This book give practical tips and advice to all parents, but especially working moms, about how to juggle the many roles we have in life and feel good about our success as a parent. Each chapter ends with exercises designed to help ensure that the reader can put these tips to use, as well as "Sanity Savers" - key ideas from each chapter. The author, Gretchen Gagel, has held numerous executive positions, is working on her fourth degree, and is the loving mother of two great kids who are college students. But mostly, she is a "Great Working Mom" and wants to help you be one too! A portion of the proceeds from this book support two outstanding nonprofits focused upon helping single working moms, Warren Village in Denver Colorado (www.warrenvillage.org) and Safehouse Outreach in Atlanta (www.safehouseoutreach.org). From the Author: "Years ago a friend was having her first child and said to me "You always have it all together, even with traveling every week - how do you do it?" What an amazing facade of calm I was putting forth! It was then that I realize that we are all working so hard to be great parents, great employees, great spouses, etc. but we rarely share the challenges we face, both men and women. If this book accomplishes one thing, I hope that it will help working parents feel less stress and less guilt. Please lighten up on yourself. We all make mistakes. We all have days that we feel like we're not doing any of our roles very well. But we are "great" because we work hard every day to care for our families and our companies. We are not "perfect," we are "great." We care. If we are all a little gentler on ourselves, a little less stressed, we'll have better relationships with our kids, our spouses, our families, our friends, and our fellow employees. I am on a mission to not only get this book into the hands of every working parent, but to continue the healthy dialogue about how we all make it all happen on a daily basis!"

Moms For Hire is a stylish, eight-step guidebook for moms who want to re-enter the workforce and amp up their professional mojo. Whether you downsized your bustling career to raise your children, or you chose the full-time job of being a stay-at-home mom, you now feel ready to get back in the work game, but re-entry can be intimidating. Using creative exercises, advice, and anecdotes from well-known working moms, this book will become a guide to creating your own successful re-entry strategy. From simply giving voice to your desire to work, to learning how to negotiate the best deal once you land the dream job, Moms For Hire guides you through each step of the process in a way that keeps you motivated and inspired. The simple promise is this: if you commit one hour a day to this book, you can find rewarding work. The search for fulfilling employment requires plenty of will, stamina, and support; let Moms For Hire be your devoted partner as you step into this new, life-changing adventure.

Every day, working mothers encounter and overcome new challenges large and small at home, at the office, and on the road. From the editors of Working Mother, veteran working moms themselves, this book offers clear, straightforward solutions and practical shortcuts. From the experts at Working Mother magazine, Working Mom Survival Guide answers your most basic and trickiest questions: Are you addicted to your BlackBerry? How do you get your toddler, or your co-workers, to listen? How do you get on or off a mommy track? Access quickly the information every working mom needs to know—from how to keep tabs on your teen’s online time to how to ask for a flexible schedule—and get back to your busy day, better prepared and more confident. With humor and practicality, Working Mom Survival Guide collects the wisdom and experience of working moms who have been there, too, giving you a head start when you need it most. Subscription to Working Mother magazine included with purchase (details inside book). “As a busy professional and mom of three kids, I know it’s not possible to achieve total balance, but the Working Mom Survival Guide definitely makes juggling all these roles more manageable. This book is rich with practical advice on how to organize and prioritize and make life’s difficult decisions, so you can be your best self in the boardroom and in the playroom!” -Joy Bauer MS, RD, Today show nutritionist and The New York Times bestselling author “Three cheers for the Working Mom Survival Guide! One cheer for its common sense approach, one cheer for its thoroughness, and one big cheer for its sense of humor. Working moms need backup, and this book provides “been there, done that” advice that really resonates for everyday issues. The authors, Suzanne Riss and Teresa Palagano, write with authority and empathy for the millions of us trying to manage a career, kids, and the occasional ill-advised e-mail rant! This is a must-read for moms trying to raise independent, well-adjusted children in a crazy-busy world.” -Lian Dolan Parenting expert at oprah.com; creator of The Chaos Chronicles magazine column, podcast, and blog; and mom to Brookes, 16, and Colin, 13. “All moms have eighteen things to do at once. Make room for nineteen: reading this clever, cheerful, empathetic guide to streamlining your priorities as a working parent.” -Aline Brosh McKenna Screenwriter (The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses, and Morning Glory) and mom to Charlie, 11 and Leo, 8. “A terrific resource for working moms who, like me, welcome fresh, realistic advice on juggling kids and career.” -Kristi Yamaguchi Figure skater, Olympic Gold Medal winner, author, and mom to Keara, 7, and Emma, 5.

Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn’t change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us. In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, encourages us with the good news that there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don’t need to settle for surviving our kids’ childhood. We can grow through it. With refreshing and heartfelt honesty Ruth emboldens moms to: Find freedom and walk confidently in purpose Create a God-honoring home environment Overcome unhealthy and destructive emotions such as anger, anxiety, and more Avoid glorifying the mess of mom-ing or idolizing perfection Cultivate life-giving friendships At the heart of The Better Mom is the message that Jesus calls us to live not a weary life, but a worthy life. We don’t have to settle for either being apathetic or struggling to be perfect. Both visions of motherhood go too far. Ruth offers a better option. She says, “It’s okay to come as we are, but what we’re called to do and be is far too important to stay there! The way to becoming a better mom starts not with what we are doing, but with who God is inviting us to become."

A retired Wall Street Journal editor and mother compares two generations of women—boomers and GenXers—to examine how each navigates the emotional and professional challenges involved in juggling managerial careers and families. For the first time in American history, a significant number of mothers are heading major corporations, including General Motors, Ulta Beauty, and Best Buy. Over the past several decades, women have made gains throughout executive suites. Yet these “Power Moms” still struggle with balancing their management responsibilities with raising children. Joann S. Lublin draws on the experiences of the nation’s two generations of these successful women to measure how far we’ve come—and how far we still need to go. Lublin combines her own insights with those of eighty-five executive mothers across industries—including experienced public-company chiefs such as Carol Bartz, the first woman to command Autodesk and Yahoo; Hershey’s Michele Buck, DuPont’s Ellen Kullman, ITT’s Denise Ramos, and WW International’s Mindy Grossman—and twenty-five of their grown daughters. Lublin reveals how trailblazer boomers, many now in their sixties, often endured sweeping disapproval for their demanding management careers, even as their own daughters sometimes rejected their choices. While the second wave of executive mothers—all under forty-five—handle working parenthood with less angst, they still lead stressful lives. Power Moms provides lessons and advice to help today’s professional women, their families, and their employers navigate this challenging terrain. Lublin looks at the trade-offs mothers are too often forced to make between work and family and the root causes, including the dearth of large-scale paid parental leave and other family-friendly policies. While it celebrates the gains women have made, Power Moms makes clear how much more must be done to make being a working mother easier.

The work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and social policies aren't helping. Of all Western industrialized countries, the United States ranks dead last for supportive work-family policies. Can American women look to Europe for solutions? Making Motherhood Work draws on interviews that Caitlyn Collins conducted over five years with 135 middle-class working mothers in Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the United States. She explores how women navigate work and family given the different policy supports available in each country. Taking readers into women's homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces, Collins shows that mothers' expectations depend on context and that policies alone cannot solve women's struggles. With women held to unrealistic standards, the best solutions demand that we redefine motherhood, work, and family.