At 9 a.m., Jan Fenwick sits in her bedroom -- the one quiet place in the Pi Beta Phi sorority house -- and contemplates the rest of the day ahead of her.

She's already been up for three hours since she had to cook breakfast for "her girls." Next, she'll head off to interview potential cooks. After that, there's a staff meeting, some repairmen to deal with, and a photo shoot for the girls' composite pictures that Fenwick will supervise.

Fenwick is one of nine sorority house mothers at the University of Colorado. It's their job to hold their houses of 60-plus women each together.

The job of a house mother requires managing the day-to-day operations around the house: supervising the staff, overseeing the repairs and maintenance, upholding the policies and standards of the chapter, and being the supportive "mother" to all the sorority girls living with them.

The hardest part of the job is knowing that it is a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week commitment, and that sleep deprivation comes along with it, said Jane Gray, the house mom of Kappa Alpha Theta. Listening to "heartbreak" stories, dealing with mansion maintenance and the frustrating 4 a.m. alarms are only a few details of the daily house mom duties.

Most house moms are between the ages of 40 and 60, Mona Meyers writes on her Web site -- sororitymom.com. Meyers, who also wrote an e-book about the life of a sorority house director, notes that living in the house means following the same rules that the sorority girls are required to -- including no men and no booze, though it varies from house to house.

According to CU sorority house moms, they typically earn $18,000 to $25,000 as a starting salary, and get benefits that include health care, meals, utilities, security, housekeeping services, yard work, holiday vacations and one weekend off each month.

Still, even their time off is sometimes interrupted.

"When I go out to dinner, I have to have my phone on next to me," Gray said. "When the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night and it is snowing and girls are in the shower, it's my responsibility. That's why that weekend each month is vital to my sanity," Gray said.

Of course a house mom's vacation requires a house "babysitter" -- usually a friend -- who stays at the house from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night the housemother is gone.

Jo Walker, a Delta Gamma sorority sister, said she appreciates her house mom, but wouldn't want to be one herself.

"I don't know how they do it," Walker said. "All the late nights, drunken messes and drama, drama, drama would be too much for me to take all the time. But oh, how we love them."

For many sorority sisters, the house truly becomes their home away from home, often because of the relationships they form with their house mom.

It's those relationships that also keep the house moms coming back year after year. Fenwick, a Pi Phi alumna, has been the sorority's housemother for the past 11 years.

"Watching what happens amongst the young women and how you see them grow from freshmen into the life-long bonding friendships they discover by the time they are seniors" is one thing that Fenwick said she appreciates about her job.

"I love how energizing this job is," she said. "It really keeps you young and makes you feel part of something big."