I Thought Being a Good Employee Meant Giving Everything. Then I Became a Mom.

I think the transition into motherhood is one of the biggest identity shifts we experience, and nobody really prepares you for how disorienting it can be.

Before I became a mom, I worked for a small, locally owned financial institution. They took a lot of pride in being a small-town business where everyone was “like family.”

And honestly?

I loved that idea.

Maybe, I loved it a little too much.

I grew up with a deep-rooted need to belong, and the idea of finding a second family at work was intoxicating to me. I wanted to be dependable. I wanted to be needed. I wanted to be the person people could count on.

My parents had also instilled a very strong work ethic in me. Work came first. You showed up. You pushed through. You didn't let people down.

So that's what I did.

I worked my way up and eventually became a supervisor. I took so much pride in this. I came in when people called off. I worked overtime. I worked my days off. I rearranged my own appointments around staffing needs.

I was that girl.

If the team needed me, I was there.

And for a long time, I thought that was something to be proud of.

Then I got pregnant.

Everyone was so excited for me. And I was excited, too.

But while everyone around me was celebrating the baby, my body was quietly becoming something I didn't recognize.

The hormones started shifting.

Then came the morning sickness, brain fog, gestational diabetes, additional bathroom breaks, blood sugar testing, injections, exhaustion and mood swings.

My life was changing in ways I couldn't control.

But my expectations at work hadn't changed.

I was still expected to perform exactly as I had before.

And I couldn't.

Eventually, I made a pretty significant mistake at work. I was called into a meeting and told that I was lucky I wasn't being fired, but that I would be stepping down from my supervisory position.

Technically, I was allowed to say that I had chosen to step down.

So, for those that know me personally, this might be the first time hearing this hard honest truth.

But at the time, I felt completely betrayed.

I had spent years proving how committed I was. I had canceled appointments. Rescheduled my own life around staffing shortages. Worked extra hours. Made sure my team was functioning and that things got done.

And suddenly, I didn't feel like the person who had given everything was being seen anymore.

I felt like I had become a problem.

So I stopped giving everything.

And honestly, I wish I had learned how to do that much earlier.

Then my daughter was born.

And somehow, despite everything, work still expected the same version of me.

Except I wasn't the same person anymore.

I was a new mom.

I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. I was trying to figure out how to care for this tiny human while barely recognizing myself.

And privately, I was struggling much more than anyone knew.

I was experiencing postpartum depression and intrusive thoughts. I was miserable in a way I didn't know how to explain.

I was pumping at work, and sometimes I would sit alone in that room and sob.

Not because I hated pumping.

Quite the opposite.

At a time when I felt like I was failing at everything; at work, at motherhood, at being a partner, at being myself, pumping was the one thing that made me feel like I was doing something right.

It gave me a sense of purpose when I desperately needed one.

And yet, even that became another source of pressure.

My pumping breaks were scrutinized. After one break ran longer than expected, other employees began keeping track of how long I was gone.

At one point, my depression was even attributed to pumping, and I was encouraged to consider stopping by my employer.

Looking back, there are so many things about that period that I wish I could tell the woman I was then.

I wish I could tell her:

You are not failing.

You are struggling.

There is a difference.

I thought I was failing at work because I couldn't keep up with the version of myself who had existed before pregnancy.

I thought I was failing my daughter because motherhood didn't feel natural and beautiful every second.

I thought I was failing my relationship because my husband and I weren't quite ourselves anymore.

But the truth was, we were just surviving.

He was doing everything he could to support me.

I was doing everything I could to avoid becoming another thing he had to carry.

Neither of us was doing anything wrong.

We were learning how to be parents while simultaneously trying to figure out who we were now.

Eventually, I left that job.

And with some distance, I've been able to see something I couldn't see then.

That environment wasn't necessarily built for the version of me I had become.

And honestly, it probably wasn't built for mothers in the way I needed it to be.

The expectations weren't necessarily malicious. Businesses have to operate. Employees have responsibilities. Supervisors have to manage teams.

But I had spent years believing that being a good employee meant putting the job first.

And I had also participated in that culture before I became a mother.

As a supervisor, I remember being asked to expect certain things from employees who were mothers.

At the time, I didn't question it much.

Now?

I look back and realize how unrealistic some of those expectations were.

Motherhood changed the way I understood them.

Because once you've been the person trying to choose between your child's needs and your employer's needs, you realize just how impossible that choice can feel.

And that's probably the biggest thing motherhood taught me about work:

Your job can be important without being the most important thing in your life.

For years, I thought money and titles were measurements of success.

I thought moving up the ladder meant I was becoming more valuable.

I thought being indispensable was something to aspire to.

Now I see it differently.

I'm currently in a job where I can be an employee without making my entire identity about being an employee.

I can work hard.

I can care about what I do.

I can be dependable.

And I can still go home.

I can have boundaries.

I can take care of my family.

I can be present for the moments that matter.

And somehow, without the title I once thought I needed, without constantly proving how valuable I was, without sacrificing every ounce of myself to work...

I'm happier than I've ever been.

Motherhood didn't make me less ambitious.

It changed what I am ambitious for.

I don't want to be indispensable at work anymore.

I want to be present at home.

I don't want my greatest accomplishment to be how much I sacrificed for a paycheck.

I want my daughter to remember that I showed up for her.

I don't want my identity to be built around being the employee who never says no.

I want to be a person who knows when enough is enough.

And maybe that's one of the strangest parts of becoming a mother.

You spend so much time worrying about how much your life will change because of your child.

But sometimes the biggest change isn't your schedule, your sleep, or even your priorities.

It's realizing that the person you were before motherhood doesn't have to be the person you remain forever.

Sometimes becoming a mom means finally giving yourself permission to stop proving your worth.

Even at work.

Especially at work.

Because your worth was never measured by how much of yourself you were willing to give away.

What changed for you when you became a mother?
Was it your relationship with work? Your ambition? Your boundaries? Your friendships? Your marriage? Your idea of what “success” even meant?
I’d love to hear what surprised you most about the transition into motherhood. Because I have a feeling a lot of us became different people than we expected to, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.