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Culture September 7, 2017
There is no such thing as a desperate housewife anymore.
Stay-at-home mothers in the ’50s used to take care of children and wait for their husbands to bring home the bacon. Women in this generation, however, take care of their children and rake in the cash.
And because we’re all about Women That Do, we decided to celebrate Housewives Day by acknowledging women who have this whole work/life balance down.
Here are five powerhouse women that have done more than cook Thanksgiving turkey.
It all started with a squirrel. When housewife Deborah Cohen discovered that there was a squirrel in her attic while taking care of her daughter, she and her husband were so fed up with trying to find an exterminator she started her own business.
And then the “Homeowner Referral Network” was formed. The objective of the HRN is to connect homeowners with reliable service workers. Even though Cohen stated her and her public school teacher husband were not in a position to start a company, she felt like she needed to.
“At the time, I was terrified. We had no extra money to invest, and were leveraged with our new home. But I had to do something,” Cohen shared with Forbes.
Today, Cohen still takes pride in being a housewife and says that she drives her kids to school every day. But even as she does this, she’s running a business and being awesome like all Women That Do.
“What am I, Bella? Say it out loud.”
“Housewife” is what Bella would say if Stephenie Meyer was asking the question.
Twilight author Stephanie Meyer’s vampires came to life after she first had a vivid dream of the characters. She went on to write the story and received a publishing deal that was worth over $750,000 dollars. Not bad, mama.
The “Twilight” series then became a book and box office hit. Now, Meyer is known as a best-selling author. But even as she’s acquired a new label, she still takes pride in being a mother. “Gabe, Seth and Eli. Those are my boys. Nothing’s right unless they’re right,” Meyers told Variety in an interview.
When you’re being bold and trying to make your dress fit just right, you probably reach for your favorite pair of Spanx. Spanx is the go-to body shapewear that has become popular among women.
Although Sara Blakely is now worth over one billion dollars, in a video taken by Inc, she explains how her beginnings were not as glamorous.
“I’d never taken a business class, I’d never worked in fashion or retail. I’d actually been selling fax machines door-to-door for seven years since graduating from college, and I had $5,000 in savings. I’d just moved out of my mom’s house, and I was dating a loser,” shared Blakely.
But that obviously changed. Instead of dating losers, Blakely seems to be winning nowadays, especially because Spanx generates over $250 million in sales.
This self-made millionaire was a single mother who dropped out of high school when she was 17. However, Kate Stewart’s adversities still didn’t seem to hinder her success.
According to Independent, before owning Liverpool’s Heritage Market, Stewart first made her millions by opening up beauty and tanning salons. She was just 23 years old at the time.
In an interview, she expressed that her haters actually gave her motivation to keep on going.
“I got pregnant at 17 and the destiny written for me was ‘you are going to claim benefits and have more kids’. Everyone wrote me off and I thought ‘no’ and came back fighting. That gave me the drive to achieve,” she said to Independent.
Yes, cookie-maker fields was a stay-at-home mom. She began her business after she and her husband went to dinner at one of his client’s houses.
When her husband’s client asked her what she does for a living, Fields replied, “I’m just trying to get orientated.” The man then proceeded to grab a dictionary and responded to her comment with, “The word is oriented. If you can’t speak the English language, you shouldn’t speak at all.”
That night, she gathered her baking supplies and, as she told “TheMuse,” she set out to be somebody.
And look how far she’s come since then. She turned her Mrs. Fields cookie recipe into a $450 million company. Well done, Debbi. Your husband’s former client probably has nothing to say to you anymore.
Overall, as these awesome women prove, housewives aren’t here to sweep up the trash, they’re here dropping cold hard cash.
