The Underrated Joy of Being a Working Mother

The internet loves a woman who fits neatly into a category. The tradwife, basking in the glow of freshly baked sourdough, her life an ode to nostalgic domesticity. The childfree-by-choice woman, sipping Aperol Spritzes on a sunlit balcony, her autonomy celebrated as liberation.

But the working mother, who exists somewhere in the middle? She rarely commands such a romantic narrative. Instead, she’s cast as the emblem of exhaustion: screaming into the ether, and crushed under the weight of challenges both systemic and deeply personal.

These images are rooted in truth. The working mother does carry a heavy load, navigating systems designed for a reality that no longer exists. She balances work, family, and self in a world that too often feels indifferent to her needs. But to focus only on her struggles is to miss an equally vital truth: the joy that comes from holding two worlds in tandem, and finding pleasure and meaning in both.

I love being a working mother. I love my job, which challenges me to think on my feet, exposes me to interesting people, and allows me to collaborate with colleagues who respect and value me. I love my son, who is funny, insightful, and full of curiosity, and with whom I share a bond that feels both profound and utterly unique. And most of all, I love that I get to do both of these things at the same time.

Part of that joy comes from knowing this life wasn’t a given—not for me, nor for many of the women I grew up around. In the lower-middle-class community where I spent my childhood, most mothers stayed at home—not out of ideological conviction, but because they had few other options. My own mother, a working-class woman who didn’t finish high school, never had the chance to chase her dreams, or even the space to imagine what they might be. I grew up internalizing the idea that motherhood required you to set your ambitions aside, at least for a while.

In contrast to the norms I grew up with, I returned to work just five weeks after my son was born, to help put the finishing touches on a play I’d been producing. I continued working part-time during his baby and toddler years, partly because I wanted to and partly because it was all I could afford. My husband and I saw childcare as a joint expense, but with my earnings so modest, it was hard to justify full-time care.