We’ve missed several weeks of celebrity sibsets, so today we will make up for it with a group of sibsets from some mothers in the public eye who have to juggle a busy working life with an often equally busy family life.

Peta Mantzarapis

Power-mum Peta is managing director of Maloney Field Services, a property consulting company for petroleum and natural gas companies. Just in case this wasn’t enough, to fill in her spare time she runs the children’s fashion label, Sebastian and Sienna, with her sister. Last year she won the Telstra South Australian Young Businesswoman of the Year Award.

She has a flexible workplace, and an accommodating helpful husband called Sam, but she’s still taken babies to boardrooms, had them asleep under her desk, tried to look cool in a meeting even though she’s just cleaned vomit off her car, and opened her briefcase to find it’s filled with toy cars and fairy wands.

Peta and Sam have two daughters called Sienna, aged 4, and Evangeline, aged 2; Evangeline is called Evie in everyday life. It’s a pretty, popular and girly sibset, and shows that owners of kid’s clothing labels do often use their own children’s names as inspiration.

Amanda Blair

Amanda is a radio presenter on 5AA, doing the 1-4 pm shift on weekdays. Before she had children, she says that she was completely disorganised and just did things to suit herself; now she runs on a tight schedule to military precision. Work is her “saviour”, as every afternoon she gets “adult time” where she can chat to other grown ups and have cups of tea.

She says it’s not possible to continue the life you had before children as a parent, and what she most misses is her friendships, which are often maintained with a brief phone call each month. Even though she has a nanny, her life still feels so “crazy” she wants to punch childless people in the face when they say they’re busy. However, she loves every second of it.

Amanda and her husband Michael Farquarson have four children, which they planned on a rigorous “breeding roster” for fear they would have trouble conceiving due to their age. Amanda considered herself completely non-maternal, but once she had one child was “hooked”, and immediately needed more of them, finding motherhood the best thing ever.

Their kids are Sidney (Sid), aged 7; Ginger, aged 5; Frank, aged 3; and Nancy, aged 2. Sidney is a boy and Ginger is a girl, in case you are wondering (see The Name Agender’s entry on Ginger for more information). It’s a lovely no-nonsense Australian sibset with Depression-era chic; there’s a school of thought that you can’t have famous couples’ names as siblings, but here we have a Sid and a Nancy! I’m not sure if it reminds anyone else of Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen; their self-destructive relationship was depicted in the film Sid and Nancy. Sid Vicious’ real name was John, however.

Rosanna Mangiarelli

We’ve seen celebrity mum Rosanna on the blog already; she’s the presenter of Channel 7’s current affairs show, Today Tonight. Out of all the mums interviewed, she seems the most conflicted about balancing career and motherhood, admitting to sobbing after dropping her daughter off at childcare. She only had 8 weeks maternity leave after having Emma, and is adamant that she needs more time off with the next baby.

She has Emma, aged 2 and a half, and as we know, she went on to have Olivia last month. Two Top 10 girls names that have been popular for a long time – both began rising in popularity during the 1970s and ’80s and were Top 20 by the 1990s. I get the feeling that Rosanna had these names picked out well in advance.

Niki Vasilakis

Niki is an award-winning concert violinist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, was named Young South Australian of the Year in 2007, is Youth Patron of the Adelaide Festival Centre, and had her first baby around a year ago. Being a performer, she couldn’t afford to have a lot of time off to have a baby, and was back at work within three weeks: she did her normal music practice the day she gave birth.

It’s been very challenging and she has had to make a lot of sacrifices, but she credits her “amazing husband” and “big Greek family” for providing her with “unbelievable support”. Her big tip? Don’t wear a satin gown to perform in while breast feeding.

Niki’s baby daughter is named Amarie-Rose. Amarie is one of those modern names that are hard to say where they originated from; it looks like a contraction of Anne-Marie, and that’s usually how it is understood.

(Story and photo from Sunday Mail, November 5 2011; photo shows Amanda Blair with her four children)