Let’s start a conversation about Mother’s Day and business awards, right here and now. I’m challenging us to consider this: A day to celebrate love for moms is beautiful. And awards in business can be a great way to generate enthusiasm for influential people. But let’s ask ourselves, are either of these enough? The answer is no, because something big is missing: true glory, celebrated on-the-regular, for motherhood, especially when paired with entrepreneurship.

Female founders who are raising young families are a special breed of fierce. Where are the awards for them? (If you know of any, send them my way because I have some incredible women I’d like to nominate). They (we) are the pioneers of our time, loving our children and our companies with hearts cracked wide open on a daily basis.

We fail continuously, and overcome incredible pressure, while raising babies and building a business at the same time.

It’s entirely possible, and likely even, that on the same day we will:

• Change our toddler’s sheets 3 times overnight
• Get up before 6 a.m. to finish a proposal and prep for a negotiation
• Yell at our big kid for being too slow
• Arrive late to a 9 a.m. meeting because we spent extra time hugging her to make up for it
• Accept feedback gracefully from half a dozen colleagues and family members

We sacrifice maternity leaves, coming back to work before we’re ready because someone resigned. We craft performance improvement plans while recovering from surgery. We assure our own moms that yes, we’re spending enough time with the kids, everything is fine (but we wonder inside – is it?).

We battle postpartum depression, calculate profit margins, chaperone field trips when our inbox is overflowing, and spend an incredible amount of time learning the value of boundaries.

There are countless women in my life, and across the country, who do the IMPOSSIBLE on a daily basis in pursuit of their dreams. Awards in the business community are wonderful and prolific, but they’re missing something huge:

It’s not just the unicorn tech startup or the 25-year-old male CEO who is changing this world.

It’s the woman, the mom, who is laying brick after painstaking brick to build a life she, her children, and her community can stand on. She might never make it to a $1B valuation (or even to $1M in revenue) but she is the backbone of our nation.

So, to all the women losing sleep over balance sheets and nighttime feedings with equal weight, you deserve more than one day. (But Happy Mother’s Day anyway!) You are the true heroes. You might never win an award, but your work matters. Your love matters. And both are enough. This country is damn lucky to have you.

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