Overworked Corporate Mom Reveals The 5 Things She Struggles With Most When It Comes To Being A Working Mother
"Motherhood is hard. Sending love to every parent."
Ekaterina Bolovtsova / Pexels Among the innumerable changes motherhood brings, many women find that their priorities shift after having a baby. Their lives become less focused on what goes on outside their home, and they turn inward toward caring for the new life they brought into the world.
Yet, with the high cost of raising kids, a lot of parents can’t afford to stay home, meaning that their attention is divided between work and parenting.
Salma Coetzee is a first-time mom with a toddler and a corporate job. She shared how hard going back to work has been in the hopes that “other moms who can relate can offer advice or support comments.”
The overworked corporate mom revealed the 5 things she struggles with most as a working mother:
1. She only gets 2 hours with her daughter on weeknights
“I have been back to work from my maternity leave for almost six months now, and it has been a huge struggle,” Coetzee said.
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It’s been hard for her to accept the limited time she spends with her daughter on workdays. After she gets home from work and her daughter gets home from daycare, they only have 2 hours before bedtime to spend together.
Coetzee explained that during those 2 hours, her attention was divided: She had to do dinner prep, eat dinner, give her daughter a bath, and go through her nighttime routine.
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Returning to work after parental leave is an especially difficult transition, as you go from spending entire days with your newborn to leaving them so you can work.
In the U.S., paid parental leave isn’t a federal requirement. Rather, it’s left up to each individual state to decide whether or not to allocate time off for new parents.
While the Family Medical Leave Act provides 12 weeks of unpaid, protected time off, 40% of women don’t actually qualify to be covered under the act. Only 27% of women working in the private sector have access to paid family leave. 25% of new moms return to work within two weeks of giving birth to support their families financially.
Without federal protections, moms are placed in an impossible situation, which Coetzee speaks to by outlining her back-to-work struggles.
2. When she works late, she doesn’t see her daughter until the next morning
If Coetzee is required to work late, she misses putting her daughter to bed and doesn’t get to see her until the next morning. “It breaks me,” she said.
In describing her emotional turmoil, Coetzee invoked a lyric from Taylor Swift’s song, “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.”
She explained that her “only response” to the question, “How are you keeping up with being a mom, working a full-time corporate job, and dealing with all the mental load of motherhood?” was to reply with Swift’s line, “I cry a lot, but I am so productive.”
3. She only has weekends to ‘fully spend time’ with her daughter
Even though she has weekends with her daughter, two days aren’t enough to balance caregiving and maintaining a household at the same time.
While she wants to spend all her time with her daughter on weekends, she also has to run errands and do chores, meaning that her attention is still divided, even when she’s home with her daughter.
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4. She feels guilty that her daughter is at daycare more than she’s at home
Coetzee explained that her daughter “is at daycare more than she is at home with me” and then referred to the feeling of “mom guilt” she experiences because of that.
According to Forbes Magazine, 70.6% of moms who have children under the age of 18 go to work.
Coetzee described a common feeling among working moms: the guilt that accompanies splitting your time between your job and your family and never feeling like you’re doing the right thing.
Coetzee shared that she received many comments telling her to quit her job and stay home with her kids, to which she replied, “I wish it were that easy; I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“Unfortunately, with the cost of living and raising a child in this economy, we need at least two incomes to be comfortable, and we cannot rely on just one,” she explained.
“Would I like to spend more time with my daughter? Yes. Would I prefer that she’s at home more than she’s at daycare? Absolutely. Do I wish I had the option to become a stay-at-home mom? All the time.”
Coetzee’s honesty highlights how many moms find themselves torn between their personal and professional lives without being able to live exactly as they want to.
5. She feels too tired to do fun things
Coetzee said that she’s “so overworked and overwhelmed that the mental load [has] started taking a toll on me physically.”
She feels “so guilty” if she says she’s too tired to do fun activities with her daughter.
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Coetzee is speaking her truth and sharing her reality with the hopes that other moms who feel alone in their experience can relate to what she’s saying.
“Motherhood is hard, whether you are a stay-at-home mom, [a] work-from-home mom, [a] corporate mom, it is not easy and we are faced with our own challenges,” she concluded. “Let's keep supporting all the moms.”
By revealing her struggles, Coetzee heard echoes from other moms going through the same thing, something which provided her solace and an understanding that all moms are doing the best they can for their families.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.