Evangeline had just returned to work after maternity leave with her first child. She loved her daughter deeply. She also loved parts of her work that had mattered to her long before she became a mother. She had spent years getting an education, building a career, and finding a company she genuinely enjoyed. She had always imagined having a family, too.
What she hadn’t anticipated was how loud everyone else’s voices would become once she had both. Breast is best. No one can raise your child like you can. You’ll never get these years back. Babies need consistency. Don’t give up the career you worked so hard for. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too. None of the advice was necessarily bad. But was all of it right for her? That was part of the problem.
This is a version of working mom guilt — not the guilt of doing something wrong, but the guilt of not knowing whether you’re doing enough.
When Advice Turns Into Working Mom Guilt
Before returning to work, Evangeline had decided not to breastfeed. She knew herself. She knew the demands of her job, including occasional travel, and she didn’t want pumping, storing milk, and managing feeding schedules to become one more source of stress. She wanted the time she did have with her daughter to feel less complicated. Still, she questioned herself. Was she taking the easy way out? Was she missing something important? Was she supposed to try harder?
Then came the sleep struggles. After long days apart, her daughter began waking during the night. She wasn’t hungry. Her diaper was dry. She didn’t seem sick or uncomfortable. Evangeline started wondering whether her daughter simply wanted to be close to her, so she moved a bassinet next to the bed. It worked. Her daughter settled more easily, Evangeline slept better, and the whole household felt calmer.
And yet, instead of feeling relieved, Evangeline found another reason to second-guess herself. Was she creating a bad habit? Should her daughter be sleeping independently? Was she doing something wrong because closeness was making things easier? The choices themselves were working. The guilt was not.
The Problem Isn't Always Bad Information
There is no shortage of information available to parents today, especially on social media. Pediatricians can tell us about child development and health. Lactation consultants can help with feeding. Sleep specialists can offer strategies. Therapists can help us think about emotional well-being. Financial professionals can help families plan for the future. Experienced parents can share what worked for them. Sometimes all of that information is useful. All at once, it can be a lot.
But there is a difference between gathering good information and outsourcing your decisions. Experts are usually looking closely at one part of the picture. A pediatrician may be thinking primarily about health. A sleep specialist may be thinking about sleep. A lactation professional may be thinking about feeding. Your employer may be thinking about your role at work. Your parents may be thinking about the way they raised you. Your friends may be filtering everything through their own experiences. You are the one trying to hold all of it at the same time — your child, your work, your finances, your relationship, your sleep, your energy, your values, your personality, your goals, your current season of life. That broader view can matter, but no single expert is looking at all of it the way you are.
"Best" Depends on the Whole Picture
One of the most difficult things about motherhood is that many decisions come with a version of “best.” Best feeding method. Best sleep routine. Best childcare option. Best work schedule. Best way to spend your limited time. But “best” can become misleading when it’s stripped of context. A choice can be ideal in one category and still be unsustainable for the family as a whole.
Breastfeeding may be the best choice for one mother. Formula feeding may be the best choice for another, because it makes returning to work more manageable, protects sleep, reduces stress, or allows feeding responsibilities to be shared. Staying home may be the best decision for one family. For another, continuing to work may support financial stability, personal fulfillment, long-term career goals, or the kind of family life both parents want to build. Neither woman has to prove that her choice is universally better. She only has to make a thoughtful decision for the life she’s actually living.
Good, Better, Best Is Not One Universal Ladder
We often treat decisions as though there’s a single ranking system — good, better, best. But real life is rarely that tidy. Something can be “best” according to one expert and still not be best for you. The most research-supported choice may not be realistic for you right now. The most efficient choice may not be emotionally sustainable. The choice that works beautifully for your friend may make you miserable.
The point isn’t to reject good information. It’s to use good information wisely — learn from people who know more than you do about that subject, ask questions, read the research, talk with professionals, consider the risks and benefits. Then step back. Because at some point, you have to stop collecting advice and make a decision.
Zoom Out Before You Decide
When Evangeline began to feel overwhelmed by every small parenting decision, she started asking herself a different set of questions. Instead of asking what am I supposed to do, she began asking what the available information actually told her, what she knew about her particular child, what she knew about herself, what her family realistically had the capacity for right now, what problem she was actually trying to solve, and what mattered most when she zoomed out six months or a year.
That last question became especially important. Sometimes we become so focused on getting one decision exactly right that we lose sight of the larger picture. The goal was not to perfectly optimize her daughter’s sleep — the goal was a rested baby and a functioning family. The goal was not to win an award for the “best” feeding choice — the goal was to nourish her daughter while preserving the kind of connection and stability she wanted during an already demanding transition. The goal was not to prove that working was better than staying home — the goal was to build a life that included both motherhood and meaningful work, because for Evangeline, both mattered.
You Are Allowed to Want More Than One Thing
This was perhaps the hardest realization for Evangeline. She didn’t hate being back at work. She missed her daughter during the day, but she also enjoyed parts of her job. She liked using her skills, talking with adults, contributing financially, and the career she had worked hard to build. And she loved coming home to her daughter. For a while, Evangeline thought those feelings contradicted each other. Eventually she realized they didn’t.
Loving your work does not mean you love your child less. Missing your child does not automatically mean returning to work was the wrong decision. Wanting time away from work does not mean you’re ungrateful for your career. Wanting professional goals does not mean motherhood matters less. Human beings are capable of holding competing desires. The challenge isn’t eliminating the tension — it’s learning how to make decisions while the tension exists. Working mom guilt often lives exactly in that gap, in the space between two things that are both true at once, as if wanting both somehow cancels either one out.
The Best Choice May Change
What worked when Evangeline first returned to work wouldn’t necessarily work forever. The bassinet beside the bed might be exactly what her family needed for a few months. Later, they might change the routine. She might continue traveling for work, or eventually reduce travel. She might stay with the same company for years, or someday decide she wanted something different. None of those possibilities would mean the earlier choices were mistakes. A good decision doesn’t have to be permanent to have been the right decision for that time.
This is one reason rigid rules can become so exhausting. Families change. Children change. Work changes. Our capacity changes. We’re allowed to reevaluate.
Learn From Others Without Losing Yourself
There is value in good advice, in expertise, in learning from people who have walked through similar seasons. But advice works best when it helps you understand your options, not when it makes you afraid to trust yourself. You don’t need to ignore the experts. You also don’t need to hand them the steering wheel. Gather information, consider the people you love, consider your own needs too, and look at the whole system, not just one decision. Then choose what makes the most sense for you and your family.
For Evangeline, the biggest shift was not finally discovering the correct way to be a working mother. It was realizing there probably wasn’t one. Instead of constantly asking what am I supposed to be doing, she learned to ask what does my family need right now. Sometimes that answer matched the advice she’d been given. Sometimes it didn’t. And sometimes the best decision was simply the one that allowed her family to function, connect, and move forward without trying to do every good thing at once. Because good advice is helpful. But the goal isn’t to follow every piece of it. The goal is to build a life that works for the people actually living it.
A Few Questions Worth Sitting With
- Is there a decision right now where you’re more focused on following the “correct” advice than on what your specific family actually needs?
- Whose voice tends to carry the most weight when you’re second-guessing yourself — and does that person actually have the full picture of your life?
- Can you name a choice that’s working well for your family, even if it doesn’t match what an expert or a friend would have recommended?
- Are you holding two things that feel contradictory (loving your work and missing your child, wanting independence and wanting closeness) that might actually just both be true?
- If you zoomed out six months or a year, what would actually matter most about the decision you’re facing right now?
If being a working mom has left you second-guessing yourself, stuck between competing priorities, or wondering whether you’re making the “right” choices for your family, therapy can give you space to sort through the noise. I help women clarify what matters most, make decisions with greater confidence, and build a life that reflects their own values—not just everyone else’s expectations. If you’re in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, or Colorado, I’d be glad to help.
