Figuring Out Work-Life Balance As A Professional And Mother

Guilt comes in waves.

When my daughter was almost 3 months old, I began preparing to return to the office. My husband and I are fortunate that he worked for a company that provided 12 weeks of family leave for non-birthing partners. This meant that he would transition to being the full time caregiver for our daughter in the following months. I meticulously reviewed my schedule, built in breaks to pump at work and obsessed over how many photo updates I would need from my husband each day.

This was my way of coping with my return to work anxiety. While I was anxious about jumping back into my job again, I was primarily losing sleep over the anticipated guilt I would have leaving my daughter for 9 hours a day. I dreaded the guilt as well as the impact it would have on my professional life.

Day one came along and shockingly, I felt no guilt—only excitement to be back, and a bit of hesitation as I eased myself back into work life.

Week one came to an end and my husband asked me how I felt after my first week back. I was delighted and energized. I was thrilled to be back at work, regaining a part of me that I hold very dear, and I didn’t feel any guilt for leaving my daughter at home. I was happy to be back at work, doing work that I enjoyed, and I knew that my daughter was being cared for at home.

A few months later, another working mom asked me how I handle the “mom guilt” when I am working and my daughter is at home. I told her that I did not feel guilty at all and that I enjoyed my work from her, in addition to my new family time. She was a little shocked, and replied “Wow, I’m impressed. I feel like I am always feeling guilty for leaving.” Her statement de ella was more about her than it was about me, but it hit me like a ton of bricks… Why did n’t I feel guilty? I should feel guilty. I should never want to leave my child. Am I a horrible mother? What kind of mom would be excited to leave their 6 month old from her?

And that is how it happened. That is when my “mom guilt” settled in. I felt guilty, for not feeling guilty, which just created a new layer of “mom guilt” I didn’t know existed.

I share this because I was, and am, confident that I am a better mother, partner, employee and human when I invest in my career aspirations, and yet the “mom guilt” is still an obstacle. Over time it has become more like a speed bump, a quick and fading feeling that comes and goes at different moments. It is my new normal.

Great, reliable childcare may come and go.

When I was 5 months pregnant a colleague of mine asked me what I planned to do for childcare. I told her that I hadn’t thought too much about it, but that we were leaning towards daycare. That’s when she asked me a question that would begin the most stressful part of my parenting journey – which waitlists are you on?

Wait list? This isn’t a social club or a Michelin Star restaurant, is it? We’re still talking about daycares and nannies, right? I was still four months from my due date, and I figured I would start calling daycares after my daughter was born.

This is when I learned the harsh reality that so many parents have to learn: there is a shortage of daycares in the United States, and for those parents who are able to find an available daycare, they may incur monthly tuition costs that are often more than their mortgage payments.

That day I spent a few hours researching local daycare centers and submitting inquiries for availability. I learned pretty quickly that the next available daycare opening would be around my daughter’s first birthday de ella, leaving me to find full-time care for her between three and eleven months. With this in mind, we were left with no choice, but to look into getting a nanny. A nanny in our area costs around 30% more than daycare, but we were out of options.

My daughter is almost ten months old now and we have had three nannies. Each one was wonderful, but for personal reasons (moving to a new state, acceptance into a post-graduate program, and a health scare) they didn’t last very long. For a while I thought maybe it was just us, but after speaking with other working parents I have learned that this isn’t abnormal. Every time a nanny gave her leave notice, it left us without childcare for a period of time as we searched for and interviewed new nannies. With both my husband and I working full-time jobs, we now had mounting stress at home as we juggled our daughter from one Zoom meeting to the next.

The stress of finding good, reliable child care for working parents is relentless. I have felt more stress in the past ten months than I have ever felt in my entire life. I am fortunate to work for a company that has supported me throughout our childcare journey and has never made me feel guilty for leaving a meeting early, or jumping on five minutes late because it overlapped with nap time. Yet, as someone who takes pride in their work, and enjoys the job, it creates an incredible amount of stress as I feel myself unable to fill my expectations for myself.

But, I also realize I’m the minority in my corporate situation. I know many parents (mostly female) who have to worry that their child care situation may negatively impact their career. The number of women I know who have taken career breaks not because they wanted to, but because they had to, is starting.

I knew being a working parent, a working mother, was going to be hard, but I did not realize that so much of the difficulty would stem from child care and the weight it would put on my professional self. In those moments, I try to remember that I’m not alone and there are other parents out there, some of them colleagues, with the same daily challenges.

You can’t be present at both, at the same time.

I saved this learning for last, as it was the most freeing realization of motherhood.

I am type A, a perfectionist, and I have a need to succeed. The value I put on myself as a person is often directly connected to how I am performing at work (we can debate whether or not that is healthy at another time). So when I became a mother, I was determined to add “mom” to my professional list of duties. I would excel at motherhood just as I do at work.

Being a mom was new for me, and as someone who didn’t have the strongest set of maternal instincts, it was a bumpy road. Throughout the course of my maternity leave, I became more and more accustomed to this new part of my life. We had a schedule, KPIs and milestones. I started to feel confident in myself as I navigated this new role.

Then I went back to work.

The first few months back at work were great, but I now call it the “honeymoon phase.” As the months rolled on, and I settled back into my job, the work started to pile up. I could feel the pressure of the business as my inbox and incomplete projects mounted. I couldn’t understand why I was unable to match the speed of the business. As someone who previously didn’t work by the 9 to 5 clock, but would work the hours required to get the job done, this was exceptionally difficult because I didn’t have “extra” hours to spare. I was bound by my child’s schedule, so I began to find myself trying to finish work from 9 to 11 pm when my daughter was asleep.

I caught up with work, but it was exhausting. On top of this my daughter started teething and our restful nights became a series of short naps. My exhausted state was showing in my work. I hated that I couldn’t deliver on time and that I was letting my team down.

This stress and feeling of failure crept into my home life. I tried to find more ways to work, with my phone being my tool of choice. I would write emails, send out Slack messages, and update Salesforce reports during dinner and playtime. I felt that I was still able to be a great mom, while also multitasking.

One night, I was feeding my daughter a bottle with one hand, while working away on an email in the other hand. I looked down at her and she was just staring at me. Her little blue eyes wide open and staring. The tidal wave of guilt came over me in an instant. I suddenly realized that in my attempt to be great at work, I was failing at home. All my daughter needed from me was my presence of her, and I had been unable to give her that.

Those tiny blue eyes spurred on what has been the biggest revelation of my career.

I realized that I had to be present when I was working, and I needed to be present while I was parenting. My professional self and my mom self needed to create boundaries.

I can’t be present at both, at the same time.

The first step was building boundaries for myself at work. This was significantly easier for my team than for me. I learned to say “no” to projects and I started to delegate more. Creating a more manageable workload made me more productive during the day because I was able to focus.

The second step was building boundaries for myself at home. Simple things like silencing notifications and leaving my phone in my purse. During this time, I also learned that my daughter loves dogs, so we started going on walks to search for dogs at the park, or “doe doe” as she now calls them.

The last step was learning that some days, the boundaries will blur and I will have to decide if I am going to be a great parent or a great employee that day. During one of our nanny-less periods, my professional self and mom self collided. Like so many caregivers, I was finding myself in endless Zoom meetings with my daughter. Trying to mesh your work schedule with your parenting schedule is almost impossible, especially for younger kids who are still building a routine. So I started to make a deliberate decision each morning I found myself without childcare – was today a great work day, or a great parenting day? That decision would then guide my day.

Learning that I can’t be great at both at all times gave me the forgiveness I needed to allow myself to survive. I began giving myself grace when I had to push back a meeting because my daughter needed to go down for a nap, or when my daughter needed to spend all day in the playpen because I needed to be present at work.

How I am reframing failure.

Becoming a parent was the biggest life-changing decision I have ever made, and never could I have predicted how it would impact me personally and professionally. I have learned that I couldn’t and shouldn’t expect to push 100% in all parts of my life like I used to—it will leave me burnt out and feeling like I’ve failed.

I’ve learned that I am very fortunate to work for an employer that adapted to my life changes, supports a culture of working parents, as well as provided me a place to grow professionally. Having a child is a massive change for an employee, something that should be recognized and supported at work. Working for a company that acknowledges this life event and supports you through it is imperative to a successful return to work. It might still be a bumpy road, but being supported in your professional life as your personal life changes is something I cannot under value.

Over time, I have learned that if I don’t have a perfectly crafted schedule, organic food in my daughter’s belly, or an impending promotion at work, I haven’t failed at anything—I’ve succeeded by surviving another day of balancing the impossible. It’s not glamorous, or nearly as seamless as my pre-baby-self thought it would be, but in accepting each day as they come, it feels like success.