Working Their Mom Magic

Jenica Cole of Princeton is a busy mom to daughters Hadley (left), Tinley (right), and son, Cash (center).

PHOTO BY SHANNON SERPETTE

Balancing motherhood with a busy career isn’t easy

Story by Shannon Serpette

AA few short decades ago, many women had a singular goal – being a domestic CEO. These days, women and instant messaging, the workday often doesn’t end when a woman leaves her shift. Many women are acoften feel as if they are expected to do it all – raise children, have a career, maintain a spotless house, and stay involved in their kids’ increasingly intensive extracurriculars.

And with personal cell phones, email, cessible to their bosses or coworkers any time of the day or night. How are women coping with all that pressure and the societal and

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Moms

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internal expectations of perfection? Two Illinois Valley moms shared their thoughts on balancing work with motherhood.

JENICA COLE

Jenica Cole of Princeton has a tight schedule, and on a day-to-day basis, she tries to make the most of every minute. The executive director for the Princeton Area Chamber of Commerce and Princeton Tourism, Cole said she loves her job. As a married mother who has three children – 10-year-old Hadley, 5-year-old Tinley, and Cash, her son who was born in 2021 – she’s constantly trying to balance her family and work schedules.

To fit the interview for this article into her schedule, Cole fed Cash while answering questions about her work and home life. Adding an infant into her already-busy life was a challenge – and Cole decided early on that her maternity leave would be a short one so that she wasn’t letting down her employer during a busy season of events.

“They hired me during the pandemic. When I took the job on, I wasn’t expecting to get pregnant right away,” she said.

While many women take anywhere from six to 12 weeks for maternity leave, Cole decided to take a much shorter one – eight days.

“I’m a Type A,” she said. “I just felt this sense of responsibility.”

Her husband, Brad, didn’t pressure her to take a short maternity leave, and no one at work suggested she should return that early – it was all an internal sense of pressure.

“In my heart, I felt so bad. I’m a people pleaser. As women, we want to do everything,” she said. “We come last. We put ourselves last and put everybody else first. We take it on, and we do it right.”

While she gives it her all at work, she also makes sure she’s an available and involved mom for her children. She sees that her special-needs daughter gets everything she needs to thrive and ensures she’s giving enough attention to her other two children. From start to finish, Cole’s days are a whirlwind of events and appointments, from meetings to kids’ activities like dance, swim, and soccer.

She suspects her strong work ethic and sense of responsibility come from being raised in a farming family.

“You never just give it half. You go above and beyond,” she said.

But while trying to recreate the great family structure she enjoyed while growing up, she realizes her situation is different from her own mother’s.

“I have a mom who never worked,” Cole said, adding that her mom did help with the family farm. “Being a mom was her number one priority.”

Since Cole has several priorities, it leads to a feeling of always needing to be productive. Even when Cole is at home and trying to relax – she always has that feeling she should be doing something.

“I never sit. And I don’t sit when I say I’m going to sit,” she said.

For Cole, the hardest part of trying to do a great job at work and at home is that she knows she’s shortchanging herself.

“Giving myself time is hard,” she said.

The intense feelings of mom guilt hit Cole hard when her first child was born. At the time, Cole was working as a medical sales representative, a career she had held for years and loved doing.

But when Hadley was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Cole realized something had to change.

“My husband and I had to take a hard look,” she said.

To help give Hadley all the care and support she needed, Cole left the job she loved and stayed home for five years to take care of her. While she was grateful she had that time to spend with her daughter, as an extrovert, Cole missed work.

When she decided to go back to work and accept her current position in Princeton, she struggled with another round of the dreaded mom guilt – this time, it was about her second daughter, Tinley. Cole had been a stayat-home mom for Tinley’s whole life, and she worried about how the schedule change would affect her daughter.

“Tinley never knew Mommy not to be home,” Cole said.

And when Cash came along, the mom guilt intensified.

“I have a lot of mom guilt with him,” she said.

Although she acknowledges there are days when the guilt hits her hard and her schedule is overpacked, Cole loves having all these multiple roles to juggle – she just wishes sometimes there were more hours in a day.

“I feel fulfilled,” she said. “Staying at home, there was a part of me that was missing. I didn’t feel complete when I wasn’t working. I need to live for myself.”

With her own busy schedule, Cole said she doesn’t know how single moms manage to handle everything on their own. She said her husband is a big source of help for her.

“As much as we bash our men, I will say if I didn’t have him things would be different, so he really does help,” she said. “He probably cooks dinner more than I do.”

While social media is inundated with posts from moms who appear to have the perfect life, these women’s lives may not be as rosy as they lead everyone to believe.

“I feel like as women we internalize everything,” Cole said.

For other mothers out there who struggle with feelings of guilt while trying to find a work-life balance, Cole offers these words of encouragement – and said she needs to remember to take her own advice on the difficult days.

“You need to cut yourself some slack at the end of the day,” she said. “To juggle all we do, we need to give ourselves a pat on our backs.”

DANA DEBO-KUHNE

Dana Debo-Kuhne of Peru manages to gracefully juggle a heavy workload and volunteering along with motherhood.

As the owner of Debo Ace Hardware in Peru, she works 40 hours a week. Her husband, Brian Kuhne is the owner of Brian Kuhne Carpentry, where he routinely works 50-hour work weeks. They have a 3-year-old son, Hudson.

On top of those responsibilities, she and Brian also volunteer frequently to help community organizations.

“I’m a big supporter of Horizon House of the Illinois Valley. They provide services for my sister, Gena. I host a book sale every year at Debo Ace Hardware and all the proceeds go to Horizon House. I also host events at Debo Ace Hardware for Illinois Valley Animal Rescue, IV PADS, Illinois Valley Food Pantry, Hall Township Food Pantry, and other local organizations. It’s important to me to help others in need,” she said. “Brian, Hudson, and I

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Dana Debo-Kuhne hangs out with her son, Hudson, at her store, Debo Ace Hardware. While she loves being a business owner, being away from Hudson makes her feel as if she is missing important moments.

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

also belong to St. John’s Lutheran Church in Peru. We try to be involved in the church and their activities as much as possible.”

While Debo-Kuhne is happy she has the opportunity to make a positive impact on her community and loves teaching her son to be a caring, compassionate person, her busy schedule doesn’t allow for much downtime.

“Finding time for things just for me is the hardest part of being a busy mom. Luckily, I have family and close friends who help when I need them,” she said.

Even though she’s doing well with all of her roles, Debo-Kuhne isn’t immune to feeling the mom guilt that inflicts many modern working women.

“Every day, I struggle with mom guilt. Leaving Hudson at daycare while I go to work, having to discipline him, telling him no when I want to give him the world. It’s hard,” she said.

To fight back the feelings of guilt, Debo-Kuhne reminds herself she’s doing everything she can and tries to trust that it’s enough.

“I try not to be too hard on myself. It takes a lot to work a full-time job, get groceries, cook meals, clean the house, do laundry, find time to play with Hudson, and give him the attention I want to. At the end of each day, I know I did the best I could, my child is happy, and knows I love him, and I’m good with that. It makes it all worth it.”

Debo-Kuhne knows that every generation has its own set of challenges while navigating the world and parenthood.

“I think the world is changing so much and that means parenting is changing, too. With every new generation, there is a need to adjust and tweak things that just aren’t working anymore,” she said. “We, as parents, must educate ourselves on the realities our children will face in our culture that we never had to, especially when it comes to technology.”

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