A Mother’s Day Thank-You

I count Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as among the coolest celebrity working moms out there. I feel like the three of us have become grown-ups together. We’re all around the same age, and we all started having kids more or less at the same time.

They were funny and employed before they became mothers, and they are both of those things and more now that they have children. They haven’t lost themselves to work or parenthood, and seem to have struck a balance between the two.

Of course I’ve never met them and never will, and they are traveling in a much different sort of working world and social circle than I am. They both have their own TV shows and work crazy hours for exponentially bigger paychecks (Fey told a story on Jimmy Fallon the other night about how her show paid $40,000 for the rights to air a few seconds of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” for a joke about her character’s snack of “night cheese.” That’s more money than many working moms make in a year, though she went on to say that they can’t afford to make such pricey jokes these days.) Paparazzi snap their photos when they are out and about with their kids or sporting their baby bumps. Thankfully nobody is clamoring to catch a candid shot of me and mine as we travel around town. And oh yeah, the biggest difference: I’ll never be as smart and funny as they are.

Our lives are very different, but we still have something in common: We owe a great deal of thanks to the working women in our own lives who take excellent care of our children while we ourselves are at work.

Poehler recently gave a toast at an event honoring the 2011 Time 100 “most influential people in the world.” Poehler is on the list and she used her moment at the podium as an opportunity to thank the women who help her raise her kids. “Those are people who love your children as much as you do, and who inspire them and influence them. So on behalf of every sister and mother and person who stands in your kitchen and helps you love your child, I say thank you and I celebrate you tonight,” Poehler said.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and that’s why she’s the celebrity and I’m not. I may not have as big of an audience as Poehler, but this Mother’s Day, I have to issue the same thanks to the great teachers who have a hand in helping my two kids grow and thrive.