WhatsApp notifications stack up on my locked phone screen. Josie wants to know what everyone is wearing later. Ellie has replied with an outfit photo. The others are trying to nail down a meeting time. But I’m not going out with my friends tonight. Instead, I’m slumped over my laptop trying to ‘achieve things’. Specifically? I set myself goals to complete a personal training qualification, learn French and write a novel before trying for a family in the not-so-far-off future.
In the past few years, I’ve sacrificed my social life, relationships and sanity in an attempt to tick off all of my big career and life goals ahead of (hopefully) becoming a mother in a couple of years’ time. The pressure to create a ‘perfect’ life before this looming deadline has seen me arrive at a place where my brain screams at me daily, telling me I have to build myself a more bulletproof career and tick off everything right now, or else it’ll be impossible to later on. I’ll be too busy parenting, after all. At first, I was kind of thriving on the busyness. Now, after crashing down to earth with a bang, I’m coming clean: I’m 32 and struggling with pre-baby burnout. And it’s getting to me. Badly.
The pressure of this invisible hourglass permanently hovering above my head is one that my supportive partner doesn’t seem to experience. Of course, why would he, when the UK still doesn’t have equal parental leave, so it would be me relinquishing my seat at the table while on maternity leave? Or when it’s still women who spend 2.8 more hours a day on unpaid care and domestic work?*
‘Over the last few years, we’ve seen mounting pressure on women to be financially ready for motherhood,’ says Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, a charity pushing for change in this space. ‘Maternity pay is well below what it is possible to live on and for the first six years after birth, mothers earn 43%** less than fathers [on average per week, possibly due to mothers needing to reduce their hours in favour of accommodating childcare]. The inevitable result is a falling birthrate, which poses huge risks for our future economy.’
Plenty of other women share my fears, including business owner Joanna Jarjue, who recently turned 30 and feels she can’t let her foot off the gas for anything. ‘I know people who take time off for maternity leave feel they have to put their careers “on hold”, but for me, as a business owner, there is no pause,’ she says. ‘It’s sad – you basically have to get your sh*t together fast if you’re a woman. I feel if I throw myself into everything now, smash it and burn myself out, the trade-off is that entrepreneurship will – hopefully – provide more flexibility when I do have kids. But I have to work myself to death now to gain that freedom [later on].’
Joanna feels she’s trapped in a cycle of crashing-and-burning; she’s accustomed to the physical tiredness, but the mental aspect takes a toll. It’s led her to withdraw from some personal relationships, just to free up ‘extra brain capacity’. ‘People say, “Live your life before you have kids and settle down,”’ she adds. ‘But when you’re a woman focusing on your career, you sacrifice a lot of “living your best life” because you’re either burnt out or too busy!’
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Are you ever ready?
The trap of thinking that everything will implode once we become pregnant had Louise, a 34-year-old operations manager, who now has a nine-month-old, caught in a vice, too. She says she kept moving the goalposts of what she needed to achieve in order to feel able to step back and have a baby, and eventually only fell pregnant after her husband raised concerns that they’d never start their family: ‘One moment it was when I’d completed a qualification, then I’d say, “Not until I have that promotion…” then it was, “Once I hit a certain salary bracket.” The list could’ve gone on for ever. But the reality was that I was never going to feel “ready”, because there was always something else I felt could only be achieved while child-free.’
While we’ve all pretty much accepted (and embraced) the death of the ‘girlboss’ era, it’s difficult to deny that being raised on Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In feminism – which suggested we must achieve the highest work position possible before going on maternity leave – hasn’t had a lasting effect.
This blend of chasing the ‘having it all’ myth and a desire to want to create a sturdy foundation before children is normal and understandable, says Merisha Mistry, a psychotherapist at Onebright (and a mother herself), as are fears about temporarily stepping away from your career during maternity leave. But it can go a step too far, tipping into perfectionism, which then dominoes into deep-set anxiety and stress – the fallout of which can be hugely damaging.
Several of Mistry’s patients in their late 20s and early 30s have presented with pre-baby burnout. ‘That pressure of, “I have stuff to do before I have kids,” or “I need to sort out my relationship,” or “I’m not even in a relationship,” builds and becomes a panic,’ Mistry explains. ‘Other people come in thinking, “Do I even want a kid? And if so, I have so much I want to do before I even get there.”’ The side-effects of this special kind of stress cover a huge spectrum, she notes – from overthinking to detrimental perfectionism, fatigue, a weakened immune system or sleep issues.
I’ve certainly felt that. While there are some days when I feel I’m bossing it, sailing through my mammoth to-do list, on others (increasingly so of late), my eyes are so sore from staring at screens they feel like tiny, shrivelled raisins, and the anxiety attacks I thought I’d got a handle on have returned. My memory is also… patchy. So, how do we know we’ve reached a healthy place where we’re ready to start a family and can avoid sacrificing ourselves on the altar of perfectionism in the process? ‘There’s never really a “right” time to have a baby,’ Mistry reasons. ‘You may have everything set up, financially or career-wise, and be six months into your pregnancy, and be made redundant. Nothing is ever certain.’ She also shares that focusing on the positive side of parenting can help. On a personal level, her career has only gone from strength to strength since having children.
For some mothers, being on the other side and looking back really clarified things for them. Louise says she experienced a ‘maternal shift’ as soon as her son was born, which led her to crave a better work-life balance. ‘I agreed to only take six months’ maternity leave out of fear that having a baby would ruin everything I’d worked for,’ she says. ‘But [by the time he was born] I was angry at myself for delaying getting pregnant and putting my career on such a pedestal.’ Additionally, Louise developed a newfound appreciation for her achievements. At a ‘keeping in touch’ day she had with her team, it struck her. ‘For a moment I almost had to pinch myself at my level of seniority and how much everyone in that room respected me,’ she recalls. ‘I was in absolute awe of what my pre-pregnancy self had accomplished. But I could only see it once I was out of that rat race and had a child.’
Helping in other ways
There’s no denying motherhood represents an enormous shift that will impact every aspect of our lives, but for those of us only just starting to think about it, what is clear is that we don’t yet know how. If the uncertainty becomes too much to bear, speaking to a specialist, friend or partner is, as with any mental health issue, the first step.
The bottom line? While it may be easier to progress at work without the distraction of a small human, it’s certainly not impossible to progress with one. In fact, it could be the fuel you need to push yourself even further ahead. This was the case for Jennifer Mathisen, who not only founded a children’s goods business, KiDSiE, after becoming a parent, but found motherhood helped her to develop an arsenal of new skills, including setting boundaries, time blocking and multitasking, and she says parenting has helped her overcome impostor syndrome. ‘When I’m feeling overwhelmed or insecure,’ she explains, ‘I now think about the advice I’d give my daughter if she were in my shoes. Taking that perspective has helped me push through self-doubt and make decisions with confidence. Motherhood has 100% made me a more resilient, focused and creative professional.’
There are also incredible organisations advocating for the much-needed change that would help mothers (and all of us) thrive better in the workplace. On this note, Joeli Brearley adds, ‘The good news is that the tables are slowly starting to turn. Improving access to flexible working is a priority for the new Government and the roll-out of 30 hours of funded childcare is currently underway. This year, we expect access to maternity and paternity pay to be a day-one right and the Government has committed to a review of parental leave. It is imperative we keep these issues on the agenda and remind the Government that this issue cannot be ignored.’
During my research for this piece, I spoke to almost 20 women with children about how their careers have been shaped by motherhood – and while none said having a child necessarily made things easier, so many spoke with enthusiasm about how becoming a parent has helped in other ways. The phrases ‘laser-focused’ and ‘ruthlessly efficient’ cropped up a lot, ditto ‘clarity around goals’. It turns out, your potential doesn’t wither away when you become a mother. The next stage of success is still right around the corner – it may just involve some adjusting (and planning), at first.
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Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC’s Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women’s Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
