When I had my oldest daughter, Grace, I felt like I was as prepared as possible to become a mom. My husband and I had been happily married for five years, I had a ton of experience taking care of children, we were financially secure, and I was at the end of my training to become a pediatrician.
I'll admit — I'm not naturally a morning person and if I didn't have a family to take care of, my morning routine would probably look something like this: wake up when I feel like it, shower (alone without kids asking for breakfast), take supplements, drink coffee, go for a walk, eat breakfast, then start working. However, my current phase of life doesn't allow me to have such a leisurely morning routine.
My top strength is "discipline," which means when my family's schedules were thrown into upheaval during quarantine, I immediately got to work organizing my daughters' maze of online school schedules and modifying my own schedule to keep as much order as possible.
New parents re-entering the workforce are often juggling the tangible realities of daycare logistics, sleep deprivation, and a cascade of overwhelming work. No matter how parents build their family, they often struggle with the guilt of being split between home and work and not feeling exceptionally successful in either place.