Would You Hire a Mom of Five?

I just wrapped a less than 48-hour trip to Tampa to scout event spaces for an upcoming customer conference. It was also my first time away from my 8-month-old twins overnight.

And it reminded me exactly why my answer is abso-freaking-lutely.

Let me back up.

Before I could even think about packing my own bag, I had to make sure the rest of the world kept spinning without me. That meant dinners for the week mapped out for Chris to tackle, school pickups covered, practice rides coordinated, and a strawberry fundraiser for Rori's school group filled out, paid, and handed in before I left. I loaded the family calendar with more detail than usual because Chris was navigating solo and I wanted him set up for success.

Not to discount him, he is wonderful and held down the fort beautifully. But the mental load of leaving? That's its own full-time job before you ever get to the airport.

And then there's the airport itself.

Navigating travel while on a tight pumping schedule is not for the weak. I will just leave that there.

Once I landed in Tampa I was on the move. I was scoping out event spaces and venues for a customer party, which meant walking the areas around hotels, exploring the Riverwalk, and logging nearly 30,000 steps in dress shoes evaluating whether guests would be safe and comfortable navigating between venues. Meetings, decisions, logistics, all while mentally tracking what was happening back home in real time.

That night I got on FaceTime for the goodnight call.

If you have never tried to FaceTime five kids at once let me paint you a picture. Someone is happy. Someone is screaming. Everyone is fighting over who gets to be closest to the screen. The twins had absolutely no idea what was going on or why they could hear my voice but couldn't find me. And Harleigh, our resident night owl, was nowhere near ready for bed.

I said goodnight, hung up, and sat with the quiet of a hotel room for a minute.

There was guilt. Absolutely there was guilt. That is just the honest truth of being a working mom. You leave a piece of your heart at home every single time.

But I will also be honest about this: it was nice to step away from the day-to-day for a beat. To be just Jenni the marketing director for 48 hours, making decisions, moving fast, doing work I love. Both things can be true at the same time.

I came home to big hugs, five kids talking over each other all at once, and snow instead of Tampa sun. Back to routine in about thirty seconds flat.

Here is what that trip reminded me though.

Before I left for Tampa I had already project managed my entire household, coordinated five different human schedules, handled a school fundraiser, and briefed my husband like he was inheriting a live campaign. Then I traveled, scouted venues, walked miles, made decisions, networked, and FaceTimed into beautiful chaos from a hotel room at night.

That is not a liability. That is a skill set.

Moms are master project managers. We negotiate competing priorities before breakfast. We stay calm when everything is happening at once because everything is always happening at once. We make quick decisions with incomplete information. We show up anyway.

I once had a boss who genuinely could not understand how I functioned without a nanny. This was when I had two kids. She questioned whether I could truly split my time and give my job the attention it needed. That's a story for another day and she was not a great boss, but I think about that conversation sometimes. Because the assumption that motherhood competes with professional ambition is so fundamentally backwards.

Motherhood didn't make me less capable. It made me sharper, more resourceful, more resilient, and more efficient than I ever was before kids.

Hiring a mom isn't necessarily a risk. It can absolutely be a competitive advantage.

What's your best advice for growing your career while raising a family? And please share your funniest real-life moment too because let's be honest, we could all use a good laugh.