Kristi Yamaguchi, US Olympic gold medalist, is featured in the February/March issue of Working Mother magazine. In her interview with Working Mother, Kristi Yamaguchi speaks on success, balancing her high-profile career and home, motherhood, and the lessons she’s learned.

I thought it would be interesting to see how a celebrity mom handles work-life balance, especially when her work is not on a standard 9-5 schedule. You can read the interview in its entirety on the Working Mother site, but here are a few excerpts:

On the pressures of balancing work and home

“In my twenties I never thought I’d still be working this hard in my thirties. I do feel lucky that I did a lot of my skating, which would have been hard on me as a mom, early on—all that touring and living on the road. I’m happy I’m still busy—off the ice. I still juggle. Sometimes I think I overextend myself because I’m traveling too much and am away from the kids. It’s a fine line to find that balance. These days I make business decisions based on whether something is worth my time away from my kids.”

On home life

“It depends on the season or the week. If nothing is going on, I get the kids ready for school. We’re trying to be a normal family. We all have dinner together as much as possible. [. . .] Bret and I share the responsibility of meals. If we’re grilling meat, he does it. I’m not a fancy cook­—I’ll make a pork loin or Japanese breaded chicken, chicken stir-fry, spaghetti.”

On motherhood

“I’ve realized how precious life is. When I was younger, I was more adventurous. I felt invincible. I was game for everything. As a mom, I don’t want to get injured because then I can’t take care of my kids. Even getting on an airplane, I’m more conscious of . . . Like they say, once you have a child, your heart is forever outside your body. I totally understand that now.”

In the interview, Kristi also states that they have the help of a nanny 25 hours a week. That’s comparable to having your child in daycare for 5 hours each day, which we all know can go by really fast. So, Kristi also depends on her husband, who she says “…picks up the slack,” especially when she travels.

My favorite part of the interview is when she said, “…I make business decisions based on whether something is worth my time away from my kids.” I think that’s something we all think about.

What do you think of the interview? Is it comforting to know that even a high-profile mom who has a nanny also struggles with balancing her work and family?

You’ve heard me say it before. A working mom needs all the help she can get.

We need help with planning dinner, cleaning the house, work life balance, and time for ourselves.

So, I’m always on the lookout for new resources and sites that offer some tips.

I use delicious to keep track of all my resources, and I love to collect resources. But…that’s another conversation.

Here are a few resources I’ve found that I think you might enjoy.

Working Mom Resources

• Breastfeeding Working Moms
• Working Moms Forum at thebump.com
• 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers (2008)
• Working Mother Magazine
• Meals in Minutes from Kraft
• Mommy Track’d
• Work It, Mom! Community
  • Be sure to also check out the Full Time, All the Time blog
• BlueSuitMom.com
• Moms At Work blog at the Orlando Sentinel

Bonus!
American Academy of Pediatrics Working Mothers Q & A – A tad too generic (and maybe even archaic?), but it’s *official*.

What great working mom communities, blogs, forums, and other resources do you enjoy?
I can always add more to my working mom category on delicious.

Image from Jeffrey Place

I am the mother of two. They live in the same house but aren’t very close. They’re jealous of one another though. They vie for my attention. I only feed and bathe one of them.

Let me explain.

I have one son, Max, who’s 4. I also have my company, Egg Marketing & Public Relations, who is almost 3. You’ve heard people compare starting a business to having a baby. It’s completely true. What I never accounted for was that my business became my son’s sibling in a sense.

Max is always trying to divert me from my work. Just like kids do when you’re giving your attention to their sibling. If I’m in front of the computer, he knows I’m working (well, sometimes I’m not but I let him believe it so I don’t have to get off so he can play Arthur). Thank goodness he doesn’t stay home with me or I’d never get anything done.

He wants to help. (Envision the big brother wanting to change the baby’s diaper.) He sits on my lap while I’m working and asks if he can type. Uh, sure, honey, you can type this proposal. Ask if you need help spelling something.

Max assumes he’s always #1. It’s hard to say, but sometimes Egg comes first. I mean, making a little money vs. playing Hungry Hippo for the 40^th time…sometimes you have to choose. And sometimes I’d rather be working. Sucks to admit, but when your business is like a child, you love it and nurture it like one.

Being an entrepreneur is hard to explain to a kid. He knows Egg from the little egg logo on my notepads. He knows it’s my work. But he doesn’t really understand the sacrifice, dedication and hardship it has required (not that I’d trade it for the world). I hope that one day when he’s older he can understand the joy of running his own business. Maybe when he becomes a parent.

Susan Payton blogs as a mommyblogger at Sometimes Parenting Sucks and as an entrepreneur who loves marketing at The Marketing Eggspert Blog. She raises an internet marketing firm in Orlando called Egg Marketing & Public Relations as well as a boy named Max who is 4.

SAHM – Stay at home mom.

WAHM – Work at home mom.

WOHM – Work outside the home mom.

There are many labels out there to classify just what type of mami you are.

I am what you would consider a WOHM, since I work full-time outside the home. I’m also commonly referred to as a working mother.

However, Miss Britt (co-author of the Full Time, All the Time blog at Work It, Mom!) raises a good point in her post “Where are all the working dads?”

She writes:

Why is it that Working Mom is an identity all its own, with support groups and message boards and blogs and research – and Working Dad is little more than an after thought?

I have to admit that I’ve never really heard the term working dad and have not heard any dads classify themselves as one.

But…my husband…he’s a working dad. He struggles with many of the same issues I do in trying to find a balance between the work and home lives.

But, why is it different for men?

Read Miss Britt’s post and then come back to chime in with your thoughts in the comments below.

Image credit: Fathers, Work-Family Research