{"id":44085,"date":"2018-07-02T09:38:17","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T13:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/?p=44085"},"modified":"2026-05-12T10:13:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:13:47","slug":"the-juggling-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/07\/02\/the-juggling-act\/","title":{"rendered":"The Juggling Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p><em>Written by Jennifer Mackowski, Managing Partner at Stevenson Ridge<\/em><\/p><p>I start my day at 6:30 a.m., have playtime and breakfast with my 15-month old, squeeze in a quick pumping session, get ready for work, and then rush off with a granola bar and coffee in hand.&nbsp; I spend the next eight to nine hours trying to be as efficient as possible and work down my daily &ldquo;To Do&rdquo; list. The clock strikes 5:15 p.m., and I&rsquo;m usually tossing my work bag into the car and speeding off to go relieve the babysitter at 5:30 p.m. (although I am consistently 5-10 minutes late!). Thankfully she is an understanding young lady in her early twenties who adores my son and has gotten used to my tardiness. For the next three hours, I chase around a toddler while attempting to put something hot on the table for my family. By the time I put my son down for bed, sit through another pumping session, and answer a few emails, I fall into slumber praying my son sleeps through the night. And I do it all over again the next day.<!--more--><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"longdesc-return-44087\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-44087\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact-300x296.png\" alt=\"Woman Juggling Many Aspects of her life: house, work, love, family\" width=\"192\" height=\"189\" longdesc=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw?longdesc=44087&amp;referrer=44085\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact-300x296.png 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact-50x50.png 50w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact-75x75.png 75w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/07\/jugglingact.png 558w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\"><\/a>Motherhood is a juggling act, whether you are a stay-at-home mom or working mother.&nbsp; In the past 15 months, four of our employees at Stevenson Ridge have had babies.&nbsp; We joke around that there must be something in the water. We&rsquo;re all adjusting to motherhood in different ways and finding what works best for our families. But we all do our best to juggle our careers, family-time, and personal time.<\/p><p>In the midst of all this, I&rsquo;m finding out quickly how important it is for an employer to be supportive of families. You will lose great employees if you aren&rsquo;t understanding and flexible. It isn&rsquo;t easy for a mother (or father) to call out of work because they have a sick child. It certainly isn&rsquo;t a vacation day for them.<\/p><p>As an example, I have an employee whose mother cares for her child during the day, but her mother was going out of town for two weeks. We had to do a little problem-solving together to find a solution that was going to work for her family <em>and<\/em> Stevenson Ridge. This employee is an instrumental part of our business, so two weeks off during our busy season would have been exceptionally problematic. For her part, she financially couldn&rsquo;t afford to take off time. However, she had never left her daughter in the care of someone who wasn&rsquo;t family. Our solution: We decided that a babysitter could watch her daughter at Stevenson Ridge. My employee will feel better knowing that she is just a moment away from baby and sitter, and I feel better knowing that I won&rsquo;t be short-staffed.<\/p><p>Not every employer can offer that sort of accommodation, but we can all certainly be more creative and open-minded. It is easy to say &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not my problem, you figure it out,&rdquo; but I believe that&rsquo;s an irresponsible way to handle it for an employer who values their employees (and I think it&rsquo;s a bit lazy, too). As a business owner, I feel a social responsibility to my employees. But even if you don&rsquo;t subscribe to that business model, it&rsquo;s still in our self-interest as business owners to take care of the people who help us make our businesses successful.<\/p><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Jennifer Mackowski, Managing Partner at Stevenson RidgeI start my day at 6:30 a.m., have playtime and breakfast with my 15-month old, squeeze in a quick pumping session, get ready for work, and then rush off with a granola bar and coffee in hand.&nbsp; I spend the next eight to nine hours trying to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":44087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"sidebar-content","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - 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