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How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies-and How You Can, Too
by Cate Colburn-Smith
This one-of-a-kind guide to balancing motherhood and work is based on actual journals kept by a group of IBM women during their visits to the company's employee lactation room.
It all began when IBM manager Cate Colburn-Smith sat down in the company's employee lactation room, shed a few silent tears, and wrote the following on a paper towel: I'm a new mom and today is my first day back at work. Is anyone else using this room?
Right away women responded, and the paper towel was eventually replaced by a series of notebooks, in which women offered one another advice and support on juggling work and a newborn. Based on the original notebooks, The Milk Memos is a heartwarming, encouraging (and often hilarious!) guide to working motherhood.
It's one of the most existential moments any woman will face: sitting in a small room tucked away in the bowels of your company, pumping breast milk for a child so close to your heart-yet, at that moment, so far away. The Milk Memos records the voices of mothers who, while struggling with the difficulties of blending their two lives, prove that women don't have to choose between work and family. Their thoughts on how it can be done will inspire women everywhere. This invaluable book weaves the actual Milk Memos journal entries with information-packed sections on such topics of great concern to working moms as:
- finding a private place to pump breast milk at work and establishing a routine that you can maintain despite your busy workday;
- establishing the right daycare solution;
- getting a decent night's sleep with a new baby so that you can shine (or at least glimmer!) during business hours; and
- negotiating flextime, part-time, or a job share with an employer.
The ultimate gift for any new mom who will soon return to work, The Milk Memos is destined to become a classic on the parenting shelf.
"In this solid resource, Colburn-Smith and Serrette do their best to be all-inclusive, careful not to judge those who supplement with formula or decide to wean before the baby's first birthday." —Publishers Weekly
This information about The Milk Memos was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cate Colburn-Smith is the co-author of The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business With Babies—and How You Can, Too. She graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in business, and works as a marketing executive at IBM. Colburn-Smith lives in Colorado with her husband and two daughters.
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