How 3 Long Island moms make the work day work for them

Kayla Kelly has just put her two children on their 8:20 a.m. bus to elementary school when what she sees on her West Islip kitchen table makes her heart sink.

During breakfast, Willow, 9, her fourth grader, had been in tears struggling to calculate a word problem converting miles to feet. "I don’t accept that she’s not going to get credit for this," Kelly thinks as she picks up the forgotten math homework.

She jumps in her car, chases the bus to school, knocks on its door and asks the driver to hand the assignment to her daughter. Then she zooms home to log on to her full-time marketing job at 8:30 a.m. — her company tracks their work time — and runs into her bedroom to change from sweatpants into something appropriate for video meetings.

That is just one half-hour in the life of a full-time employed mother juggling the physical, mental and emotional load of a family and a job. Newsday will delve into the plight of women balancing careers, family, and everything in between during its first Working Moms Summit set for June 3 and through a new weekly newsletter (visit newsday.com/workingmoms for more details).

We asked three Long Island working mothers to share a recent weekday in their lives. "Every day is something. It’s crazy, isn’t it, when you say it out loud?" Kelly said during an interview, which, incidentally, is interrupted by a phone call from her daughter.

Here’s what the mothers reported.

MOM Amanda Salazar

AGE 40

TOWN Brightwaters

OCCUPATION Psychologist

FAMILY Johnny, 46, an emergency room nurse, Coralie, 17, her stepdaughter who lives in Massapequa, Annabelle, 11, a fifth grader, Jonathan, 9, a third grader, and Parker, 5, a kindergartner

DAY OF THE WEEK Wednesday

7:30 a.m. "I had ordered groceries the night before, so I got up and put them away," Salazar said. Annabelle wakes up on her own, but the boys are heavy sleepers who take 20 minutes of prodding. It’s, "Come on, get up," over and over, Salazar said. "It ends up with, ‘You’re not going to have time to go on your iPad if you don’t get up.’ "

The children drink pre-made protein shakes. "The 5-year-old likes to be responsible; he gets them for his siblings," Salazar said. Breakfast is free at school so Salazar knows they can eat again there; they also buy lunch. Salazar gives Jonathan his ADHD medication. She packs snacks and water bottles and readies backpacks; the children get dressed.

8:50 a.m. "It’s always a fight with the shoes," Salazar said of Jonathan, when she’s trying to get him and Annabelle to their bus stop. Salazar drives Parker to school. If he took the bus, he’d have to be out at 8:20, which would make everyone get up half an hour earlier.

9:30 a.m. Salazar hits the gym.

11 a.m. Between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Salazar sees seven clients either virtually or in person from her office in Oakdale. Salazar also monitors an online support program called "Mindful Mothering"; on June 13 she’s running a daylong relaxation retreat on Fire Island for 25 women.

Between clients Salazar checks the school’s Parent Portal, which reminds her that Annabelle has a field trip on Friday and will need a packed lunch and water bottle. She fills out and emails a form to sign Jonathan up for summer Little League.

2:59 p.m. Jonathan’s school calls. Salazar can’t answer because she’s with a client. She calls back 10 minutes later; they tell her Jonathan hurt his finger at recess, but he is OK.

5 p.m. Salazar forgot to order hamburger rolls with her delivery, so on the way home she picks them up. Her husband is an ER nurse who works three 12-hour shifts a week. "When he’s working, I heavily rely on my parents, because I never get out of work before they get out of school," Salazar said. "When he’s off, he’s unbelievably helpful." On this day, Johnny gets the kids from the bus and supervises homework. "I got home at 5:15, and he was grilling hamburgers," Salazar said. She sautees broccoli. Then Salazar folds laundry Johnny had washed in the morning. She braids Annabelle’s hair in anticipation of her softball game that evening.

5:45 p.m. Johnny leaves to see Coralie’s induction into the National Honor Society in Massapequa. Jonathan has a baseball game at 6 p.m.; Salazar takes him, Annabelle and Parker.

8 p.m. Jonathan’s game ends just as Annabelle’s starts on a nearby field. Johnny arrives from Massapequa, watches for a while, then takes the boys home. The game finally ends at about 10:20.

10:40 p.m. Annabelle gets herself ready for bed. "Then we divide and conquer the boys. My husband takes the 9-year-old in our bed and they watch videos together," Salazar said. She lies with Parker on his bed and asks him what were the best and worst parts of his day and what was something that made him proud. "As I leave his room and enter my room, that’s my son’s cue that he has to leave," Salazar said.

11:30 p.m. Salazar and her husband turn out their lights.

MOM Anna Jackman

AGE 41

TOWN Wheatley Heights

OCCUPATION New York City public school administrator

FAMILY Nicholas Sr., 42, a certified public accountant, Nicholas Jr., 5, a kindergartner and Matthew, 3, who attends daycare

DAY OF THE WEEK Monday

5:05 a.m. Jackman hits the snooze button. She rises before her second alarm rings at 5:23. She throws a load of laundry into the washing machine.

Nicholas Jr. is awake; she gets him situated in the living room with a bowl of dry Cheerios and "Paw Patrol" on TV so she can shower.

6 a.m. Jackman wakes up Matthew. She gets both boys dressed.

6:30 a.m. Breakfast is French toast sticks with grapes and apple slices. Matthew is not having it. "I had to literally feed him myself with a fork. We needed to get out of the house," Jackman said. She packs water, Goldfish and a granola bar for Nicholas. She makes herself a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and wraps it to bring with her.

6:50 a.m. Jackman grabs her work bag. Her job entails commuting to different schools in the city; today she’s headed to Manhattan.

A complication: Jackman calls the school bus company to cancel her kindergartner’s school bus pickup because a repaving of her block won’t allow the bus to turn onto her street. She instead walks with the boys to her car, parked nearby, and drops them off. "It added to the chaos of what was going to be a long day already," she said.

Normally her husband gets the boys on the bus or to daycare, but Nicholas Sr. is visiting his mother in Barbados. "My husband is an equal partner in parenting," Jackman said. "I sent my husband on a trip because he works so hard and has not taken a break in years."

7:49 a.m. Jackman parks at the Wyandanch Long Island Rail Road station and boards the train to Manhattan. On the train, she eats her bacon egg and cheese sandwich and places a delivery order for light-up toothbrushes for her sons. She reads "Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work and Life" by Emma Grede (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2026).

12:30 p.m. During lunch break, Jackman gets cash from the ATM for Nicholas' school Spring Boutique and buys Teacher Appreciation week gift cards from Dunkin’. She texts with a friend who is sharing planning advice for a summer trip to Disney World. She checks her mom group texts — one is with friends from college, another a group of six moms whose children were born between April and August of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

6:15 p.m. Jackman picks up Nicholas from after-care at his school and Matthew from daycare, starting what she refers to as her "second shift." As she prepares dinner, Nicholas insists he wants yellow rice with his chicken, not pasta. "I don’t have the capacity for the tantrum," Jackman said. She makes the rice.

7:30 p.m. Bath time and reading. She reads "The Knuffle Bunny" to Nicholas while Matthew, who is into planets, gets "Goodnight, Solar System." Jackman is grateful Nicholas doesn’t have homework.

8:15 p.m. The boys have a 10-minute video call with Dad, and then it’s bedtime.

8:30 p.m. Jackman gets ready for tomorrow, washing dishes, wiping down the kitchen and picking up toys before she goes to sleep as well.

MOM Kayla Kelly

AGE 40

TOWN West Islip

OCCUPATION Marketer

FAMILY Nicholas, 40, a facility manager, Willow, 9, in fourth grade and Odin, 6, in first grade

DAY OF THE WEEK Tuesday

5:50 a.m. "I like to work out before my kids get up. I’ve been trying to work on more self-care," Kelly said; she heads to the gym she and Nicholas set up in their garage. She is training for an upcoming Hyrox competition that requires running, rowing, lunges and more. Willow gets up at 6:15; by 6:45 Odin is also awake. Nicholas leaves for work.

7 a.m. "We all share a bathroom," Kelly said. She showers, half listening to the children in the next room. She hears the kids argue over who will wear the police officer costume and who will be the firefighter during tomorrow’s Community Hero dress-up day at school.

The kids watch TV while Kelly makes breakfast. "I’ll make batches of pancakes and freeze them, then heat them in the microwave," she said. She blow-dries her hair while they eat. Kelly and Willow then work on the aforementioned math word problem homework that didn’t get done the night before.

8:20 a.m. Fortunately, Willow and Odin attend the same school right now, and Kelly puts them on the bus. Then comes the homework issue.

8:30 a.m. Kelly’s workday begins.

3:45 p.m. Most days Kelly pays a babysitter to get the children off the bus, but on Tuesdays she and her husband are both able to end work early (but she'll put in another hour before bed). Odin asks for eggs, so Kelly scrambles some, then Nicholas dresses Odin for jiujitsu, and Kelly takes him there. After jiujitsu, she plans to head home for Willow, who has a dress rehearsal for her upcoming dance recital.

4:15 p.m. While waiting for Odin to finish at his class — and while conducting this phone interview with a Newsday reporter — Kelly is interrupted by a call from Willow asking if she can go early to her friend’s house and Kelly can then pick them both up there for the dance rehearsal. Kelly agrees, and Nicholas drops off Willow with her sparkly dance costume and tap shoes before heading to a doctor’s appointment for himself.

5:10 p.m. Kelly and Odin run into the house so he can change out of his jiujitsu clothing. They head to Willow's friend's house and pick up the two girls, then stop at another girl’s house to pick her up. Kelly usually drives the carpool to and from dance on Tuesdays; other mothers drive to other activities on other days. Willow could not do half of the extracurriculars she does — coding club, chorus, orchestra — without the help from other moms, Kelly said. She runs a free group for mothers once a month at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday at the West Islip Library called "Refill and Relate," meant to help mothers with elementary school-age children make connections and build their own "village" community.

5:30 p.m. Kelly and Odin meet a friend and friend’s son at the nearby coffee shop while the girls are at their dress rehearsal. One girl left her dance bag in Kelly’s car, so she runs back to give it to her, leaving Odin with her friend. Upon return to the coffee shop, she orders a chai latte and relaxes until returning for the girls at 6:30 p.m.

6:45 p.m. Dinner is leftovers.

7 p.m. A grocery delivery arrives. Kelly unpacks it. She unloads and then reloads the dishwasher.

7:30 p.m. Odin is still hungry, so Kelly makes him a peanut butter sandwich. Kelly organizes the backpacks for the morning, orders a yearbook from school. She signs the Parents As Reading Partners form for the day even though they didn’t have time to read — she promises she’ll make the time up tomorrow. Kelly has the costumes ready for Community Hero Day the next morning. Then it’s bedtime. The kids have showers and go to sleep at 8.

8:15 p.m. Kelly washes her face and puts on pajamas. Nicholas is in a local alternative rock band, so he is practicing guitar from 8 to 11 p.m. in preparation for an upcoming performance.

8:30 p.m. Kelly works for an hour or so.

10 p.m. She watches "Abbott Elementary," then reads "Rich Girl Nation" (Portfolio, 2025) about women and investing.

11:30 p.m. It’s lights out for the household.