TEREZA NEMESSANYI Straps on a good attitude and dives right in.

AGE   41

HOMETOWN(S)   Pound Ridge, NY

@TWITTER   @terezan @honestlynowinc

GOOGLE+   Tereza Nemessanyi

ON THE WEB

Tereza.com (my blog)

HonestlyNow.com (my company)

NUMBER OF CHILDREN   Two girls, 4 and 8

DAY JOB   I’m co-founder/CEO of HonestlyNow.com and also a wife and mom.

I do all these jobs —all day long.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS   Married to husband Richard for 11 years

HOW DO YOU COMBINE WORK AND FAMILY?

My husband is a super-engaged, hands-on dad; I’m quite sure that if we measured we’d find that he does at least twice as much as I do around the house. I remember once I was in a moms’ support group and each was complaining about how their husbands did nothing. I was squirmy and uncomfortable. “Um, my husband’s addicted to the vacuum cleaner and having an FDA-grade, safe kitchen.” (He used to work in restaurants!)

Today, he and I both have a 90-minute commute from Northern Westchester into NYC and heavy work responsibilities, and we are blessed to have a full-time nanny. My husband commutes in every day; I try to work from home Fridays and some Mondays and time-box that for desk-work. My daughter has piano lessons on Mondays and it’s really important for me to attend those. Music is our thing.

We’ve made major financial trade-offs over the years in order to afford full-time help but to us it’s essential to feel secure that the house and kids keep running on schedule, despite our craziness. (I’m no good at organizing childcare in an ad-hoc way.)

When I was pregnant with my eldest daughter, Margot, I interviewed one nanny who seemed amazing; she’d been the nanny for a family for 14 years with a single mom/business-owner as head of household. But as it was my first interview, I had no idea what that meant.  I interviewed 26 more women – and then I thought – omigod! I must have had beginners luck because she was the best by a long shot.  I called her back, apologizing.

She’s now been with us for eight years, and we consider her one member of our tripartite parenting team. We hired her when we lived in the city and when we moved out she was willing to come with us.

When my older daughter was a year old my parents died rather suddenly; this was emotionally very difficult and also meant that we didn’t have grandparents to rely on. She was there for us. We consider her family. She lives with us, has health insurance, we treat her like a professional. We even taught her how to drive! Our long relationship with our Nanny is one of the things for which my husband and I are most proud.

HOW HAS PARENTING CHANGED YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL?

Easy: I have a heightened sense of what behavior is acceptable and not acceptable, and I call it out in the moment. That’s whether it’s at home or in the outside world, too!  Also, I used to put off tough decisions. Now I figure, who has time? We need to keep moving.

HOW HAS PARENTING AFFECTED YOUR RELATIONSHIP?

We walked into marriage wanting children and had plenty of time together without them, so we were very ready —[parenthood] didn’t change us much that way.

Richard is the awesome dad I knew he’d be (sorry if that sounds Pollyanna-ish – but he’s a very respectful person). We don’t do date nights and I wish we could. We can’t afford it, since we pay so much for childcare during the week. Sex? Have to make sure it happens—because it makes everything better! Amazing how it can re-boot a stressful situation. Not in the mood? Strap on a good attitude and dive in – we’ll both be feeling great in a few minutes. That’s my philosophy.

Not in the mood? Strap on a good attitude and dive in – we’ll both be feeling great in a few minutes. That’s my philosophy.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS AS A PARENT AND WHAT ARE YOUR WEAKNESSES?

I’m great at big-picture and creative stuff. And being positive. But if I were running the schedule the kids would be late for school every single day.

WHAT ARE YOUR PARTNER’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?

He is incredibly organized, a real operator. He is disciplined and can handle detail like no one I’ve ever seen. Totally attentive. He makes the girls tea every single morning. It’s their special thing.

WHAT IS YOUR WORST PARENTING MOMENT?

(I’ll tell you the most recent one.) Tuesday night I got home late and forgot I was hosting a 9pm Tweetchat. I’d let Margot stay up late and then realized I needed to be online that second, and had to send her up to bed without a kiss or her “night night” song. I felt like dog food, totally awful.

She even drew a picture for me that she floated down the stairs, that had a rainbow with tears coming out of it, and the sentence, “Mommy, I love you, but sometimes you make me sad.” {Sigh.} Like I said – makes you feel terrible. There’s nothing you can say and no way to defend it. It just sucks.

WHAT IS YOUR BEST PARENTING MOMENT?

Hard to say! I guess one ‘best’ is when I heard from another parent that Margot (8) was at a birthday party, and a child was making fun of the birthday girl’s autistic twin brother. Margot confronted the child, saying that her behavior was mean and unacceptable. She didn’t even tell me about it afterward. When I asked her about it she said, “I didn’t think it was a big deal. What she did was wrong and I told her.”

Seeing your child trying to make the world a little better and expressing true empathy is a beautiful thing.