Ivanka Trump has a feature in the March issue of Vogue to promote Celebrity Apprentice. She’s photographed here by Mario Testino. Her dress is Erdem, and she’s hanging out with her son, Joseph. Most of the interview covers Ivanka’s fast-paced lifestyle and how she rules the boardroom at work but finds time to balance family. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is present through much of the discussion. He calls his wife “definitely the CEO of our household, whereas I’m more on the board of directors.”
Ivanka’s previously talked about how she works 16 hour days, and she sees her kids (including daughter Arabella) at night for a quick sleep routine. Ivanka believes working so much helps her be a better mother when she comes home. The mere thought exhausts me because there’s always so much to be done as a mother. Even working for 8 hours every day on top of mothering can push someone to their limits. Jared says Ivanka “doesn’t want to outsource mothering,” but she does have help. She just doesn’t talk about it.
In this interview with Vicki Woods, Ivanka reveals how she focuses on family in one key way. Every weekend she turns off her phone to observe the Sabbath, which is solely devoted to family time:
On turning off her phone: “Yeah, we observe the Sabbath. From Friday to Saturday we don’t do anything but hang out with one another. We don’t make phone calls. It’s an amazing thing when you’re so connected … to really sign off. And for Arabella to know that she has me, undivided, one day a week? We don’t do anything except play with each other, hang out with one another, go on walks together. Pure family.”
On appreciating what she has: “You realize in life not that many things matter that much, but your choice of spouse is really everything. I am running a thousand miles a minute, and so is he, but none of it really matters. And I wouldn’t be able to do any of it if I didn’t have somebody who cared about me and had my best interests in mind. If I was married to somebody who, even if beneath the surface, didn’t like the fact that I work so hard or didn’t support my ambitions for myself or felt self-conscious about my last name … I think it would be very hard to build a solid foundation on that.”
[From Vogue]
Ivanka also reveals how she and Jared go out nearly every weeknight together, which sounds awesome but exhausting. I couldn’t be away from home for 16 hours (plus a date and time with a personal trainer) every day, but no shade. It works for them, and a dose of concentrated family time every weekend must help a lot. Turning off your phone for 25 hours every weekend is a hardcore commitment. Ivanka seems very well bonded with her kids in these pictures. Good for her.
Photos courtesy of Mario Testino/Vogue & WENN
Methinks she is overestimating her 16 hours spent at work? Does that include the drive to work?
Also, I wonder what she thinks of Karlie Kloss, dating her husband’s brother.
Right? That’s 6am to 10pm. But she has time for a quick bedtime routine and go out with her husband? Is that part of the 16 hours? When does she sleep?
And when does she have alone time with no commitments? With that schedule, she is always due somewhere. That would drive me crazy within a week.
I understand what she means. My first work calls start at 6 am and then last ones end around 10 pm. I do the morning and night ones from home, and yeah I’m not working 100% of the time in between 6 am and 10 pm, but even if I take 30 minutes here and there to go to the grocery store, chat on the phone with my mom, or have dinner with my husband, it still feels like 16 hours of work when that last call is finished at 10 pm. And then it starts again 8 hours later!
Yeah, I am kind of questioning some this, but perhaps she gets up at 3 am and starts her day and gets home around 7 and kisses her children good night and then goes out with her hubby. I believe a good work life balance is healthy, but if she is working 16 hours a day, her children are spending most of their time with nanny, which is probably how she was raised. I am not knocking it, but it does seem she puts her career first, and her children come second.
The math doesn’t really add up. She may work walking distance from her home (it helps being a Trump there) but 16 hours + workouts + time with the kids + going out with her husband every night? The only way it works is if she gets 4 hours of sleep a night. Also, more time is shot if she’s observing the Sabbath, because during the Winter sundown is so early on Friday nights.
I remember the interview being more of an “I work 16 hours a day sometimes”. She didn’t say 16 hours a day every day. I work 16 hour days sometimes and she’s right- it’s a lot easier with a partner who understands & supports. You feel guilty enough about the long day, you don’t need a guilt trip too.
Family play day every Saturday sounds great if you have housekeepers and nannies etc. but those of us without help need to clean house, do laundry, pay bills, buy groceries etc on weekends. She is living in her own world.
Preach! I would love to give my baby my undivided attention all weekend, but that would mean we would starve and live in filth.
Lol exactly.
I wish I could turn off my phone for 24 hours, but I would probably get the shakes and have a nervous breakdown.
They got out every weeknight together? Who watches the kids? Oh right, her army of nannies. Sad. She works 16 hours a day, doing what? Her “luxury jewelry” line? Filming The Apprentice? Both things could go away forever and no one would bat an eyelash. She and her father are ridiculously self-important people.
Many jobs could go away forever without anyone minding–we aren’t all doctors, builders, peacekeepers, etc.. Hers is an extreme lifestyle, not too far from someone like Karen Finerman. She makes choices that work for her–I can’t imagine her kids mind if she’s out when they are sleeping.
Agreed. I think working is great because not every woman can handle being home with kids all day. I personally would lose my mind. Some can and that’s great. But I feel like if you’re going to have a 16 work day, a date with your husband, a workout, so on and so forth, you should not have kids until you can cut back on that some. And that’s for the mom AND dad. Because let’s be real, he probably works that much too. Oh look a whole day to dote on you. That’s nice. I guess it’s not that different than most rich people who let nannies do the heavy lifting, but this scenario is not realistic for anyone who is not super rich. Jane Doe tax accountant married to John Doe school teacher can’t manage this.
I think the idea of focusing solely on her family for the weekend is great, but her weekday schedule sounds awful.
If she’s working 16 hours, then has an hour with the kids, then dinner out with her husband every night, etc, she’s either exaggerating something, sleeps like 3 hours a night, or lives in an alternate universe of 30 hour days.
She once posted her schedule to tumblr (can’t be bothered to paste here) and essentially her day starts at 5.45am and is then managed in increments of 30mins. She almost immediately starts with the emails whilst getting ready (can’t remember if this included working out). Stops to have breakfast with her kids, off to work which isn’t very far in relation to where she lives. Same thing until end of the day (even if she’s off site). Gets back home for the hour with her kids, continues working from home, then off to dinner with hubby (usually this combined with work function that services brand trump or her other ventures or hubby’s work functions. They rarely eat in. Then back home, check emails one last time before bed at midnight.
Personally, seeing her schedule left me exhausted because I loathe being beholden to such rigid scheduling but it isn’t impossible.
When you add up her hours as one solid block such that 16hrs + time with kids + time with hubby + evening work functions, it seems impossible, but she has a lot of help and she multi-tasks most of her family life.
That just sounds awful. Multi tasking with your family means that you’re not really present – she’d be staring at her phone the whole time and wouldn’t actually see much of her kids. It’s great that she works and it’s great that she loves her career, but I’m guessing that’s not nearly the balance she thinks it is.
So you work for 16 hours, then go out to dinner? And spend bedtime with the kids? How many hours does she have in her day? Does she sleep? Something about this just doesn’t add up.
I find her utterly insufferable, even though she is a hero on this site. I think her ‘working endless hours’ is probably the equivalent of her father being a ‘self-made man’ and ‘running for president’. I believe the family DNA is at least one part hyperbole, two parts self-important and maybe one point real, if that, FWIW.
I’m indifferent to her but do people really think well of her on this site?
This may sound like I’m defending her, but her life sounds like that of a lot of people I know – we all work in different areas of entertainment. Work is 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days (sometimes 7) a week. I don’t do those hours anymore since I’ve had my son, but majority of working moms I know see her kid(s) for an hour before bedtime during weekdays; weekends are for grocery shopping, birthday parties and other kid-centric events/activities. Everyone still goes out to drinks, dinners, premiers, industry events, etc. Many go back to work after the kids have been put to bed. Now, most of these women have some standing in their profession and jobs, so they have the flexibility to go home for bedtime routine and come back to work, unlike their assistants and other people under them. They are also well-to-do enough (no where near Ivanka and her husband and their families’ money) to have occasional help and all have “cleaning ladies” but they also all consider that help luxuries and sanity-savers that they budget for.
That kind of lifestyle is easier to maintain and be happy enough about when the husbands have similar schedules. The few people I know where one spouse had to scale back or become stay-at-home-parent start to resent the working spouse.
I’m not really interested/invested enough to evaluate the minutiae of her narrative, or the details and such, to be completely honest. My sense about her is an overall perception. A lot of people commend her on working so hard as a rich kid. I believe that she works, but I don’t know how much else I buy of the story, in general, that’s all. Maybe I just don’t like her persona. I know I don’t like her father’s. I do believe that all the assistants and subordinates, who are delegated to, work very hard.
You would have to have at least a nanny or an army of babysitters with that schedule. And if you work 6, sometimes 7 days a week, that really doesn’t leave much of a “weekend” for doing the odds and ends of life that don’t get done during the week.
Just saying these people have to be leaving a lot of caring for done by other people. Unless your kids are old enough to stay home by themselves. If your kids get out of school at 2 and you don’t get home til 7 to put them to bed, and then you’re leaving after they go to bed, you have to have someone else looking out for them. They aren’t doing it by themselves.
I just think she’s exaggerating the smoothness of it. Maybe even to herself. One person can’t possibly work those kinds of hours without sacrificing something, somewhere. She has superwoman complex. And yeah, the Donald makes me vomit.
I can’t stand Donald Trump. Every time I see him I want to punch him in the face.
I agree that it’s likely the hired help, subordinates, etc., who make her alleged 16 hour days easier than it would be for most other people.
The writers on CA also deserve credit for their attempts to make Donald and his oh so successful kids appear fair and business-minded. Because I personally think it’s smoke and mirrors.
@kiddo: Ivanka gets a huge amount of credit for choosing to go to college and being what appears to be a functioning member of society. Compared to someone like Paris, Ivanka looks like a Rhodes Scholar. BUT she’s a Trump, and being full of hot air appears to be genetic. Personally, I think she went to school to get a job because the Donald doesn’t have a ton of real cash and she was going to have to make her own way – his “wealth” all comes from real estate holdings and development, and there’s been so much talk about his actual worth vs debt over the years that it’s hard not to be incredibly skeptical, plus he has something like 6 kids. And Ivanka considers herself a brand. The whole “lad mag” angle didn’t work out particularly well so now she’s going for the mom angle. It’s actually pretty smart – so many celebrity women talk about motherhood being the pinnacle of their lives, and here’s Ivanka talking about loving her job. Considering what a huge percentages of mothers work outside of the home, it’s a smart angle. BUT she doesn’t have the charm or savvy to carry it off further. There’s a reason why she’s never really had a huge breakthrough success.
It is possible that she does a lot of work after dinner, either at home or back at the office. My my husband and I sometimes do, and our jobs aren’t particularly fast-paced.
Lak commented about about her schedule above… she includes checking e-mails, traveling to and from work and working from home before & after work days. She goes out to dinner with her husband for either her work or her husband’s work functions after the kids go to bed.
I do not believe a word of it.
Pure PR spin.
Made me dizzy!
Me either. But more importantly why is she getting praise if it is true. She chooses to work 16 hr days and not spend time with her children. Both she and her husband were born rich.
I’d have NO problem turning off my phone for an entire weekend. I’m usually with the people who mean the most to me anyway, so there’s no reason I have to lug the thing around. I often silence my phone and leave it at home on purpose! I cannot drive safely if I’m talking on the phone and there’s always someone around with a phone if I need to make an emergency call. The fact that Ivana can run 24/7 is undoubtedly a genetic trait passed down from her parents, both are extremely motivated individuals who have hinted that if they don’t keep moving, they crash. I’m impressed that she’s able to tightly schedule her week because business and family are usually in flux. I’m sure she has to make adjustments periodically.
I’m neither going to shade nor shame her, just because I can’t relate. My husband and I both work intense schedules in communications, and our work comes home with us a LOT, meaning that while we don’t get to date much (well, that, and I’m 33 weeks pregnant with our third), we’re working long days before and after kiddo bonding and family time. I don’t have nannies or babysitters – just a daycare that closes promptly at 6:00, creating a frantic rush out of my office every night as I fling my laptop bag over my shoulder.
But that’s my life. And my perspective on juggling my job, which I love, and my family, which I love.
This is her life. It doesn’t have to represent mine or yours. She’s certainly not approaching it from a patronizing GOOPy vantage point in this interview, either.
But, do you both have to work that hard? Because Ivanka doesn’t as she is a millionaire.
Exactly. Who is going to fire her (Daddy?), and would it drastically change her lifestyle if she did not work? She’s living in an alternate reality, IMO.
She’s one of the few fortunate people who gets to work because she likes it. Why would she stop?
“She’s one of the few fortunate people who gets to work because she likes it. Why would she stop?”
I don’t know why anyone would quit something they enjoy doing, including work.
It’s her life & if has long term impact on the kids, they can afford the therapy bills. Sounds like a mess to me, but maybe those long days & outings are what she needs to keep her sanity.
Her kids will grow up to live the same kind of life, which I’m sure she witnessed as a child. So on and on it goes…
She probably thinks this will be the busiest time of her life, and on one level she is right. But wait until they get older, and she and her husband have to juggle the activities of school aged and teenaged children. You sink hours and hours into watching their activities, sports, bands, etc. You can’t farm those things out to nannies (I’m not saying she would); you have to be present for them, and they take up huge blocks of time.
These days are going to seem easy.
I love Ivanka. I’m a fan!
I like her too. To be honest, I’d rather have her life than be a stay at home mum.
Am I the only one that thinks spending one whole day (or 25 hours?) a week with your children is a ridiculously small amount of time? Who is raising her kiddos the other 6 days??
I think it’s awesome that she devotes her evening meals to spend time with her husband but why not include her children a couple times a week? Gah.
Her evening meals tend to be work functions so kids would be in bed.
Also, her kids are under 3yrs old. Bedtime should be a lot earlier for them than for adults, no?
Their bedtimes would be earlier, but there are a lot of hours in the day and very young children need bonding time. Everyone has to make their own choices for what’s right for their family, but I just have to wonder if maybe you should wait to have kids if you can only spend 1 day a week with them, especially when they’re that young. That’s time you’ll never get back.
I just read a great article about this hospice worker who talked about all the final revelations and regrets of people on their death bed. #1 regret? Working too much.
sighs, yes i volunteered with old people and every old man i talked to regreted working so much. it was a different time and sometimes they had to work so much to simply make a living, like some single parents have to work multiple jobs nowadays. but if you have the money i seriously dont get it why she and her husband would have children in the first place.
I love working and even staying late at work. I am 34 years old, have no intentions of having children and even volunteer on saturdays to help an elderly lady write her memoirs. My boyfriend is a professor and is very dedicated to his work. not everyone loathes working long hours, some people thrive on it. I’d be bored to tears being a stay-at-home mom(although hard in another way, not my thing) or working minimally, I’d have to add in loads of other filler activities (volunteer in places, teach yoga part-time etc). I do not think I will regret working so much; I enjoy what I do. I also plan to travel in my 40’s/50’s once a week every year, so how will I be missing out?
That’s great that you love to work. I didn’t mean that everyone hates work. But you readily admit you don’t want kids. I just don’t understand why 2 people with such busy schedules that they make no bones about not wanting to give up are having children? You want to work 16 hours a day? Great! Just don’t subject your kids to that.
So basically she’s a one day a week parent. That’s just really sad.
She’s full of it. I like her but I don’t believe it for a second. She manages to work 16 hours a day, spend an hour at the end with her kids, then goes out with hubby? All the while looking like she’s in shape and works out AND doesn’t look utterly exhausted. She’d at the very least look tired. And sleep is everything. She HAS to sleep more than a few hours.
All things considered, she seems like a grounded person who is devoted to her family. If she is lucky enough to have help in the home, good for her. She has a great work ethic. So many children of famous parents end up as uneducated twits, but not her. I applaud her.
I could never, in a million years, imagine working that much as a mother unless I had no other choice. I understand that stay at home isn’t for everyone, but I would much rather spend time with my child and work part time or normal 9-5 if I was a millionaire. Why miss out if you don’t have to?
it annoys me when poeple with such a lifestyle talk about professional life and family.
she clearly doesnt need to work but does work incredible hours. that clearly states that work is more important.
thats a very weird thing about the USA anyway, the focus on working long hours but also putting family first, impossible to have both.
her life sounds very exhausting as a single person, even morse so when you have a partner but on top of that a career with such high hours?
i dont think it helps any regular person to look at her life. i wouldnt want to be married to a man with such an outlook on life and family.
“And for Arabella to know that she has me, undivided, one day a week? We don’t do anything except play with each other, hang out with one another, go on walks together. Pure family.”
That first sentence just makes me sad.
A question- does anyone know what she actually does or what her job entails? She has a jewelry line and appears in a reality show. But besides that.
I saw some of her shoes at Nordstrom! Very important stuff.
Honestly, people who are wealthy (celebrities and the like)work LONG hours. It isn’t as glamorous as people think. She has a jewelry line, is on a reality show, and does other side jobs I imagine for her father, she has to keep working to remain relevant.
I hate to break it to everyone, but most people in the US do not see their kids often at all. Everyone I know with kids sees them at most 2-3 hours a night AT MOST and oftentimes on weekends, the kids are at grandparents or relatives homes or at sleepovers etc, so it is an even narrower window. The daycares and babysitters are raising most Americans (with the exception of those few stay at home moms out there). Most Americans need a two income salary to afford those kids (and even then some are in debt) and with commuting and work itself, you are talking 40-60 hours away from home and kids per week. I really don’t get why people are so horrified. The average American says family first, but the bylaws state otherwise—they have the smallest paid maternity leave in developed nations (6 weeks; if you are lucky and have a generous employer you get 3 months) so plenty of daycares have more time with their kids per week during their formative years than the actual parents.
This is a really good comment.
Where to start? On one hand, with certain types of jobs and at certain levels, it is pretty much a 24-7-365 endeavor. You don’t punch a clock; your responsibilities to others simply don’t happen on a clock. For one thing, it isn’t about work-life balance so much as work-life integration. You may have to be available but not “in the office”….you can take calls from home, the car, whenever and wherever. And at the same time, you are at a level where you can also go “TIME OUT…..I’m out of here for the afternoon, reschedule appointments, ” blah blah blah. The financial remuneration is such that you can afford a lot of help OR you can write a check and make certain issues go away. If daycare craters at the last minute, there are indeed services that you can call and get backup–but they cost a pretty penny. You just PAY. Ditto car services…car battery dead? Call the car service, they pick you up in 20 minutes and take care of the dead car battery too. Money solves lots of problems. If you need more structure and more predictability and brighter lines of demarcation….her lifestyle is foreign to you. But if you are more flexible, roll with the flow, good at juggling and multi tasking, strong problem solver etc….it can work.
Only with her kids basically one day a week…wow, rich people problems. I sometimes wonder why people even have kids when they make such little time for them.
In the article she talks a bit about her conversion to Judaism – her husband’s faith. I found this interesting in that SHE was the one to convert not him. It would be one thing if she were not already involved and active in another religion, but the Trumps are Presbyterians….
perhaps we should stop attacking other women for how they choose to live their life and raise their children and support each other instead.