even if the balance isn’t perfect

This week was one of those weeks in parenthood that can only be described bluntly—it was a shitshow.

I probably should have seen it coming when Zora slept in until 7:20 am on Monday when she’s normally a 6:50–7:00 am girlie. She seemed fine, save for the runny nose that she and all the other toddlers in Brooklyn seem to have right now, so we sent her to our nanny share family’s house. By the end of the day, she was running a fever, her eyes were glossy, and she barely wanted to eat. I hated that my baby girl wasn’t feeling well, and I started spiraling at the derailment of my week that I could see coming now that we’d have to keep her out of childcare. I booked a sick visit the next morning, where the pediatrician suspected that Zora had the flu but reassured us that she was probably at the tail end of it. The rest of the week was a chaotic game of tag between my husband and me, trying to juggle working at home and taking care of our sick patient.

“Can you take her? I have a Zoom call at 3 pm.”
“Sure, I have a meeting I can probably skip.”
“I’ll have to work after she goes to bed to play catch-up.”
“Let me cancel plans I had with a friend—I don’t want to get her and her family sick.”

At work, my team was supportive and understanding, but I still felt the pressure to show up like it was a normal day while also feeling guilty that my husband was taking on what felt like a bigger share of childcare. I felt like a coward for not just taking a few sick days and logging off to fully tend to the child who relies on me to keep her alive and well.

I was experiencing the conundrum of the modern working mother:
Mother like you don’t have a job, work like you’re not a mother.

My past self actually saw this situation unfolding, and I deliberately made a career move to make it less painful. In my early days in advertising, I would see female leaders do the dance that I’m all too familiar with now:

“Hey team, I’m heading out for daycare pickup and bedtime, but don’t worry, I’ll be online tonight to pick up where I left off! Call or text me if it’s an emergency!!”

Even as a 20-something at the beginning of my career, with zero thoughts of motherhood on my mind, I knew that those women were being put in an impossible and unfair position.

As my career evolved, I found myself in leadership roles with more responsibility and more pressure. I wasn’t raring to have a child, but I knew that I wanted one someday, and I dreaded finding myself in the same position as the leaders I once observed, in an industry as unforgiving as advertising. I was increasingly disillusioned with trying to sell people shit they didn’t need and spending my time developing strategies for how to be a snarky brand on Twitter. After 4.5 years of leading creative strategy teams, I took a $40,000 pay cut and became a creative recruiter.

This, of course, didn’t solve all my problems, but it released a lot of pressure. I was no longer responsible for managing a department full of people, and I wasn’t on the hook for multi-million-dollar scopes of work that my team had to deliver. If I had stayed on that path, I would likely be striving for Chief Marketing Officer, Head of Marketing, or Chief Strategy Officer roles. There was absolutely no bone in my body that ever wanted to have any of those titles, but it was kind of the only way up. I’m a recovering Type-A-Honor-Roll-Perfectionist, so even though these destinations weren’t my heart’s desire, I know that I would have felt like a failure if I didn’t get there.

Instead, my new path gave me somewhat of a flat footing. Sure, there’s opportunity to grow in some ways, but now I can make decent money without having to be client-facing, responsible for making money for the company, or managing a whole department of people. And most of all, I don’t feel the amount of pressure that I know I would feel as a senior leader who also happens to be a mother. Even now as an individual contributor, I still feel pressure, and while I don’t want to generalize that every working mother feels this too, the working culture in the U.S. has a certain set of unfair expectations for us. Shanna Hocking summed up almost my exact feelings about it in this 2019 Motherly piece:

Being a working mother required a dual identity I hadn’t been prepared for. I felt the need to take on the extra assignment at work to show I could—to prove that I and every other working mother could work overtime. I was determined to make homemade cupcakes for the birthday party. And I talked about neither of these experiences at work or home, except with my husband and closest friends. It seemed like everyone else had this all figured out, while I was the one missing work deadlines, missing school programs, missing my family, missing myself.

I made a whole-ass career pivot because I was scared of being a working mother in a leadership role, and I’m still struggling to make it all work. The pressure is far less, but it’s still not a walk in the park.

On Friday, Bill had to go into the studio, so I was solo parenting while Zora was still sick. I had a quick meeting at 1:45 pm and a meeting at 2 pm, and between the two, Zora woke up from her nap screaming. I hopped off my first call a few minutes early so I could do my best to settle her before the next meeting that I was expected to lead. She did generally okay for the first few minutes, sitting on my lap, fascinated by the four other faces on the screen, but soon she was wiggling out of my lap, crying, “Momma up! Momma up!” and attempting to get me out of the chair to play on the floor with her. While someone else was talking, I quickly muted my camera and audio, ran to the kitchen to grab a popsicle, and got her to settle back into my lap while purple-colored ice melted all over my hand.

Despite the popsicle, Zora cried throughout the rest of the meeting, with me strategically muting and unmuting my audio to attempt to lead the call like everything was fine. Once the call ended, I canceled the rest of my meetings, sat Zora next to me on the couch to watch some cartoons, and hoped to fire off a few emails. She wasn’t into the TV at all and kept trying to close my laptop. After the third attempt, I took it as a sign. I powered it down, put on her shoes and jacket, and we spent the next hour walking around the neighborhood, taking in the fresh air. As we walked, I tried to be present in the moment—what truly could be more important than taking care of my sick child? But in the back of my mind, I was calculating how late I’d have to stay up to make up for the work I didn’t get done.

I know that lots of parents have experienced these types of weeks and wish I had a solution for how to make it easier to navigate. I wish our country’s culture of work centered the humanity of workers. That it understood that we’re people first, with families, friends, and children who we want to be able to drop everything for when they need us. If we had a better social safety net with people-focused policies, we might not all feel beholden to put work above all, knowing without it, we don’t have health insurance or a way to keep the lights on and our kids fed.

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think I’ll ever get this working mother balance right. But I know that Zora won’t remember how well I led a meeting or if I missed a few emails. I hope that she remembers that when she didn’t feel well and needed me, I always chose her over work. And I don’t take for granted that I have a job that allows me the flexibility I never would have had in my former career, even if the balance isn’t perfect. I still wish our culture valued people over productivity, but until then, I’ll keep doing my best.

portrait of a sleeping baby and frazzled mom, trying to do it all

Anyways friends, here’s a playlist to shake off a long week.

<3 Meghan