Sonja, in your perspective do families of the 21st century make a lot of sacrifices or compromises, either personal or professional, to provide the best family environment for their children?

In my own experience, I would say “Yes.” The balance between long work hours, commute time, homework, sport activities, and finding some quality family time is very difficult, considering that we spend most of the day at work and outside the home. If we add the fact that most of us do not have any relatives living in the same state, not to mention city, then it is obvious that a real and well balanced family life is not always present.

What is the most important aspect in your life?

Family is in first place, but my career is, also, very important, and it seems I am in constant battle between family and career, almost on a daily basis.

How do you balance the fine line between business and family?

By trying not to bring my work home and mentally disconnecting from work after 5pm. It is not always possible, especially if I am working on a challenging device modeling project, and I cannot find a solution, immediately. The best way to put those thoughts away is to go out with my husband and children. In fact, swimming seems to take away most of my work related thoughts.

Do you have your own household to-do list?

I don’t have a list, since we have kind of a regular routine for our household duties. Most of our ‘free’ time is dedicated to the children, and they always come first. My husband and I split checking their homework and evening reading. We, also, manage to split housework between all four of us. The kids are involved too; at their young age, fixing the bed is their duty.

What is your typical weekday/weekend look like?

Weekdays are hectic, mostly. The day starts at 6am. My early morning ritual is a cup of coffee, to get into the rhythm of the daily routine, while getting the kids ready for school and preparing lunch for my husband, who has a home office. I try to leave from work at 5pm, prepare some dinner on days that we don’t have any sport activities after school, work on homework, and before you know it is 8:30pm, and the children are ready to take a bath. We have karate, swimming, and ballet three days a week, which means we have to do more homework on the two other days. I usually prepare sandwiches and snacks to eat in the car when we miss having dinner at home, and we rarely stop by a restaurant for dinner. As I said, weekdays are hectic!

My favorite time of the weekend is Saturday morning, when I can have my cup of coffee, without looking at the clock all of the time, call my parents, and just being lazy for at least one hour. Well, we have swimming class on Saturday, too, so Saturday morning laziness is over around 9am. Most of the weekend, we try to do some activities which will involve the whole family; playing badminton in our backyard or practicing tennis on the driveway are our favorite ones. Luckily, most of our friends, one of whom is the Editor of this Magazine, have kids similar in age, and we are able to get together with our friends, while the children are having fun. And with the blink of the eye, here comes Monday, and the weekday routine is here again.

Do you have some examples of your most critical survivor practices at home?

We found out that the best way to stay on track is to have an established routine and a circle of good friends with kids similar in age to ours. It does sound boring, dry, and predictable, but if you are on your own like us, without family living close by to jump in whenever we are ‘running on low batteries,’ it is very important to adhere to a schedule and keep the balance.

Sonja, thank you for taking the time to give Goneis readers your perspective on how you balance the fine line between family, work, and social life.

Thank you, Dina, it was my pleasure