolled back over after mumbling a sincere "happy birthday," and I headed for the shower.
On the plane, my thoughts drift with the air currents beneath us and I begin t…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on April 28, 2007 at 4:00pm —
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Have you ever found yourself out of a job? Statistically, more of you will probably nod in the affirmative than say "not I," though when it happens it’s hard not to face it with a certain sense of incredulity that comes to those who have felt buffered by their talent and sense of company worth. Of course, as a buffer, pure competence alone is today about as effective as Swiss cheese— it’s almost impossible to be immune from the shifting winds and whims of the working world.
It happened to me la…
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Added by Marisa Thalberg on July 2, 2005 at 4:00pm —
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