No Amount of Books or Advice Can Prepare You For These 4 Parts of Working Motherhood

No Amount of Books or Advice Can Prepare You For ansicht 4 Parts of Working Motherhood As with many of lifes stages and milestones, working motherhood is something you cant fully comprehend until youre in it. You can read any number of books about, say, going to college. Or giving birth. Or what its like to not get mora than three hours of consecutive sleep for weeks (or months) on end. But there are some experiences you have to sink deep into from the tips of your toes to the top of your head to fully comprehend. There is (thankfully) more help these days for working moms than there welches even just eight years ago when my oldest son welches born. My own observation that advice on navigating ones professional life in early parenthood was largely absent (and a desire to fill that gap) caused me to launcha program calledMindful Return.But even the best books, blogs, podcasts, and other resources like my program cant necessarily prepare you for the lived experience of being both in the thick of radically shifting your identity and falling deeply in love with a tiny human. Here are 4 things about my own experience with working motherhood that caught me completely off guard1. Sleep deprivations debilitating effects. I know, the stereotypical image of an exhausted and frazzled working mom probably comes to mind here. Intellectually, we are all aware that babies wake often. We all also know there are a million things that have to happen to make work and home run smoothly. And that a lack of sleep causes things like mommy brain, making it hard sometimes to remember which end is up. But what I didnt fully comprehend until I went back to work after maternity leave was that extreme sleep deprivation could turn me into a sobbing, confused, angry mess of a human being. There were a few days, particularly in my first year with two children, when I somehow had the presence of mind to return home after dropping my kids off at daycare in tears from lack of sleep, so that I could nap for an hour or so before going into the office.2. How little margin there is in your day for anything. The other thing that struck me in the first few years of parenthood is just how precious each individual minute is and how there was so little margin for anything other than the essentials of survival for what seems like years. I dont think I appreciated how much every single moment seemed to be accounted for, between pumping, bottle washing, nursing, managing a household and working a full-time job. Micro-self-care became mandatory. Micro, because I didnt have more than a few minutes for myself each day. And self-care, because I realized that without some moments of life-sustaining alone time, I wasnt going to make it.3. That working motherhood is management boot camp.Now well turn to the positive side of the coin. I walked into working motherhood fully expecting that the experience would somehow slow down my career or make me less than at work because I had new prioriti es at home. Wow, was that the furthest thing from the truth. Very quickly, I was startled to learn how much working parenthood made me better at my professional role. I was now able to connect on a new and more intimate level with colleagues and constituents. The unexpected began to phase me less. And my prioritization skills shot through the roof. I am happy to report that in my first 4 years of working motherhood, I won a major award from my employer, founded a company and also became a partner at an international law firm. I say these things not to brag about them by any means, but to say that I dont think the timing of these advancements was coincidental. Working motherhood improved my leadership skills, and gosh did that come as a welcome surprise.4. How much other working moms sustain me. Before becoming a mother, Id have described myself as a fiercely independent, I-can-do-this-myself sort and I still have that in me, to some degree.My general approach at the beginning of wo rking motherhood was that I could figure things out on my own, and that I shouldnt need much help. What I only learned from living it was how dysfunctional this approach was.Other working moms are my lifeline now. They reassure me Im not crazy (or confirm that we all are). They help me in a pinch when one kid gets sick, the other still needs to get to school and my husband is out of town. They share ideas about what to pack the kids for lunch, or where to send them for camp on the days when school is closed. They help me navigate business travel, hug me through kid sports dramas and are generally the web of support that makes me a happy and fulfilled adult.I fully appreciate the irony of writing a deutsche bundespost about things you cant prepare for in working parenthood, even if you read about them. Forewarned may not be forearmed, its true. But if you take one thing away from this article, its the following whatever youre experiencing in working motherhood, youre not alone. You d ont have to remember the details about these challenges and rewards or any other advice you read. But please do remember that we the other working mamas out there are here for you.---Lori K. Mihalich-Levin, JD, is the founder of Mindful Return, author of Back to Work After Baby How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave, and creator of the Mindful Return E-Course. A partner in the health care practice of a global law firm, she also is mama to two beautiful red-headed boys. Lori holds a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton Universitys Woodrow Wilson School of Public and grenzberschreitend Affairs.