Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and a duo of Fox Newsers spoke with publications about what the holiday means to them.
They’re the focus of this week’s In Profile.
Martha MacCallum spoke to SurvivorNet, a digital media platform that provides information about cancer. Her mom, Betty MacCallum, lost her battle with breast cancer eight years ago: “She was a good mom and a good wife and a good friend. She just set an example by the way she lived her life,” said MacCallum, who remembers fondly a mom that was always there for her friends, family and really anyone in need. “Do the right things and don’t make a big deal out of it,” is the ‘strongest message’ she left for her daughter and it’s the one MacCallum wants most for her own kids to imbibe.”
Speaking of her own kids, all of whom are twentysomethings, MacCallum says: “I feel like anytime my family is together is Mother’s Day. And that’s how my mother was. Anytime we’re together is good.”
Harris Faulkner spoke to Swaay about motherhood. She was asked if she feels like motherhood is a unique challenge to women who want to advance their careers:
I think it’s very complicated and very individual. And I think we make a lot of assumptions in our society and many times that’s not fair. There are many challenges to having a successful career in the television industry. In my experience it has been fiercely competitive; mostly run by men, with more men than women at the top. For decades, there has been very little diversity in content-driven decisions across the board at media networks. That is changing in all of those categories. But, that change is slow and unrealized in some areas.
So, given my field of expertise as a news anchor and talk show host, there are a lot of reasons why I feel challenged in my career. Being a mom is a bonus and a blessing. Parenting keeps me grounded. I’m constantly reminded of my purpose and what really matters in life. And, I started a family late in life. I was 39 years old. For me it was a conscious decision, along with my husband, of course, to put my career first for a while. The goal was never to feel that my children compete for my attention with my career — because they don’t. I don’t know if I had been blessed enough to start a family and to find a husband and all that kind of stuff earlier in life if this would’ve played out as it has. But because my children came later, I didn’t necessarily experience the same competition between my personal life and my professional life that maybe some younger moms may have. And I fully support whatever their individual circumstances and challenges all moms face. And, I also fully believe that in anyone’s career circumstances, children are a blessing.