Camille Lockhart keeps plenty busy in her role as a partner at BKD, but through it all she's managed to find the perfect balance between office and family life.
Leadership
Work-Life Balance and Wine with Camille Lockhart
Camille Lockhart is a partner at BKD, but like many others, that's only half of her story. She's also married with three children. She sat down over drinks at Cellar + Plate to talk about how she achieves that ever-elusive work-life balance.
By Jeff Houghton | Illustration by Ryan Saunders
Sep 2017
“Someone once said to me the whole work-life balance concept is like standing on a seesaw by yourself in the middle, and you’re trying to balance it, so you shift your weight when needed.”
“We have a house manager, or a nanny. I want to make sure that our time at home is quality time. I don’t want to go home and turn around to go to the grocery store or pick up dry cleaning or do laundry or play drill sergeant. I want to be with my kids.”
“I worked so many hours before I had kids. Now I think about how efficient I need to be at work. So, rarely do I go out for lunch; I just work through lunch and bring something to eat.”
“When you have three kids you think, ‘Oh, a night in St. Louis in a hotel bed would be really nice. Just a night.’”
“I’m an early riser, and I got up early for years and years and years. I’d be at the office at 5 or 6 in the morning. I figured if my kids are sleeping, then I’m not missing anything, and they’re not missing anything from me.”
“I fit in a massage or a facial once in awhile. That’s my vice.”
“You just have to be ready for that wind to blow, for a kid to throw up on you, a diaper to blow out, the school to call. There should be no plan. The plan is to make sure you’ve given them all the quality time you can after you’ve given 110 percent at work.”
“You have to have a partner that’s going to give 50 percent. I couldn’t have done it without my husband. As many hours as I’ve worked, he never has complained.”
“I take more naps than my kids do. It all kind of changed. They napped, then they stopped napping, and now Mom naps. That’s another key: a good nap.”
