How to Find Your Way as a Working Mother

Being a working parent, as you’ll no doubt know, is a creative and challenging process. There’s no formula to follow or archetype to duplicate; we each find our own way to best align to our own ethics, needs, ambitions, and constructs. 

I’m not sharing advice here as a paragon of success – I don’t even think such a thing exists. But I have tried – as many do – to be a great mother and contribute to the workplace, and the broader planet, as my ambitions have led.

Along the way, I’ve collected a few pieces of wisdom. Some were through trial and error, and some by kind inputs from friends and colleagues who could see what was unfolding and cared enough to say something to support me to be better, make it easier, and more enjoyable.

Here are some key tips that I’d love to share, and I welcome you to share your own.

Tip One: Make it work on your terms

There is no one way of doing it. There is no right answer. Our children are all different. Their needs are different, and so are ours. Each of us are pioneering our own approach so that we can look back without regret and role model something inspired.

When I had my first child, I was concerned that things could be a real challenge for me. My child could be unwell; I could have mental illness or suffer post-partum depression. I mean, anything could happen. And when you’re anticipating a first child, your mind goes everywhere – so I created the space for myself to find out what I was dealing with and adjust before I decided what else I intended to do. 

My child was barely a month old when a friend rung up and said, “Zoe, we aren’t going to lose you to motherhood. I’m booking you to run a conference as soon as you’re back on board.”

I spent a week preparing (not for the conference, but to be able to physically leave my child) and flew my partner and child up with me to the event. I was in too much of a sleep deprived haze to even realise how extreme this was. 

And it was not an easy task. She didn’t settle with her dad. She drunk all that I had expressed in the first hour of his care. My partner made the decision (which we had agreed), to bring her to me if she couldn’t settle. So, I spent the entire conference, as the facilitator, with a baby curled up happily in my lap asleep. My child had pretty extreme separation anxieties, and this level of support was needed – the “crying it out” direction simply didn’t work with a child with anxiety.  But I did not know this at the time. I just knew it felt like the right direction to take in the moment.

The feedback from the participants was inspired. Mostly about the role modelling of care this showed, and that I managed to do both without a trade-off. But I can assure you, if my child had been anything but silent and sleeping with me, I would have changed course. 

Am I suggesting you take your baby into work? No. I am suggesting you be responsive to the needs in the moment of all the priorities, and ignore the indoctrinations you’ve been given and the judgements you expect to receive. You make the right call for you with all the considerations that need to be made – the care of the group, your own sanity and the needs of your child. 

You don’t need to make one thing more important than the other. In my experience, if you have this broad level of care and perspective, people are very accommodating and in fact, inspired by the humanity shown as it also gives them permission to find their own unique approach. As we all know, our role modelling is the key to change.

Tip Two: Get the support you need

Parenting is a full workload; it takes up all your attention and energy, and you will never have free time or the mental bandwidth for other things unless you feel it is worthwhile and create the space.

Parenting is a full workload; it takes up all your attention and energy, and you will never have free time or the mental bandwidth for other things unless you feel it is worthwhile and create the space. 

Other mums would say to me, “I don’t know who you do it all.” The truth for me was that I didn’t know how they did it all. I created the support I needed, and we all do this in our own way. Some share responsibilities with a spouse, some used group care providers, others have family, and some have none of these, yet we still have to find support somewhere – deliberately. I found it in networks, friends and nannies.

I love what I do, so when I was newly nursing, I knew I wanted to stretch to stay involved in work and broader contributions. This meant I often had a nanny beside me, travelling with me, or in the house as I worked. 

Yes, this is a costly approach. Yes, I could have gone without domestic support – and in writing this, I feel some self-consciousness that I could create the means to do it this way. And if I had any other option, I’m sure I would have taken it – as this would mean I’d have less debt, more holidays and better savings. But for me, it has been the only way I get to do it all without a feeling of trade-off. 

It was expensive, but also magical. It meant I didn’t miss a first step, or a lost tooth, or a first word. And some of these moments came during a workshop or coaching session with a client, and we shared it. It came with challenges, too, like when my child was so unsettled I have had to ask a colleague to hold my newborn while I showered before a workshop. I once asked an associate to take a child for a stroll in a city briefly while I met a key connection that could only meet me in a moment when I had been travelling with children.

And in the process of support, I made friends, we shared laughs, we shared tears, and we were all in the experience together – the humanness of the aspiration to care for kids and do more.

Tip Three: Never say you’re “Too busy”

Don’t tell your kids you’re “too busy”. To me this is one of two terribly insulting things to say to someone, and especially to your child.

Time is the one thing we all have the same amount of. So instead of saying you’re “too busy”, explain it in different terms: “I can’t make this event because of XYZ commitment and it’s really important because…”. 

I’ve done this with my kids, now eight and ten years old. I’ll explain why what I was doing was so important that I’d choose to be there, and I’d tell them what support I would put in place for them or how I’d honour what they needed. 

Now my kids join the conversation and contribute suggestions. “Maybe Dad will be there?” “Don’t worry about it, Mum. Have fun.” Or even, “Mum, this is really important to me, can you try and shift your commitment?” – and I do.

I think it’s such a sign of respect to another person to be honest and say, “This is not a priority to me. This other thing is what I am choosing right now, because…” . Even if the honesty is for yourself! But it is also a sign of respect to hear how important it is to them too.

Tip Four: Give up the guilt

Guilt is the one habit you do not have time or mental energy for. 

You need to work out what is right for you and how you want to do it. Again, think about making parenting and working work on your terms. Ask yourself: What is most important to you at this moment? Can something be realigned if it clashes with a child’s needs? Or can your child be supported to the same or better standard if you need to have your attention elsewhere? 

You cannot be creative or inspired when you are feeling guilty because you’re dropping one (or more) of your responsibilities.

Tip Five: Give up perfectionism

One example stands out for me. I had been up all night with my child, and she settled in well with care, but I arrived into a workshop with no pen. And I burst into tears at how unprepared I perceived myself to be. 

A fellow coach pulled me aside and simply said “WTF? Where is your perspective that this is what you are judging yourself for right now?”.

Over the years, I’ve arrived at workshops with two left shoes, and even once went to an airport still wearing slippers! But I just took it all in – and after a few self-deprecating laughs, moved on. The lack of perfection is humanness. It’s the beauty, it’s the elegance and it’s the humility. We simply need to let go of the perfectionism that exists, especially around women. 

To this day, with my kids older, I still find it hard to arrive without a scuff on my pants and the idea of a clean car is well beyond me. My laundry is a stockpile and my nails are never painted. But my work is prepared, I know what I’m doing and the value I contribute, and my children are loved and supported.

Tip Six: Never say you “need to go to work”

This tip was shared with me by an incredibly insightful coach when I first had to leave my children with a nanny and deliver a workshop. 

The kids were unsettled, and didn’t want me to go, and in agitation I said, “I need to go to work!”

A beautiful colleague overheard me and gently helped me realise then that I was making “work” – a weird thing that had no meaning to them – a higher priority than they were. 

The full weight of it hit me. I was training them to resent the idea of me “working”, because it meant they didn’t get my time, and they weren’t my priority. 

So instead, I told them why I was going to the conference, what I was doing, and who I hoped to help. They were little, and barely understood. But they dropped me off and they picked me up. And they knew, if they needed me, I could be interrupted. They also knew I would find a carer for them who was so good they wouldn’t miss me. 

To this day, my children participate in childcare selection. They tell me what they need from a carer, and they ask me what I’m doing and who I’m helping when I leave to run a workshop. And the result is that my children don’t think of my work as this meaningless place I disappear to. Instead, they tell others that “Mum helps people”. 

In taking the time to explain to my children why it was important to me to go away from them, they got to become part of it, and they got to be part of empowering me.

A final word

Over the years, I have worked with nannies all over the world and taken my children to workshops with small and large businesses, with iwi leaders and boards, and in international conventions. Every time the participants have been supportive and helped me find my way. 

But I also have been vigilant in the care of my kids and the care of the work I am doing, and at equal levels. At the end of the day, if I compromised the care of either, I compromised my own integrity. 

Although I wrote this from the perspective of a working mother, I see this as an exploration for working dads too. I see so many men compromise their contributions to the home without realising, that slowly they lose their own integrity in this space. 

We need to be creative and view all of this – at home and at work commitments – as important, and find our own way, with our own family and support networks we have, to make our lives work align with our aspirations. We can’t get the time back, after all – so we’d better make it all count. And to the women, hesitant of returning to work: do what is best for you – but don’t underestimate the role modelling power of you doing all you aspire to. You are needed, and the contribution you make in all areas is important. Parenting does not make you rusty. It challenges, enriches and grows you if you’re up for the creative learning of it all.