- Fortesa Latifi went back to working only one week after giving birth and felt intensely guilty.
- Many new mothers return to work early, seeking identity beyond motherhood.
- The important thing is to be able to have a choice, which many mothers in the US don't have, Latifi writes.
Only a week into motherhood, I committed a cardinal sin: I started working.
I took a meeting and pretended I wasn't in terrible pain trying to sit upright after an emergency C-section. To be fair, the meeting was important — though not that important.
As I settled into the rhythms of new motherhood after giving birth to my first child in the middle of May, I kept finding myself pulled back into work. People told me to rest and I did, but I also couldn't keep myself from putting in a few hours here and there while my baby napped in a Moby wrap on my chest or my husband, mom, or mother-in-law took care of her.
Working — even from my couch in Los Angeles, in milk-stained clothes, with a newborn napping on my chest — made me feel like a person again in those fraught new days of motherhood. It's almost inevitable to feel lost in the demands of taking care of another human being, and I realized quickly that I felt more like myself and more capable of being a good mother when I was able to work.
I didn't want to soak up every minute of 'leave'
As a contractor and freelance writer, my maternity leave wasn't a given.
I didn't even ask for anything because legally, no one was obligated to give me anything (though one publication I'm a contractor for did give me 50% of my usual fee for 3 months of leave). But so much of my income comes from freelancing — and there was no maternity leave for that.
I think that's part of why I wanted to get back to work soon. But the guilt that I felt for even wanting to be a person outside of my motherly duties was intense. Shouldn't I want to soak in every moment of maternity leave? What was wrong with me that I didn't?
Bored, guilty, and eager to get back into the grind
Kyleigh Wegener, a 27-year-old who works in communications in Kalamazoo, Michigan, found herself bored by maternity leave three weeks into a planned six weeks off after having her first child.
"I've always been very career-driven," Wegener said. "It was like I had to slow down my life. I know this sounds terrible. I know it's important to be a mom, but it just felt like it wasn't enough."
She also felt the guilt that I feel (even as I write this). Talking to other moms, she felt like she didn't fit in.
"It's like being a mom is what they believe they are put on this planet to do," she said. "I just haven't always felt that way. I love being a mom. I love my daughters… but I just feel like I have a purpose beyond being someone's mom." She hopes she's teaching her daughters that they can have full lives beyond motherhood too, if they choose.
Emily Kaplan, 35, who works in public relations in Silver Spring, Maryland, was excited by the prospect of a six-month maternity leave (which is much longer than the average 10 weeks, both paid and unpaid, taken by American women) with her first child. But by month four, she found herself counting the days until she got back to work.
"I missed using the part of my brain I studied and worked so hard to develop, interacting with adults, and just putting on 'real clothes' and makeup for the day to have meetings and conversations," Kaplan said.
Allison Venditti, the founder of Moms at Work, an organization for working moms, said leaving maternity leave early isn't uncommon.
"Work is a familiar space — and for many women who have worked hard and studied hard, they don't want to not work. Work can give you meaning, accolades and also provide a lot of structure that a lot of people find really important in their day," she said.
Drowning in a new type of work
The reality of maternity leave is that it's not a break at all – it's just a different kind of job. In my experience, it's much more demanding than any other job I've ever had.
I can't count the number of times someone has asked me how work has gone postpartum and my answer is that I'm drowning. But the truth is, I think I'd feel more like I was drowning without the buoy of work and an identity outside motherhood.
That's one of the reasons Emily Scorgie, 27, a senior strategist in Dallas, Texas, looked forward to going back to work at eight weeks postpartum with her first child: Her coworkers spoke to her as though she were a person.
"It almost gave me that boundary of reminding myself that I do have this identity outside of just being a mom," she said. "And I think that really helped with the mental load of postpartum."
Going back early by choice is a privilege
Remembering that I was a person — outside of motherhood, breastfeeding, and bedtime — helped me wade through these early months of motherhood.
Importantly, I got to decide to return to work early. Many women don't have that choice; they don't have maternity leave at all or they don't have partners with dependable incomes, which I am lucky enough to have. I also know that having the privilege of working from home on a computer and being able to breastfeed or calm my baby whenever I wanted gave me a radically different experience of going back to work from women who work outside of the home.
"The most important thing, I think, is for people to have choice — choice in how they approach work and family, choice to go back to work early, choice to take more time off," Venditti said.
I want American women to have better options for their postpartum choices. We deserve federally mandated maternity leave; it's truly barbaric that we are one of only six countries without guaranteed paid maternity leave.
I didn't expect how much work would save me in my postpartum days. Being able to focus on something outside the intense physical demands of motherhood grounded me and made me a better mother. I hope other new moms won't be ashamed for counting down the days of their own maternity leave.