Mothers put their risk management plans into action every day.

Tammi Cooper of the Management and Marketing School at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor is the mother of two teenage boys, and she says motherhood is a lot like running a business, complete with mission, vision and values.

Community volunteer Nancy Goodnight, a mother of four, says organization is the key to managing what she calls an exercise in neurosis.

“The best advice I ever had was from someone who said, ‘get a five year planner.”

“We do a weekly schedule,” she said.

The mothers we talked to say communication is as big a part of managing the business of family and it is in managing the business of business.

Negotiating skills are vital, too, especially if your children are teenagers.

Incidentally, if stay-at-home moms were paid, their paychecks would be substantial.

Salary.com’s Mom Salary Wizard estimates the national median salary that a stay-at-home mom with two school-age children would make at $116,805 a year.