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When I heard that Samantha Harris was leaving her co-host gig at ABC's Dancing with the Stars, I wondered if her decision had anything to do with being a mom. (She has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Josselyn, with her husband, Michael Hess.) As a working mother myself (of a five-year-old and a three-year-old), I'm constantly reevaluating my time management decisions. Am I, at any given moment, taking on too many assignments, robbing mommy time from my children in such a pivotal season of life? Am I sometimes too conservative about what I'll take on, and not fulfilling my career potential? Practically every week, I find myself reassessing that balance.
When announcing her departure from the show, the 36-year-old TV personality didn't mention family responsibilities as a reason for stepping down. Rather, she told Us Magazine that it was because of her "expanded responsibilities on [CBS'] The Insider." The fact is that Harris hasn't only been splitting her time between her job and her home life. She's been stretching herself among several jobs. According to People magazine, "Since joining DWTS in 2006, Harris has simultaneously held jobs at E! and The Insider. In 2008 she co-hosted the official Oscar pre-show with Regis Philbin, and in 2009 she guest hosted for Meredith Viera on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. She also made her Broadway debut in July 2009 playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago."
How could she possibly pull this all off? Compared to everything she's accomplished (looking gorgeous all the while), my own, little juggling act seems awfully pathetic. I realize that Harris' circumstances are very different: She has a nanny and oodles of money for household help. By no means is she a typical working mom. But it still seems like a ridiculous amount of activity for one person.
So in some ways it was a relief to discover that Harris hasn't been immune to the tradeoffs of career and motherhood, according to a recent article in Working Mother magazine. Here are a few passages:
"There are some days when Samantha only gets to see her daughter in the late part of the afternoon and then for dinnertime and bedtime…And between long days at work and time spent with Josselyn at home, Samantha is finding that 'the sacrifice comes to my own personal time…There are the occasional times where, if it’s a long studio day at The Insider, with a window of two hours in the middle of the day, then rather than spending an hour commuting home to see her daughter for 20 minutes, to then commute back, she opts go to the gym on the studio lot. But naturally, that doesn’t always work out…Even while sacrificing personal time for her daughter’s sake, 'the one thing I feel guilty about is not cooking for my family,' says Samantha, confessing that they resort to either ordering in, picking up food or a twice-a-week meal delivery system."
Harris may not have cited her daughter as a reason for pulling out of DWTS, but based on those passages, I think that her desire to be with her must have figured in. With increased opportunities opening up for her career-wise at The Insider, something else was going to have to give. I'm sure that Harris wasn't about to allow that "something" to be her already-limited time with Josselyn. So she gave up DWTS.
Her situation reminds me of something that the actress Diane Lane said, when I interviewed her for the cover of Redbook magazine in August of 2005. "My earning power is peaking, and so is my desire to be home for my daughter," she lamented. "I feel like the flame is just getting higher and higher under me."
It seems that Harris might be facing the same predicament. Just as she stepped into motherhood, her career really began to take off. But something's got to give, and I'm glad that she's decided to step back from one of her jobs.
As a work/family juggler myself, I can't imagine having quite so many balls in the air. But Harris seems to have settled into a routine that's comfortable for her. She's trying, anyway. "I have by no means figured out the universal solution," she told Working Mother. "[But] at least so far I hope what I’ve been doing has been working!'”
Do you think Samantha Harris is stretching herself too thin?
