High-profile working mothers

AS Chicago TV personality Dorothy Tucker accepted a community service award at a South Side church, a joyful shriek broke through the din of the applause. "Mama!" a proud young voice cried out.

"It was a great moment," the WBBM-TV reporter says of the joyful noise made by her son, Trevor, who is nearly 2 year old.

Tucker's triumph was one of those precious moments when a high-profile career pleasantly coincides with motherhood. It also was the kind of moment, career women in the spotlight say, that helps them realize what's really important--family.

The most common perception of high-powered mothers is that their enjoyment of life in the fast lane is overshadowed by the things that go wanting in their lives. But that's rarely the case for sensitive women with demanding careers and families, too. For one thing, their jobs afford them perks and opportunities they otherwise would not have. "One of the best things about this job is that when my kids come to see mom at the office, they are wandering around the White House," says Anna Peres, press secretary to first lady Barbara Bush.

There are other advantages. Many high-profile mothers have the benefit of housekeepers, accommodating spouses and other supports. Still, because of their harried schedules, they often go to extraordinary lengths to keep the complex spheres of their lives in balance. But because of the personal and professional rewards, they say they wouldn't have it any other way.

It isn't easy. Last Thanksgiving, for instance, Perez, 40, had to leave her family behind in Washington, D.C., while she accompanied the first lady to Saudi Arabia. "It was the first Thanksgiving that I've evern been away, and at the time there was a lot of guilt," Perez says. Her children also felt the strain of her absence. "We're used to having her here, up early in the morning, cooking," says Perez's 13-year-old son, Anthony. But, as Perez explains: "You do what you have to do. It's your job."

Because she has a job in the spotlight, Perez says, "My family sort of followed me around the world on CNN." What also consoled her was that her husband, Ted Sims, director of Howard University's film screening room, and her sister-in-law, Mattie Sims, were at home to pinch-hit for her.

Doing what they have to do means, in some cases, that high-profile moms cart their children with them to business engagements. The son of state Rep. Sundra Escott-Russell, 37, D-Birmingham, is well known around the Alabama State Capitol. One-year-old David Aaron Russell Jr. accompanies his mother to committee meetings and is sometimes seen peeking around the Capitol pillars. "He's good about sitting in meetings," she says. "If he gets fretful, I'll just give him a bottle. When I take a couple of minutes out to hug him and hold him, he's satisfied.

Other mothers with major career responsibilities tell similar stories. Actress Vanessa Bell Calloway took her week-and-a-half-old daughter, Ashley, with her to audition for a part in Boyz N the Hood. "I was nursing and couldn't be away from Ashley that long," she says. "So I packed her and the housekeeper up and we all went on the audition together. . . . I'm not leaving my baby and I'm not giving up my career."

This dual commitment to career and family leads to some harried moments, but putting things into perspective helps mothers smooth out the rough edges of their lives.

"The first rule for meis my children come first. This helps me make decisions very clearly and without any sense of guilt," says Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, cultural commissioner of New York City. The woman who overtigious arts community gives equal weight to lunch dates with her son, Sekou, 15, and husband, Dr. George Campbell, 45, who heads the New York-based National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. and to work-related commitments.

"I usually mark their appointments into my calendar," Dr. Campbell says of family lunch dates. "I can't afford to leave things to chance," adds the commissioner, who sometimes rides the subway to the day-care center during lunch to check up on 1-year-old Britt.

Taking a different approach is Shirley Tyus, 41, one of four Black female pilots at United Airlines. The second-officer, who flies Boeing 727 jets, is out of town an average of 15 dats a month. But when she is home in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Kofi, an artist with a greeting card business, and daughters, Ofosuwa, 4, and Akosua, 8, she makes dinner, using her daughters as kitchen assistants.

"I have to incorporate them into my daily duties when time is tight," says Tyus, who is studying to be a co-pilot. But "I try not to shortchange my children because of my dreams and aspirations. I'll take the 8-year-old aside and say, "This is your day.' And sometimes, my husband and I will just snatch moments and go bike riding."

In dividing time between career and family, mothers ahve learned to be critical planners and organizers. Dr. Campbell avoids wasting time in endless searches for necessities by being a stickler at home about having everything in its place. TV personality Tucker prepares meals and freezes them for reheating later.