It is a Friday afternoon in the office. About 3.45pm and productivity is swiftly on the downward trend for the end of the week.

People are milling around in the office kitchen, tentatively wondering if it is too early to crack open the wine that has been chilling in the fridge all day.

What am I doing?

Madly finalising my weekly board wrap-up email and checking my clock to make sure I can get to out-of-school hours care early enough to do the grocery shopping with my kindergartener before getting my toddler from daycare… Hopefully before the sun goes down.

I politely decline the invitation to drinks this week because I must pick up my girls. One of my colleagues responds with, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot you’re an executive mum.’

I’ve never heard the term before.

But that’s me: the executive who is trying to manage a full-time, high-speed job, while also being a good and present mum to my daughters.

It’s tough, but I know I’m not alone – executive mums are everywhere.

I’ve written about resilience before and pondered whether I have enough of it to survive this kind of lifestyle for a sustainable time.

I am starting to realise though that good mums probably make the best executives.

‘Mum power’ is a hero, not a hindrance.

There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, workplace issues become insignificant in the grand scheme of life. Bickering, politics, bitchiness, and cliques can’t form part of the day for an executive mum. There is simply no time to engage.

Secondly, I am finding things run off me far more easily than they used to. Try your hardest to knock me down at work, it’s nothing compared to the brutal honesty of a toddler when you ask her how your outfit looks (this morning she shouted ‘silly’ at me and ran away giggling).

Or when you cook a beautiful meal and it is sneakily fed to the dog under the table (‘yucky, mummy’).

Or you spend your hard-earned on the cutest little outfit only to be told it is ugly and never gets worn.

Third, I’ve learnt to let things go. Pick my battles. Conserve my energy.

I need to – because I know once we leave the office for the day, ahead is an evening of whining, flooded bathtubs, tanties about pyjamas being too fluffy, tanties about food being the wrong colour, 4,000 requests for a cup of milk, and 5,000 trips to the toilet after they have been kissed goodnight and tucked in.

And then, if I survive all that, I have to clean the kitchen, pack tomorrow’s school lunch, transfer that washing that has been wet in the machine all day into the dryer, add whatever is in the dryer to the leaning tower of laundry and, if I’m lucky, sit down with my husband and ask about his day.

Executive mums are good at conserving energy.

We aren’t easily rattled. And we don’t have the brain space for pettiness.

Executive mums just get on with the job and do their best to show up to work without toddler snot smears on their Perri Cutten cashmere coats.

Is it sustainable? I’m not sure yet. Ask me in 30 years.