I work for the federal government and I used to have a hybrid schedule until DOGE said "Go fuck yourself."

They gave us back "episodic telework " and in the past I've used it so I'm already home before the nanny leaves. My nanny has a doctor's appointment Friday and won't be in until 10. I wanted to work 6 to 8 while my husband is still home, take leave from 8 to 10 when the nanny is at her appointment and then finish my day teleworking. I was going to be on leave while I needed to actively watch my kids.

If I go into the office, I won't get in until 12 and I need to leave at 4 to get home for 5, when the nanny leaves.

I was told this is the last time because episodic telework is for "doctor's appointments." I should have taken the full day off then and there and used my spa gift card from Mother's Day , but I have a ton of stuff going on right now and I *wanted* to work.

Fuck this country and how it treats parents.

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.

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?

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).

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.

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

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?

Edit: just finished the interview! I think I did a great job. I'll find out by the end of next week. Thank you all so much for the advice, especially the background blur.

Over the past 6 months or so I feel like the working mom anxiety/guilt in this subreddit has skyrocketed. Now, I'm very aware that our society (more U.S. specific) is trash when it comes to supporting working parents and so much appears to be spiraling. But, when I first joined this subreddit years ago there didn't seem to be nearly as many hangups about sending kids to daycare and a lot of it is starting to feel far right trad wife coded. Maybe it's just all the trad wife tiktok content, but it makes me worry about the culture of working moms moving backwards. I don't know quite where this post is going and it's not about any one post in particular - just a whole vibe shift of the subreddit and my own anxieties about our society.

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!

Editing to add: our budget is around $200 each. We are also finishing a remodel of our basement to add a bedroom and bathroom that will allow my MIL to stay with us overnight very comfortably.

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?

Working mums, have you given up career opportunities for your kids?

This question is for working mums. I work 32 hrs a week and my twins are 3 in October.

I feel like at the moment, I am stuck in my current career with little room to move up in my life. If I were to change jobs, it is quite likely that my hours will increase, along with responsibility and stress. There is also the potential for overtime. On the other hand, I'd earn more and I'd move up. My husband works 40 hours with occasional on call work.

At the moment, I am enjoying afternoons and evenings with my children, and my work life balance is such that I don't have to do any overtime or evening work. This has afforded me the privilege of giving these kids a screenfree life, which I actually believe is a true privilege that is not attainable for many families.

I just can't shake the idea that I should be progressing and moving up. Before kids, I was quite career-oriented. While I completely enjoy working still, I've felt a shift recently where I'm more drawn towards keeping this balance that we have.

Does anyone else feel the pull between work and home life? Will I regret not moving up and making more money for my family? Arrrghhh.

My postpartum self can’t keep up at work.
Do other moms feel this too? 🙁

For context: I was 4 months pp when I got hired to my first corpo job. ( I’ve been working for 9-10 yrs but this is my first corpo.) Now 2 months in and still in my probationary period, learning about processess, applications used , and handling 10-15 clients, I feel like this job is not for me.

I can feel that I’m not “that sharp” currently. I feel like my brain is so wired to care for my kids. I can’t focus, I kept forgetting. It feels so wrong to put work before my kids at times.

Plus the culture of the team of just letting me learn on my own did not help. With the workload, them helping out or me asking for help feels like a burden.

I did not expect it would be this much. I had strong palpitations and migraine attacks because of how stressed I am trying. I want to quit, but the feeling of shame of quitting …

Last night my husband said “If your reason ( to quit ) are the kids, it is valid and it’s okay. Don’t feel ashamed of it. You don’t have to prove anyone anything.” And that made me tear up. 🙁

My LO started daycare at 6 weeks (thanks America 🫠) in December. Until June he only had an extremely mild case of the flu and I thought we had gotten lucky. Last month he had adenovirus and this month we’re heading into a second week of some kind stomach bug. Luckily my husband is off for the summer but he goes back soon. If this happened during the school year it would wipe out our sick time for the year) we’re both 10 months so we only get two weeks). I’m genuinely worried if he catches a stomach bug again during the school year, it’s going to leave us with little sick time for all the other winter illnesses. I can work from home every now and then but not for two weeks straight and we don’t have backup care.

I am a working mom in need of support from other working moms today, I am going through a lot and I don't unfortunately have a lot of working moms around me:

I work in tech corporate consulting

I have a 3 year old child

My partner works long hours in a high intense job too

I've been struggling at work for about a year

Before that also struggled with post partum

I love my child more than anything but it is hard

My partner is supportive but our relationship is strained

I've sought out therapy, of all kinds

I've started EMDR and boy it is intense, a lot is coming up and my child is noticing it

I've experienced chronic family trauma and grief

I don't have almost any working mothers around me, my friends don't have kids yet, my bosses are childless women, my friends who have kids don't work or are overseas and don't understand the work culture where I am

I am trying my absolute best to feel better and I just need a working mom to tell me is this how it goes for you? Is this part of the deal?

I'm not sure this is just a matter of "growing up" and "being an adult"?

Does it get better? What has worked for you when everything felt like too much?

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.

I know this is a privileged question, but due to the fact that I’ll probably rent for the rest of my life, we have a big nest egg accumulated in a high yield savings. I’m debating if it makes sense to pay the tuition upfront and get the small 10% discount. It makes sense because we would save about $100 more than the monthly interest in the HYSA, but it always feels hard to part with that money. And I don’t know if I’d necessarily feel richer since we’d still need to be putting that money away monthly to save for the next year.

Does it make sense or do we just keep doing what we’re doing now?

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?

For context I’m in Singapore so if some of the things I mentioned are different, that’s because we use different terms here such as childcare or infant care.

I work full time, I have a 7 YO and 18 months old. They are both in school and childcare. I go to work at 730am and I’m home by 630pm to deal with dinner, homework and bedtime. My husband is very hands on, do the bathtime, dishes and whatever that’s around the house. My problem comes when the children are sick, and I take childcare leave or I WFH. Whenever that happens things just kinda slipped at work. I’m unable to fully focus on one, and as you all know, when our children are sick, all we do is try to make them better. I’m unfortunately in a line of work that it’s hard to be completely off work because we have a client base who may constantly need us to do things. There were many times in my career when I would carry my children and be working on my phone or laptop. I felt the pressure then but I didn’t know it would get to me right now. I’m not sure what changed, it could be my age or I’m just exhausted.

Last Friday, we had a client who needed some documents urgently but I unfortunately was dealing with a sick child and only saw the messages on Saturday. I pinged my supervisor to let her know and she mentioned to let the client know that we will get to it asap. Bam, Monday my child had Herpangina. The documents? Not acquired. My supervisor called me yesterday and basically got pretty frustrated with me. Her reactions and her tone really affected me. Long story short, I had a good cry and truly acknowledged that I’m just fucking everything up. I need to work, I need the job. But man, it felt so good to just be with my children at home and doing things like cooking and cleaning. Like I could just focus on one thing.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. The job market isn’t so good right now in Singapore. And the job has its benefits but is it selfish of me to expect graciousness when it comes to being a working mom? There were many times I have gone outside of my ways and I never say no at work as long as I could do it. Am I being unrealistic to hope that there’s a good job with good pay that won’t let me feel so much guilty when im taking time off? Im feeling guilty everyday and i try my best to be aware of my own mental state (i had PPD) because i dont wanna be on anti-depressants again. Gosh it’s just so hard.

Thanks for reading.

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!

I am wondering if anyone has a recommended thermos to keep lunches warm for 6 + hours. I leave for work at 5 am and my husband does the morning routine, but with 3 kids it’s too chaotic to pack lunches so I do it before I leave. our rising kinder is incredibly picky so having a thermos that keeps his favorites warm (buttered noodles) from 4:45-11:30 ish would help ease his transition to school. I looked at the omie box but that looks like it only stays warm for 4 hours

eta: I gave buttered noodles as an example, he eato more than one food but he prefers hot foods greatly to cold ones.

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?

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

FTM and today marks the end of my 12 week maternity leave and I am completely dreading going back to work. I’m sure there are a million posts about this and everyone goes through this, but having support from other women who went through it is something I need right now.

I work 4 long days and I’m gone for 12-14 hours, which means I will barely see my son. It’s crushing me knowing that I am going to miss so much of his life and I have this huge fear that he will forget about me. I’m going to try to keep breastfeeding, but I’m also worried that he will get used to the bottle and that journey will also be over. I’m a mess.

I have nowhere else to vent so here I am. My baby is a year old and being a working mom is HARD. I work in a lab and my baby goes to daycare. Working in a lab is so hard to manage while being constantly sick myself and having to navigate lab work around doctor’s appointment for my kid. It’s a more physical job with how much walking/cleaning/moving I have to do, but its even harder doing it sick or with a max of 4-5 hours of broken sleep.  I was given a substantially greater workload when I returned from maternity leave. I feel so foggy and sick all the time and I’m constantly making mistakes. Its been non-stop at work and I barely have time to do all of my tasks I need to. I’m spread so thin that I often have to scarf down my food in 5 minutes and then run back into the lab so I can make it home at a somewhat reasonable time. I also don’t enjoy the environment at my job, I feel so lonely and I don’t enjoy the gossipy environment.

My job has been accommodating in the sense that I haven’t gotten in trouble for taking so much sick leave or for my lower quality of work, but there’s nothing they can do to lessen my workload or get me out of the lab (I’ve had many conversations with my boss).

I’ve been applying for jobs with very little luck. There’s just not many scientific jobs out there in my area right now thanks to the Trump administration. I have been rejected from every non-lab job I’ve applied for- either they want Master’s/PhDs/MBAs/business experience or I just never hear back. It feels like my only options are lab jobs, which doesn’t really solve the issue.

I did get an interview for a position that I really liked, but I know that I would need to turn down the offer because it is still a lab job and I would have a longer commute, worse benefits, and little job security.

I feel so stuck and lost right now. I love my child and being a mom so much and the weekends are fantastic, but man does work suck the life out of me. I can work and I can be a mom, but being a working mom feels impossible.