March 2003

Ran: San Diego Family Magazine - March 2003

Amy Cowell, Project Manager

On a typical day Amy's alarm goes off at 5 a.m. Amy, single mom to Travis, 12, and Mason, 8, gets the breakfast ready, lunches made, and it's off to school and work. She works for Douglas E. Barnhart Inc., as a project manager responsible for handling change orders or any addition, upgrade or price increase for the ballpark project. She's worked for the Barnhart team on and off for years, and she's been with the ballpark project since July 2000. She's also carved herself a niche in a typically male-dominated business.

Amy is able to balance her demanding job with family life because she has a great employer and friends and neighbors who can help her in a pinch. "During the suspension (of the project), there were days when I took the kids to work with me. They would play games in the conference rooms and they loved it," she says.

She also has a good relationship with her ex-husband, who is in the military. "We agreed to put the well-being of the children first. If their dad is in town, we look to see who can best handle it," she says. When the children were little, she tried a variety of day care alternatives, in-home help and outside day care. Sometimes here choices worked; other times they didn't.

Nowadays, after school Travis and Mason take a van to the Boys & Girls Club, and they love it there. Both boys also play year-round soccer with the YMCA, and Amy's weekends are spent watching her kids play soccer.

She indulges herself by having a manicure and pedicure twice a month. She also loves gardening and yard work, especially as the days get longer. She loves to read, although she admits that finding time is a challenge.

Someday she'd like to retire and have a little place with a yard to putter in as well as pursue her interest in archaeology.

As far as balancing her busy life, Amy just does the best she can. "On a day-to-day basis, I'm not sure I balance it well, but I try to keep things balanced in the bigger picture," she says. "I think that you have to keep the priorities in order. Is vacuuming the rug a bigger priority than reading a book, or is it that important that you get all the laundry done every week? I realized that there's nothing wrong with me; super-mom is a myth."

Asked what advice she would offer other working moms, she replies, "If you have that voice in your head that says you're a bad mommy because you work, you have to tell it to shut up. You're not going to damage your children or scar them for life because they spend time with someone other than Mommy."

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