Karoline Leavitt resigned as White House Press Secretary weeks after returning from maternity leave, saying she could not be the mother she wanted to be while doing that job. Whatever anybody thinks of the politics, the shape of that decision is extremely familiar, and it is worth writing about the shape rather than the person. The return is where these arrangements break, and almost nobody is told that in advance.
The return is harder than the leave
That ordering surprises people, and it is the most useful thing to know before you are in it. Leave is exhausting and relentless and it is one role. The return is two roles running simultaneously, both at capacity, with nothing between them.
What actually disappears is slack. Before a baby, a bad night could be repaid at the weekend, a busy fortnight could borrow from the evenings, and an unexpected problem landed in space that existed for it. Afterwards there is no space. The ordinary disruption that used to be absorbed without noticing becomes the thing that takes the week apart, and the difference is not that you have got worse at coping.
This also explains the timing of departures. Leave does not test the arrangement; it is theoretical and looks workable on paper. Within a few weeks of going back the real load is known, including everything nobody costed.
Guilt in both directions at once
The signature experience of the return is guilt about work and guilt about home, simultaneously, and that simultaneity is diagnostic rather than incidental.
Guilt that pointed only one way would be evidence of a decision made wrongly, and it would be actionable: change the thing. Guilt pointing both ways at the same time is what researchers call role conflict, where the demands of two roles are mutually incompatible, so satisfying either properly means failing the other. [greenhaus-beutell] It is a property of the arrangement rather than a verdict on the person inside it.
The practical consequence is that trying to resolve the feeling by working harder at both makes it worse, because effort is not the missing ingredient. What resolves it is changing the arrangement or changing the standard, and most people try every other option first.
- No spare capacity anywhere in the week 46%
- Guilt running in both directions 33%
- Sleep debt making everything harder 21%
A schematic of the components described in this article, to show relative share rather than measured data.
The part that is actually sleep
A large share of what gets experienced as failing is what anybody looks like on months of broken nights, and this is the variable most often written off as unfixable.
Sustained short sleep degrades emotional regulation, patience and decision-making in particular. Those are precisely the capacities the return demands most: staying level in a meeting after a 4am start, not snapping at the person you most want to be kind to, judging what can be let go. When those degrade, the conclusion people reach is that they are not up to one role or the other, which is a much bigger and more permanent-sounding claim than the evidence supports.
It is rarely fully fixable in the first year and it is almost always partly fixable, and the difference between those two is worth pursuing. Our guide to relaxation techniques for sleep covers the part that is within reach.
Ten minutes that belong to nobody else
For the gap between finishing work and starting the second shift, or any ten minutes you can defend. The point is not relaxation and it is not productivity. It is a boundary between two roles, so that one does not run straight into the other with you still braced from it.
10:00
If your mind goes to the list, that is expected. The list will still be there. This is not time taken from anybody.
Done. Notice whether you started the next thing differently.
Choosing what to drop
The arrangement that fails is the one where both roles are held to their previous standard and something gives way at random. Something always gives way. Left to chance it is usually sleep, the relationship, or your own health, because those are the things with no external deadline attached.
Deciding in advance is unglamorous and it is the whole game. Name the things that will be done to a lower standard on purpose, and say them out loud to somebody, because unspoken standards are the ones that quietly stay at their old level. Protect one fixed thing that is yours and not instrumental, since it is the first casualty and the hardest to reinstate. And treat the first three months as a trial to be reviewed on a date, rather than a permanent verdict being delivered daily.
That last one matters more than it sounds. A great deal of the distress in the return comes from experiencing a hard fortnight as evidence about the rest of your life. A review date converts it into information about an arrangement, which is a thing that can be changed. Our guides to burnout and to burnout versus depression cover what to do when the load has already outrun what any arrangement can absorb. [apa-stress-work-baby]
When it is more than a hard adjustment
When it stops tracking the circumstances. A hard return still has good days, still lifts when something goes well, and still improves as things settle.
Worth an appointment: low mood present most of the day for more than two weeks, anxiety that will not switch off, no pleasure in anything including time with the baby, or intrusive thoughts that frighten you. Perinatal mental health problems are common and treatable, and they can begin months after a birth rather than immediately, which is why a difficult return gets misread as a personality failure rather than recognised as something with a name. [apa-perinatal]
When to seek help
Speak to a doctor if low mood or anxiety has been present most days for more than two weeks, if you are not sleeping even when the baby is, or if you have stopped enjoying things you used to. Say how long it has been going on, since duration is what separates an adjustment from an episode and it is the detail people leave out.
Go sooner if you have intrusive thoughts that frighten you. Those are more common than anybody says, they are frightening precisely because they are unwanted, and they are treatable. They are worth reporting rather than hiding, and doing so does not put anybody at risk of losing their child.
Contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline if you feel unsafe or have thoughts of harming yourself.
How MyFreud can help
MyFreud is a mobile app that helps you find solutions to problems that have affected your mind and productivity. Live coaching sessions give you somewhere to decide what gets dropped on purpose rather than by accident, each one ends with an actionable plan rather than encouragement to be kinder to yourself, daily tracking shows sleep and mood against the week so a bad fortnight stops reading as a verdict, and the notepad holds the review date and what you agreed to lower.
Download MyFreud and start today: App Store or Google Play.