Supermom: Kristen Schroder
With nine kids, the Schroder family could form their own baseball team—though the age spread might make the game a little bit tricky. Comprising five boys and four girls, aged 12, 11, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 21 months—equating to a span of ten and a half years—something that most of us couldn’t even imagine. But as the mother of this tribe, Kristen Schroder couldn’t imagine life without any one of them.
“I have two in braces, three stay home with me, six are in school, two play baseball, one does ballet, two take tennis lessons and one takes golf lessons,” says Schroder, running down her household by the numbers. “One bird named Lucky, one homemade baseball field in our backyard, one table big enough for everyone to sit around, and two parents who call each one of their children a gift.”
Married to Bryan, the former owner and CEO of a corporate payments company that was sold a few years ago and the current owner of a telecommunications company in Mississippi, Schroder feels blessed to follow her passion: “I’m being a mother, which I believe is the most important spiritual work on earth,” she says.