Tessa Reed wakes up before sunrise on weekdays, long before most people even hit the snooze button for the first time. She leaves the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her boyfriend and their cat, and drives roughly two miles from Midtown Kansas City, Mo., to a five-bedroom house in the more affluent South Plaza neighborhood. Forget a 9 to 5, she arrives at her job before 6 a.m.

The house is, for all intents and purposes, her second home. It’s also kind of her office. Reed, 27, is a house manager, though she half jokingly refers to herself as an estate manager, because of the breadth of her responsibilities. She, along with a small support staff, cooks, cleans, books appointments, handles home repairs, and manages the lives of a family of four that includes two small children and their parents, both doctors with very demanding schedules.

Before anyone in the house is up, Reed has let herself in, packed lunches, puttered around getting everything in order, and double checked schedules for the day. Then it’s time to wake the kids, five and seven, for school before starting her routine of making sure everyone's day runs like clockwork. Well, to the extent that it's in her control—and she controls quite a lot.

"I'm an additional paid family member," Reed says. She thinks of herself as a third parent, collaborating with her bosses on almost everything related to their home and family, so they can focus on their careers.

There's an age-old question: Is it possible to have it all? And what are you willing to sacrifice? Is it possible for anyone to balance family life with a high-powered career? It's no secret this is often not a problem for men in positions of power, while women are too frequently forced to choose between the two. But those who manage to reach the top know the truth: Nobody gets to have it all without a lot of paid help. That's where Reed comes in.

Reed has worked as a house manager, if not entirely in title, for eight years. She started as a nanny for kids in the foster home of a family friend. After a while, she realized the kids were thriving on their schedules and didn't really need all of her attention, so she threw herself into other aspects of maintaining the home.