Being a parent is part of the package.

It is a question I grapple with over and over, what is my balance between work and home? There is never a consistent answer because each day and job is different - in the choices it creates for me as a professional or as a mom. Ask me one day, I'll tell you everything is peachy and running fine. Ask me another, and the simple act of my son's car breaking down, or his missing a deadline at school, and everything goes sideways.

What I had not expected early in my career, was how these two roles affect each other. When I feel like "supermom" at home I feel like superwoman at work! When I feel like I am letting my kids down, I feel like I am letting everyone down.

For years I tried to compartmentalize. To disassociate one role from the other. Preserving my people skills and drive to do well at work, as separate from the person I was at home; a parent who was firm, nurturing and flawed. A parent who could offer support to her children through lessons learned, boundaries drawn, but had to be her authentic self, with strengths, quirks and flaws.

I realized as my children grew older that these two roles were on a collision course. My kids needed a more sophisticated level of parenting; one that challenged everything about who I was, forced me to grow as a parent, exposing my blind spots and my bias. At the same time as a female leader in a tech start-up, I had to rethink how I engaged with our employee group, how I understood the values of a generation I wasn't part of and learn to bring my voice to the table about the things I cared about. As home grew more complex and nuanced, my purpose at work became crystal clear, more challenging and more important.

Instead of fighting this collision I embraced it. I realized as I faced the guilt of being a working single mother whose kids were "latch key kids" too young, whose kids were sometimes required make their own dinner, manage their own homework....the guilt eventually gave way to insight. That as hard as some of those moments might have been for me, or for my kids, it taught them great life skills. It taught them that even people who love you can't always make things happen for you. That when mom eventually did get home (and as a single parent there was no one else to make the dinner and in parallel do the homework and throw another load of laundry on) we had to make some focused high priority decisions as a family about what mattered.

We ordered take out food more, let the house get increasingly messier and dropped the ball on paperwork, as the homework burden grew. As my workload after hours increased we learned to work together, sitting down in tandem to create presentations for the latest Board meeting alongside AP History essays. We talked about both the Board meeting and the History tests; realizing as a family that we were under equal pressure to perform and predict our audience. This was a great lesson for my kids to learn. We had a lot in common.

We grew and struggled together. We cried, we fought, we laughed, we goofed off, we had lonely moments and moments of despair. But we did it together. My boys saw a real person, a human, a woman, a professional leader and a mother. They sat in on conference calls from the car, late night calls with my CEO over bedtime and learned a lot about my job, my work ethic and my passion for my work.

They did not get handmade halloween costumes, home baked birthday cakes, or a parent always volunteering in the classroom. We bought cheesy costumes at the local "pop-up" store, we ordered ice-cream cake and cupcakes from Safeway. We misread the strict instructions from the class parent and often sent nut-based products to school (sorry). And my kids didn't miss out. They saw a mother doing her very best. They saw a woman as a leader. It never occurred to them that this was rare - for a woman to be in that role. She was in that role at home - so why not at work?

At work I realized that I could only bring so much. And my earlier career and job as a parent, at times suffered as I prioritized my family and myself. Interestingly enough it never held me back. Most important - I never ever regretted the decisions to focus on my family or my health. In fact that struggle, and the sometimes negative impact it had on my career, made me ten times a better leader today than I would have been without it. It brought me perspective to what matters, and taught me when to listen to the signal versus the noise. It taught me to believe in myself and the choices I made for me and my family.

It taught me, and hopefully some of my employees in turn, to "not sweat the small stuff" and focus on impact and value. If you have limited energy and time - you use it well. It taught me that a career is not a promotion or a title, or a raise or recognition. It is baked into all those small moments that you grow into that better version of yourself. Just like raising a child is not in the big moments when they graduate, or score a goal, or win the science fair. It is in the nightly rituals and habits of your family dinner, the everyday chores that cannot be missed, the hard tears when a friend disavows them, the true character your children show when they protect the weak from a bully on the playground. The less than glamorous moments are when your children are built into amazing human beings. A career is built in the exact same way.

Being a mom, being a parent, being a single parent, has helped me become a professional I am proud of. A leader I am happy to be. It has taught me the importance of resilience and how I can only teach so much to my employees, without them learning some lessons for themselves. It has helped me to see beyond who an employee is today and instead see their potential and who they are becoming. It has helped me listen deeply to their voices even if we do not always agree. It has helped me work hard, knowing that sometimes the job just has to get done. Just like the laundry won't do itself - whether it is 2 pm or 2 am, neither will that powerpoint!

It has given me a deep appreciation for our millennial generation, seeing their values and differences through the same eyes and with the same awe - I have for my sons profoundly refreshing perspectives on the world. It has taught me to have hope for our collective futures because of our millennials. Keenly aware that in my sons and many of my employees; they are a generation of change. Clearly redefining the meaning of so many social norms (for the better) while reshaping the way we think of success and happiness, reward and impact.

So integrating who I am at home, and who I am at work transformed things. It is a humbling process. My kids are not my employees - and neither are my employees my kids. Yet the empathy and challenge in working with both has made me better. There is no balance; only the ability to integrate as much of yourself as possible into all your roles in life. I believe my kids are better for having had a working mother who is also a leader and an executive. I believe my employees are better for me being a leader who is also a working parent of teenage sons navigating this increasingly complex world. Having employees who are parents is a great additive to your culture.

There is no easy or clearly defined career path for working parents, there are no easy answers to mastery or competence. It is less a career and more a road trip with no predefined route. It is chaotic and it is beautiful. The pressure for perfection is of your own creation, kids are not born demanding martha stewart style birthday parties! If you are an employer or employee, value having a working parent as an employee, a manager and leader. Appreciate the amazing life lessons that a working parent can bring to your team and your people, and how real and relevant they are in today's workplace where values, community and personal growth are more important than ever, for healthy employees and healthy business.