The working-mom framework that changed my life
Knowing how to distinguish rubber balls from glass balls makes all the difference.
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For a long time, I was trying to do what so many of us are told is possible if we just try a little harder: all of it, all at once, perfectly.
I had a demanding job and, when my first son was born, I found myself doing both jobs at once: working full-time while caring for a newborn full-time, my body still in active recovery. It wasn’t a solution. It was one of the hardest periods of my life.
Women are often held to these impossible expectations and I was no different. I’d work my 9-5 and then my 5-9, but neither were that cut and dry—my 9-5 was actually more like 9-8, and my 5-9 was closer to 5-11. The books I read seemed to suggest, in a Cher Horowitz paraphrase, that there were 24 usable hours in a day and the best thing to do was wake up earlier, stay up later, and chunk my time into microscopic intervals.
I wanted to have it all. Then I realized the cost.
Early on, I did try to do it all, because I thought I had to. I put my all into work and then came home to read to my son, actively engage, make baby food from scratch, and on and on. If I didn’t do all of that, I’d feel like I was failing. I’d find myself apologizing to whoever I felt like I was letting down.
“I continued to step into opportunity after opportunity, recognizing that with each step forward came one step back in a different area of my life.”
We got through it, settled into a new kind of chaos, and then, a couple of years later, came my second child. While I was lucky to have more maternity leave, having an infant and a toddler intensified the load, all while I was attempting to grow my career. I continued to step into opportunity after opportunity, recognizing that with each step forward came one step back in a different area of my life. I found myself giving everything to the employees I was supporting and the career I wanted to grow, leaving very little emotional bandwidth for the end of the day when my children (and husband) needed me to be calm, present, and patient.
I wanted to be all the things for everyone, but I couldn’t.
All around me, I watched women leave the workforce. It was too much, they said—too many places to be, too many things to carry. I understood it completely. And I didn’t want it to be me. I wanted to have it all. And that was the exact moment I understood that I couldn’t, at least not in the way I’d been trying to.
How I learned which balls I could let drop
The shift wasn’t about lowering my ambitions. It was about getting honest with myself in a way I’d been avoiding.
I realized that when a major reorganization or change management initiative demanded my full presence, it would mean less at home. And I realized that when my children were struggling through something hard, it would mean drawing a cleaner line at work. These weren’t failures. They were trade-offs—and the difference between those two words is everything.
“I started sorting the things I was juggling into two categories. Some of them are glass: If I drop them, they shatter, and there’s no recovering what’s lost. Others are rubber and they’ll just keep bouncing until I have a chance to catch them.”
Here’s the framework that changed how I think about all of it: I started sorting the things I was juggling into two categories. Some of them are glass: If I drop them, they shatter, and there’s no recovering what’s lost. Others are rubber and they’ll just keep bouncing until I have a chance to catch them.
For example, did I think making my own baby food was important? Yes. But if my child ate food that was half store-bought pouches and half homemade, that was also great! Rubber ball. Glass balls are things like parent-teacher conferences, board meetings as an executive, critical project launches, or milestone assemblies.
With that reframe in mind, I stopped apologizing for which ball I was choosing to hold.
That also meant getting honest about things that were harder to say out loud. It is hard for women, myself included, to admit that sometimes family is what gives. That sometimes I am going to choose a work deliverable over being the one who does the school pickup or makes the dinner or sits with the homework. For years, that kind of admission felt like a betrayal, not just by society’s standards but by the unspoken rules mothers hold each other to. But pretending I wasn’t making that choice didn’t make the choice go away. It just made me feel worse about it.
The trade-offs I stopped apologizing for
Here’s what actually helped:
I got deliberate about my calendar. When I know there’s a week where my family needs more of me—like that end-of-year crush when I feel like I’m at school every day for a different assembly—I protect energy for that, making sure draining meetings aren’t piled on so I have bandwidth when it matters.
I started leaning on my spouse as a real partner, not a backup. He’s a fully capable adult who doesn’t do everything the way I would—but he can step in fully, and he does. Releasing my grip on being the one who handles everything was its own kind of work. Grocery shopping is entirely his because I realized I could let go of that. Correspondence with teachers is mine—I’m particular about how things are phrased, and when my husband would write an email, I’d end up editing it so heavily that it just made sense to own it myself.
And I started asking myself the question I always asked my employees: When did you last do something just for you? I am a better mother and a better leader when I also make time for things that bring me joy—both big things and small, from an extra day to explore on my own when I travel for work to sneaking in a little reality TV before I make lunches for the next day.
Today I run my own business, which might look from the outside like total freedom and flexibility. What it actually means is that I’ve had to build the structure myself. I set boundaries with clients from the start, but I also need to show up and make sure work is delivered. That requires tradeoffs every day.
The other week, school called while I was in a meeting and I didn’t answer, reminding myself that, if it’s urgent, they’ll call my husband too. I later stepped away from another meeting when my kid knocked on my office door because they were feeling frustrated by a homework assignment and needed a quick hug and “you can do it!” cheer—and I was not apologetic about it.
That’s what this actually looks like. Not a tidy system. Not having it all figured out. Just knowing which balls are glass, making the call, and refusing to apologize for the fact that you made one.
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