Olympian Mothers

Meet some unusual working moms

 

Working mothers in all professions stretch and hop to balance their multiple roles. That's even more true when mom's profession is as an athlete, and stretching and hopping is literally part of her job! Not all Olympians are professional athletes in terms of money-making, but they all devote themselves to training and competition with the same single-minded drive. Only, as every parent knows, you can't really be single-minded once you have a child. Here's how some of the mothers on the Olympic trail meet that particular working mom's challenge.

Lisa Leslie

Basketball

Lisa Leslie had an established career when she became a mother in June 2007. She was one of the original members of the WNBA, playing for the Los Angeles Sparks when the league launched in 1997. That was after coming off a gold-medal performance at the Olympic Games in Atlanta ... which was repeated in Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004. Another Olympic gold would cap off the 36-year-old's basketball career, while she's just finishing her rookie year as mom to daughter Lauren.

In an NBCOlympics video, she says, "Nursing is probably the hardest part of motherhood just because your baby's truly reliant on you, and what you eat is what she eats.... But it's also beautiful, you know, it's 3:00 AM, what can I do? Lauren's smiling, she's giggling, and I'm tired, but that smile ... you're thankful that you have that opportunity and you just can't complain." She adds, "It's just been awesome to be able to come back and play after having a baby. Coming back, my goals never changed: I always want to win championships and gold medals."





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