Meet Andrea, Mother of 4!

We have already presented you Andrea, one of our first Strategic Volunteers, an experienced business consultant who is currently coaching MBA students at Hochschule Luzern as a step towards going back to work after a break. Here is another side of her – Andrea as a mother of 4!

My family… is big. My husband and I have two boys aged 13 an d 11, and twin girls aged 7. We also have a dog called Sunny. Everyone is very busy with school, sports and music lessons. Fortunately we live in a community that offers a lot of activities for the children in walking distance from our home– this allows the kids to be independent and saves me from being a chauffeur. We are a bilingual family (German and English) and we love to eat so food preparation (and the clean up) takes up a lot of our time with so many mouths to feed!

My day normally looks like this: … I get up around 5:30am, walk my dog and get ready for the day. Then I wake my children up, have breakfast with them and help them to get ready. On the days that I work I leave the house when my children go to school and come home shortly before them. We then talk about our day so far and what we will still do. In the late afternoons I help them with homework, play and try to cook dinner or prepare parts of meals in advance. It is sometimes quite a challenge but we manage! Once my children are in bed I relax…

Having kids and being a professional… requires a lot of organization and multitasking. I think it is very important to be able to prioritize tasks both at work and at home. This helps to get things done, to feel in control and to stay calm when a lot is going on. It is also important to have a well organised family life and daily structure.

I miss my job because… I found the intellectual stimulation very fullfilling. I had a very interesting and challenging job as a management consultant and I also appreciated the training I received as an employee on a reguar basis. I constantly felt that I was developing my skills. Parenting is also stimulating and satifying, but in a very different way.

Being a mom, taught me skills which could be useful in my job: multi-tasking, prioritizing, listening, communicating, problem solving, as well as general stamina and perseverance.

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