Shelf Life

This is the book we needed when our kids were little, and we were first encountering all of the obstacles that working moms face in their lives,” says Jenn Hildreth, who, with Aimee Leone, wrote Tough as a Mother: Women in Sports, Working Moms, and the Shared Traits that Empower Us All (Triumph Books 2025).

Delving deep into women who have made it big in the sports world, the two authors bring their own credentials into play. Hildreth is an Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster and year-round play-by-play for ESPN and ACC Network, and Leone is a six-time Emmy Award winner and the senior vice president of talent relations for FOX Sports.

But the book isn’t about how they excelled; it’s about the traits all women rely upon to make it all work.  

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve never kicked a ball; it’s about encouragement and wanting everybody to feel good about their own story,” says Leone.

“We have divided the book into nine parts, one for each Tough Mother Tenet (and for each month of pregnancy),” write Hildreth and Leone in the book’s introduction. “Coincidence? We think not. Within every part, each of our Tough Mothers has a story to share with you in their own words. We tried to place these stories where we thought they fit best, but the reality is that all of us working moms are multifaceted, so you will no doubt see several other tenets running through each of the chapters. And we hope you also see yourself and your own Tough Mother Tenets within these pages.”

But besides the overlap of Tough Mother Tenets, which also include Support, Strength, Moxie, Sacrifice, Resilience, Focus, and Vulnerability, the lives of these women overlap with those of us who have never been a star in the sports world.

In the first chapter of the book titled Adaptability, they include first person accounts from such people a former tennis player, Mary Carillo, who has been a sportscaster who has worked as a tennis analyst since 1986. Hannah Storm, anchor of ESPN’s SportsCenter, broke barriers as a female host on CNN Sports Tonight from 1989 to 1992. Aly Wagner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, is FOX Sports’ lead match analyst for the network’s coverage of the FIFA Women’s World.

Olympic gold and silver softball medalist and ESPN analyst Jessica Mendoza, 12-time Olympic medalist and former world record-holder swimmer Dara Torres, and  Olympic marathoner Aliphine Tuliamuk are all featured in the chapter title Passion.

“We discovered that these elite athletes possess the traits that working moms bring to the table every day,” says  Hildreth, on a conference call with Leone and this writer. “Part of our book is trying to empower all moms to know that they are tough as a mother.”

Accepting that you’ll be vulnerable is also part of being tough. Leone, a tough mother since 1992, notes that in the early years of women juggling careers and motherhood, there was a need to be perfect and not show how hard it can be.

“It was a time when women didn’t want to admit to being vulnerable because that would make them look weak,” she says, noting that the book is not only about empowering women but also about assuring them it’s okay not to be perfect. “I reference in the book that there was a perfume commercial with lyrics that went ‘ I can bring home the bacon, Fry it up in a pan, And never, never, never let you forget you’re a man, ‘Cause I’m a woman.’ There were all sorts of unrealistic expectations of how a working mom should be.”

Leone says she tried to live that life, making sure that when her husband walked in the door, the house looked good and a great meal was waiting, even after a long day with the children and work.

Reading the book and seeing how these famous women handled the problems they encountered is a pat on the back in a way. Mothers are tough, but they’re human as well.

“We do want to make sure that moms or prospective moms reading this book know they do not have to choose between having a career and being a mom,” says Hildreth.  “Starting a family can be really hard, and at times you’re going to feel stretched very thin and wonder if you can be great at both, and the answer is yes, you can. We just really want to send that message through loud and clear. Yes, if you want to do both, you can. We’re not saying it’s going to be easy, we are saying you can do it and that this book is here to help make you feel supported as you do so.”

The article originally appeared in the Northwest Indiana Times.