I saw this "restructuring" coming. I prepared myself as much as I could. Got my kids on my husband's company's health plan, luckily their open enrollment just happened. They gave me a decent severance and we have a good chunk of savings.

My anxiety pays off sometimes.

I am a stay at home mom for now. But I don't know where my career stands since it's essentially being replaced by AI. I guess I'm on the hunt and just going to try to spend the rest of summer with my kids.

I am so numb right now.

Hi all! I’m a Mom to an almost 2 year old, and I work in healthcare. I commute 4 days/week ~1-1.5 hours each way on a train to a large hospital where I have worked for the better part of a decade. I finally got a promotion where I no longer work weekends and holidays back in January. My husband works from home primarily, and does all pick up/drop off/dinner prep. I see my baby about an hour in the evening which always feels rushed.
Last fall, I applied for a new job that would be hybrid (2 days/month in the office) that literally hundreds of other people applied for. After a months long process I learned I did not get it, but one of my best friends did. Upset, but moved on knowing likely more positions would open in the future.
In the time since, I updated my resume, thought incredibly thoughtfully of what skills I have and what I need to work on to translate to this role, and how to showcase that. When a position was posted a month ago, my resume was prepped and I applied. I practiced mock interviewing with my friend, my husband, and AI. I prepared answers to questions and reviewed for weeks.
I learned they had multiple applicants but selected 4 to interview. I had my interview and I felt very good, confident, I had answers to all of the questions. Our interview ran a little over so I didn’t get all of the time I had hoped to ask a few questions but no matter. They let me know I’d hear by the end of the following week (last week).
This came and went with me pathologically checking my email, so I messaged them yesterday again thanking for the time and opportunity to interview and to check on the status.
I hear back in the evening that they’re moving forward to the second interview with other candidates.

I didn’t even get a second interview. The part that is absolutely killing me is it was a four paragraph glowing review of me, my resume and my interview and skill set. Zero negative, nothing to improve upon. I did email back thanking them for letting me know, expressing my disappointment and requesting constructive feedback. I heard back today from the same person again with glowing feedback, but she said she’d reach out to the rest of the team for additional feedback if they wanted.

I feel like I am broken. I worked so hard for this and to not even be told why, just be told you’re wonderful but too bad, and given nothing to improve kills me. This would have been life changing- so much more time with my family, much better work life balance. Ongoing skill growth. I feel like I’ve let my family down. I am beyond disappointed in myself and the process. And it made me realize how much more I loathe going to my current job (I said I’d rather have my leg cut off than go back again). I am
Not sure how to move on from here.

No real point, just needed to vent this out. And if anyone had any feedback that they think could help me move on, that would be great.

I'm so excited to see how it goes. I really hope it goes well, do any of you have advice for zoom interviews? Do you guys think I can get away with not turning in a full two weeks at my current job if I get hired at a new one?

In a lot of discussions about working and being a mom, I rarely hear about men taking off work to stay home with the kids when they are sick. Is it happening and just not being talked about?

Has anyone else found themselves unable to relate to friends who are child-free? I (33) am the first of my wider group of friends to have a child, and over the last two years I've felt myself really drift from my closest friends, all of whom are child-free for various reasons. For the first year of my daughter's life, I kept in touch and made plans to see everyone (several of these people live several hours away or across the country). But didn't really feel the effort was reciprocated and almost no one made an effort with me.

This all crystalized for me when I hosted a friend and her husband for a long weekend recently and by the time it came to say goodbye, I realized that this person wasn't really my friend anymore. She'd shown almost no interest in my daughter, sat around on her phone while I made breakfast and dinners, cleaned up after them, and squired them around town to restaurants and activities. She only really talked to her husband the whole weekend unless I started a conversation with her.

I suppose it's natural to grow distant from some friends in this stage of life, but it makes me sad. has anyone else experienced this? Is the answer to make friends with more people in this stage of life?

We have a 3.5 year old going into a private preschool and a 5 month old going into daycare. With 2 kids, I’m more nervous about sickness - I have burned through my sick leave every single year since having a child and my husband usually runs out too (I’m a teacher though so he typically makes it until summer, thankfully). My husband is immunocompromised, so he takes more time off as is.

We are thinking of trying to find a couple of people who would be willing to watch the kids when they’re sick but here are my questions!

1 - how did you find someone?

2 - do you pay them more than a regular babysitter since they’re watching sick kids?

3 - what levels of sickness do they handle? We assume they’d mostly be for things like minor fevers opposed to flu / HFM / chickenpox etc (and we’d want to be home with the kids if they were that sick anyways)

4 - is it worth the extra money??

If you don’t pay anyone, how do you handle 2 kids in school and sickness? Especially if you don’t have flexible jobs and limited leave? I only get 17 sick days a year (13 sick, 4 personal) and they always seem to go fast!

My youngest/daughter just started kindergarten (extended school year), and my oldest is about to turn nine. After almost a decade of long, precious days/one day at a time mentality, it's like almost overnight some part of me woke up from a coma and is like "OK, let's go go go!".

For years, I would have told anyone who would listen that I'd choose our sweet, familiar, easy lifestyle over a more calculated, striver lifestyle required for any big, exciting changes.

We settled far from family before having our first kid (in the same small college town where I got my PhD, so for a career jump, I pretty much need to move), and whenever anyone brought up why we were still here, I would bat it away because I just felt like we were thriving in our cozy bubble and nothing could compare. (Plus, I really do love it here.)

Well, between late last night and this morning I just spent I don't know, eight hours on LinkedIn updating my CV, applying to some jobs, messaging old connections, looking at jobs in totally different areas, looking on realtor.com and at schools, etc. imagining what a career jump (not change, just a different but more exciting job in my field) and new city could be like etc.

I'm so confused. How did I not see this coming? How did I think the way that I felt about all of my choices up until now wasn't heavily influenced by the all consuming dependency of little ones vs. I just made a bunch of perfect choices?

So much advice says to avoid moving your kids once they start elementary school, so I'm kicking myself for not having this realization sooner, but the reality is, I couldn't have it sooner, I didn't feel it, even when I checked in with myself and my husband about it over the years.

To be clear, it's not like I care about my kids' happiness any less because they're more independent - I would still prioritize their well being and what's best for them in any big decisions that my husband and I make.

Has anyone else had this experience? Any big changes once your littlest kid became more independent (side note OMG they're growing up so fast I want to sob)? How did they go?

My mother in law and step mother and law have been taking care of my daughter one day a week each for the past 3 years. This week she is turning 3 and starting preschool 5 days a week, so they will no longer be caring for her weekly. Instead, they will start taking care of my 4 month old one day a week.

We think this is the right time, not only because we need help with our infant, but because we think our 3 year old will really benefit from preschool 5 days a week, but it also feels like a bittersweet end to their weekly care for our oldest. My husband and I are deeply grateful for their help and my oldest adores them.

2 questions… 1. I’d like to gift each Grandma something to thank them for their labor these past 3 years and to commemorate this special time they spent with my oldest. Suggestions? Personalized jewelry maybe?

1. Suggestions for how to support the continuation of their special relationship with my oldest? One of the grandmas lives very close (5 min away) and the other lives an hour away (yes, she drives an hour each way to care for her grandbabies!).

Thank you for your ideas!

I work full-time and my husband is the primary caregiver for our son. He does a great job but I am struggling with burn out. My job isn’t demanding or overwhelming by any means; I just don’t want to work every single day.

I think about everything I could be doing with my son or even just for myself and it makes me restless and stir crazy. When I feel like this, I have a hard time keeping up with my routine and all I can focus on is how I won’t be catching a break anytime soon. I’m not depressed, just done working 😂

Can anyone relate?

The title - rounds of daycare illnesses is breaking me down.

First time mom, my boy is 7 months old and he started daycare at 4 months. He's remarkably healthy - has only stayed home twice since starting, once for a brief fever and once for pink eye - but every new cold that comes around renders me useless for days. On top of that I caught strep 2 weeks ago, not even from daycare. I'm taking multiple sick days every couple of weeks or going home early on some days I do make it into the office. Been on 4+ rounds of antibiotics/steroids. Thankfully my sick leave policy is generous, but I feel like such a shell of my former self.

This is worse than pregnancy or postpartum. I love the daycare, my job, my husband and our responsibility split, but I feel so guilty I can't give any of them quality time while I'm sick.

Just looking to vent here and see if anyone else has been through this! My girl will be 5 months old in a couple of weeks, she's been in daycare fulltime for a little less than a month and was going part time before then just to start adjusting. She used to do pretty good at at least napping for 1 sleep cycle, about a 38-40 minute nap. Not ideal but I was okay with it!... She's not the best home napper either in her crib but we try, she sleeps pretty much through the night (minus occasional paci assistance).

The last few days she is getting 5-6 like 15-18 minute naps (some back to back so clearly trying to get her back to sleep). I feel horrible. She is clearly tired if they keep trying to get her to take a nap but shes having a hard time staying asleep once transferred/the noise im sure. Shes the youngest kid in the class and I bet the rest of the kids are on a better 2 nap schedule so shes getting naps in the light/no noise machine. I know I have 0 control over this because she's in daycare but I find it so stressful to look at! and then i feel bad for her teachers if they're spending all day trying to get her to nap, and her wake windows are shorter than normal because the sleep is so fragmented. at home she can handle 2 hours between naps! here its more like 75 minutes. 

Is there anything I can to help make this better? Can it naturally improve with time? I'm going to try this long 3 day weekend to focus on doing all her naps in the crib in her room to keep trying to get her used to "okay naps take place in the crib" ...thanks for listening! first time mom here just spiraling looking at the daycare app in between my work meetings haha

Mostly just looking for solace or wondering if this is a normal feeling.

I’m a week postpartum with our second baby. He’s perfect and I feel just as connected to him as a newborn as I did with my first. But I still can’t help but feel a grief over the time my husband and I had with just our first born and that the time is now over. It’ll never just be us 3 again.

Did anybody else feel this way when they brought home a sibling?

I am surprised by the sadness over this fact because we have always wanted a big family. I am sure I will adjust and won’t ever be able to imagine a time without our second either but right now I feel sad for the end of that chapter (while also feeling so full and happy about our second — idk postpartum hormones are really something haha).

I'm currently on my second kid and will be off for maternity leave till January. That means I'll be going back to work when my youngest is 6 months old and the older one is 19 months old. I have so much guilt about my kids being at daycare... The daycare is an at home daycare with maximum 10 kids and 2 caretakers. They're awesome. My older son went there when he was 6 months old and developed really well. Sometimes I feel like they didn't feed him solids properly because he was fussy, or they skipped a nap here and there, but overall it was fine. I still had so much guilt when he was there and I didn't know how to reconcile it. Now that I'm home again taking care of both kids, I feel like I should be at home. But I love my career (I'm an engineer in a big city). There's so much outside chatter about tradwife life and what not. Tiktok promotes all these videos that make me feel guilty about missing out on their childhood. Gosh I could ramble on and on. Just three days ago my aunt in law sent me a video where a clinical social worker Erica Komisar said that daycares are say orphanages. God that sent me into a spiral.

My husband and I make really good money combined. If I stayed home, our lifestyle would be okay. But with my income combined, we can save for a house faster, better vacations, etc. Just better lifestyle overall.

My father in law has offered to care for both kids when I go back. I have my qualms with that too but it's still less guilt than daycare. I just... Wish I could exist as both a sahm and a career mom.

This is a rant which I hope other mothers could relate to.

So tell me if I am in the wrong.

But first let me set the scene, my 11 month old was awake from 2:00 a.m. on wouldn't go back to bed, just kept screaming and crying until it was time to go to daycare drop off is at 7:00. It's Monday morning, I work a pretty demanding engineering job where I manage a small team manage projects and clients. I work anywhere between 50 to 60 hours on just a normal week.

So I haven't slept and I dropped my son off at daycare and I say to the daycare teachers you can sell them he was up all night try to fetch me a good price. And one of the teachers there isn't one of his teachers but her child also is in that classroom so she drops off her baby in the morning, immediately corrects me and says you can't sell people there's a ethical and moral right about it. You just can't sell people.

Now chat. I didn't think that I needed to explicitly say that I didn't actually want to sell my 11-month-old baby at daycare that day. So I respond to her and say well what if you haven't been asleep since 2:00 a.m. and you're exhausted. And she continues on and says well then you can give him away but you can't sell a human, it's ethically and morally wrong and you can't do it.

So I'm trying to make a light out of a situation where I am tired and frustrated and being a little silly and instead one of the teachers makes me look like an absolute asshole.

Again I will end to this post on I am not actually trying to sell my child. That pregnancy was too rough to get rid of him this easily 😂

So this is a general women question, but I appreciate the perspective of working moms who I feel have a similar lifestyle to me.

I have one son (turning 2 soon) and since about a year post partum I have been having terrible periods. Heavier but also super painful and a lot of anxiety which I feel is due to hormonal stuff. I take medicine for anxiety and generally do well on it. I have an appt with my gyno in a few weeks to check everything out and see if they have any ideas for relief.

We’re planning on trying for #2 in a few months, so going on birth control doesn’t seem like a good option because I’d have to come off of it once I was adjusted.

I hate how bad my period makes me feel mentally and physical. Is this how other moms feel? I’m hard on myself cause we like to see friends/family/do activities on the weekends and I feel like 1-2 weekends a month I’m not feeling well due to pre-period and during.

I’m trying to be better about taking vitamins and drinking water, since I’ve been historically bad with that.

Any advice on what has helped other moms. We get such little time with our kids in the weekends and I really want to enjoy it more and not feel debilitated by my cycle.

So i have been looking for daycare since week 6, its week 16 now and I believe I secured a decent daycare...?

I toured 2 places that I felt had, to be frank, clear safety violations. The third place my husband toured and I joined via FaceTime and its perfect, one of the best in our area for the budget

So they said "reach out in January once the baby is born and we will get the ball rolling with the application process for a prospective March start time". We were on their waitlist before touring

So is that a yes? Do i keep looking? I will probably keep looking and touring for back ups but Tbh, I will be sad if we cant get into this daycare. Its one of the best in the area for our budget!

Other stressors: we just moved to a bigger house and you know how stressful moving is. My mom AND my sister have both needed to go to the hospital since ive gotten pregnant (terrible.) And in September I am a bridesmaid in a wedding that I have to travel to (which is am so happy to attend but also buying and altering a gown and making travel plans when im juggling these OB appointments has me losing sleep)

And 2 people from our team just quit so ive had more responsibilities from work (tbh before my manager was super strict about morning sickness and frankly said some comments that were really out of line.. But since 2 people successively quit i think the Big Boss told her she had to chill out bc shes been a lot nicer to me)

I am just so stressed and tbh I definitely have trouble focusing. As a whole! Like pregnancy brain fog and exhaustion.

Idk. I really want daycare to just work out. I rly want my job performance to be sufficient. I dread the idea of being around a baby 24/7, it freaks me the hell out. Sorry I know everyone else is all ~how could you leave a baby with a stranger how could you not wanna babble and roll around with them all day and become milk stained and only ever wear pajamas for everyday~

Noooooooo I want money. I wanna buy the Ariana Grande perfume and stupid protein snacks if it so behooves me. I wanna joke with adults and listen to music while I work on my spreadsheets. I don't wanna be home all day. I wanna be able to afford formula and not be forced into breast feeding if its painful for me. I actually think a trained professional would take better care of a baby than me

Of course I want to spend time with my baby and love them and read to them and teach them and celebrate holidays. But I'm also an adult and a human. I dont want my life to turn into never getting an uninterrupted bathroom break and Bluey and tracking wake windows. I dont want to become so financially constrained that getting take out for lunch becomes inaccessible

Versely, im worried to stick my kid in a crappy daycare or that once I'm in the midst of the third trimester and new born trenches that my work performance will suffer. Im worried about how the lack of sleep will effect me. I'm super worried about the daycare illnesses and taking PTO for it. To be frank, the stress is definitely effecting me now and im thinking "oh God what if I cant do it what if I fail"

I guess thats it. Those are my feelings

This has nothing to do with being a mom but more about maybe my own attention span/personality issues? I’m in my 40s now and this is career #2.5 (similar to my 2nd career but a huge change of industry that’s kind of its own thing.)

I’m just over it. I don’t like the other people I tend to meet in my industry as it tends to attract certain personality types. I was enthusiastic and knowledgable enough at the start of my career to go from assistant level to Director level in 7 years. I did so much PD and training when I first started but sometime during Covid, I just stopped caring and it just hasn’t gotten better. I still go to conferences occasionally or jump on a webinar but I spend most of the time in these professional development sessions just wishing I could just leave.

The past 4 years, I’ve watched as people I manage and people I’ve managed dive deep into the work, move up the chain at other orgs. Some of them outrank me at other orgs now and I’m legitimately happy for them and am not jealous of their success - if I’m jealous of anything, it’s of how much they seem to still enjoy the work. I’ve tried poking around my industry to see if I can find a niche I enjoy more, and I haven’t found anything that really sparks my motivation.

So here I am now, early 40s, and not really sure what to do next. I feel like 20 years ago, I could have just stagnated until I retired, kept just up to date enough to not be completely outdated and it would have been fine at 80% of workplaces. But with AI, and the economy, I feel like I still need to feign excitement and make sure I share an article or study every couple of months to my department or keep my LinkedIn that my coworkers see updated.

Anyone else feel this way? Can I really fake this for the next 30 years (if I’m lucky, ugh)? I keep thinking I should save a nest egg, quit my job, and open, like, an ice cream/coffee shop, because AI isn’t going to replace ice cream and at least then I don’t have to ever go on LinkedIn again.

I’m a FTM, nearly 12 weeks postpartum and about to return to work in the next 2 weeks. I’m a PA working in family medicine and have worked years to build my career. I always wanted to be a mom but a working mom. I anticipated being excited to go back to the job I worked so hard for.

But…I couldn’t sleep last night ruminating on the fact I won’t be taking care of my son all day everyday and that this glorious one on one bonding time is coming to a close. I cry if I even think about having to leave him to someone else’s care (even a family member) and dread going back to work.

Logically I know I’m so blessed to be able to have had this time with him and to be able to provide for him and my family so I’m struggling with guilt for feeling this way.

Is this normal? Does it get better? My husband is very supportive but I make more money so it doesn’t make sense for me to not work and going part time is not feasible right now but maybe possible in the next several years.

Our interest rate is too good to move. Interest rates on loans for renovations are too high…. We are stuck with what we got.

Well, it finally happened. RTO 4 days a week starting January 4. I’ve been working fully remote since 2012 and have worked at this company with a remote agreement since 2022. I’ve only ever gone in approximately once a month. The commute is far with terrible traffic and I have a 2 year old. On the one day a month I do go into the office, I only see him for 1 hour. There is no way I can do that 4 days a week. What are my options? What sort of medical notes could I explore? I have ADHD, depression, PTSD, and germaphobia. Is there a way to get let go and still collect unemployment?

What remote companies are hiring? How bad is it out there?

I currently WFH and there’s been no pressure from my management to change this arrangement. I’m across the country from my main office and come in about 2-3 times a year. My husband (30M) and myself (29F) are planning to live in our current area for roughly one more year (end of 2027) then move back closer to family which is also near my home office.

I enjoy my job and have good retirement benefits and mat leave so I feel compelled to stay here at least the next couple years. When it comes to kids, we have discussed waiting to start trying for a baby until we move back closer to our village, which in a lot of ways makes sense.

On the flip side, if we move closer to my office, I had planned to start going in regularly to help boost my chances at a promotion or lateral move. For context, most of my company is hybrid, in-office 3 days a week. RTO will be necessary if I do want any different job within my company because at this point that is the policy. I’m just grandfathered in to my remote status right now.

With that in mind, my thoughts have shifted recently to wanting to start trying now/soonish so that by the time I’m looking at moving back and potentially a new role, I will get to WFH all through pregnancy and hope I will have some semblance of an idea if being promoted is even something I desire after becoming a mom. I know things can’t and won’t always go according to plan in terms of pregnancy or getting pregnant, but does my line of thinking make sense?

Outside of the work aspect, I think we feel as prepared as you can be to start a family so it’s mainly been the distance from our village that has influenced us wanting to wait. Realistically, even in the case we’re able to get pregnant quickly, it would only be a few months before we are close to them again. Additionally, my retired mother would not hesitate to drop everything to come help me out if needed.

I feel like my situation might be a bit unique, but if anyone has advice or thoughts from the other side, I’m all ears!

I need help. Maternity leave ends in 3 weeks and my baby hates everyone it me. SCREAMS bloody murder. I don’t know what to do.
My husband and I both work shift work. I am going back part time so 1-2 days a weeks. I love my job. I’m a nurse.
I breast feed, but give her 2 bottles of pumped breast milk during the day when it’s just her to make sure othered can feed her ( dad, MIL, and my mom). She’s great with my mom, takes the bottle and naps
With her.
She’s inconsolable with my MIL. A half an hour of blood curdling screaming and refusing the bottle.
She comes over once a week, but my baby still refuses the bottle from her and cries like she’s being mauled by bears. Screams I have never heard before made me hysterically.
I’ll be gone for work for 13 hours. So my husband and MIL will be taking care of her wake up to bedtime.
I leave the house for a few hours now and she’s fun with my husband, hates my MIL who is an absolute angel. She’s a momma’s girl I guess?
How did you go back to work?
Any advice please.