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hvparent.com n Hudson Valley Parent 13 I am a Hudson Valley Parent Terrie Goldstein: Putting ideals into practice By KATHLEEN WILLCOX S tay-at-home mom turned Hudson Valley publishing mogul Terrie Goldstein knows firsthand the challenges of balancing motherhood and work life. The owner of the Exciting Read Publishing Group — which includes Hudson Valley Parent, Hudson Valley Baby, MyFamilyTripPlanner. com and The Undercover Kids book series — has managed to balance the demands of work and home since first launching her first business more than 30 years ago. Perhaps more importantly, she provides am- ple opportunities for her employees to do the same. "The fact is for many women, even more than for men, we really want to spend time caring for our families and raising children," says Goldstein. "But then at a certain point, it's also important for us to nurture ourselves and make a living. Those two states aren't always com- patible." Goldstein and her first husband relocated to the Hudson Valley from Brooklyn in 1967. At the time, she stayed at home with her sons, Paul (now 48 and married with two children of his own) and Eliot (45, who lives with his girlfriend in D.C.). Once the boys were in school full time, Goldstein finished the one year she had left to get her undergradu- ate degree, attending Empire College in 1974. Goldstein went on to earn her master's degree at Manhattanville College. It was there she learned a valuable lesson that affected the rest of her career. "Most of the people in my classes were also women in their late 30s, and I remember one teacher telling us that the 'problem with us' was that we were all searching for that perfect job: to work from 9 to 3 and then be at home with our children. She said those jobs don't exist," she recalls. "I remember being really angry. That comment has stayed with me and has spurred me on for years now." After graduation, Goldstein worked as marketing director first at the Arc and then at Rockland Psychiatric Center. All the while that one teacher's statement kept ringing in her ears. "I can't tell you how many times one of my sons would call me at the office because they fell off their bike or something else happened," she says. "I worked 40 minutes away, while their father was a doctor in town, just a few minutes away. I found that the demands of working for a typical corporation didn't allow me to be the mom I wanted to be, so I decided to start my own firm and operate it in a way that would allow me and the people who worked for me to balance home and work." Goldstein launched The Pro- fessional Image marketing firm in 1983. She and her team discovered that the parenting market, already a natural fit for her, was also a poten- tially profitable one. From the beginning, Goldstein aimed to establish a workplace that allows women to fulfill their ambitions at home and at work by being flexible about schedules and allowing women to work from home when necessary. Goldstein ultimately launched Hudson Valley Parent magazine in May of 1994, originally calling it Oo- dles of Fun. Over the past 20 years, there have been enormous changes For the first year, the magazine was called Oodles of Fun, with a parrot mascot that appeared at events throughout the area. "The only problem was that parents thought, based on the name of the publication, that it was a kids magazine," says Goldstein. "Even though all the articles were for parents, we couldn't change their minds. So instead of fighting it, we changed our name the follow- ing year to Hudson Valley Parent." "We are all more willing to share our personal issues now, whereas years ago we tended to keep them under wraps." (Continued on Page 14)