Circa 2010, standing at the photocopier and seven months pregnant, I proclaimed to my older, wiser colleague that I was excited to be a stay-at-home-mom to my baby for a year. Time for leisurely walks, a clean house, and healthy meals ready for my husband at his request. This, I said, was going to be a year of ease and joy.
And then I was shaken from my daydream by her laughter. ‘Good luck with that,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘What’s her problem?’ I thought. ‘Doesn’t she know how capable I am? I’m practically a machine.’
Turns out, she knew things that I didn’t.
Introduction
For decades, women have been fed a dangerous myth: that we can have it all. A thriving career, a spotless home, happy and well-adjusted children, a loving marriage, time for self-care, and the ability to contribute meaningfully to the world. The idea sounds beautiful in theory, but in practice, it’s a relentless and unattainable standard that sets women up for exhaustion, guilt, and ultimately, failure.
I never wanted to be away from my kids, but I always wanted to contribute to our household. I wanted to use my brain, to develop a skill, to be a part of something outside of motherhood. But the expectation that I could do both, and do them both well, was a recipe for burnout. And burnout is exactly what I got.
The Moment of Truth
I still remember the day my boss pulled me into her office and asked me point-blank: “Are you focusing on your career, or are you focusing on your family?”
I told her I hoped to do both. She laughed. A full, unabashed laugh. “That,” she said, “is something from fairytales.”
She had just learned of my miscarriage. At the time, I was shocked at her brazenness, even for the demon that she was (stories for another day…). But years later, I realized she wasn’t just being cruel—she was stating a cold, hard truth. A truth that society refuses to acknowledge because it isn’t convenient.
Women are expected to work like they don’t have children and raise children like they don’t work. But something has to give. And for too long, what “gave” was me.
The Hidden Cost of ‘Having It All’
I ran two businesses from home while raising two children who had significant needs. And even then, their needs weren’t that significant. No one was on a breathing machine. No one required mobility exercises or round-the-clock medical attention. And yet, it was still too much.
I was exhausted. My body ached. I wasn’t sleeping. Depression stole the joy from the many moments that could have sustained me. My children, sensing my stress, clung to me constantly.
Being a stay-at-home-mom who was also working from home was supposed to be a dream, but it only made things worse. Because I was home, my kids wanted me all the time. Because I was working, I couldn’t give them the attention they deserved. And all the while, I asked myself: Was I even making any money? Between my sleepless schedule and kids that seemed perpetually sick, I didn’t exercise proper oversight over my expenses as they related to my income.
The truth is, I was doing everything and accomplishing nothing. Once more for the people in the back: What was I accomplishing? No-thin-g.
The System Is Rigged Against Mothers
Companies are not set up to accommodate women with young families. Childcare is a financial burden so extreme that, for many, it negates the entire point of working in the first place. And culturally, we don’t respect the family unit the way we should.
We expect children to be seen and not heard. We design public spaces to exclude them. We shame mothers for bringing their kids into grocery stores or restaurants. And heaven help the woman who tries to nurse in public—because surely, a baby eating in the comfort of a bathroom stall is preferable to making someone uncomfortable for five minutes. (Eye-roll until my eyes fall out).
And while we hold up the working mother as the picture of strength, we do little to actually support her. Academia is a perfect example. Women who leave to have children rarely return. The field is being run by people who have no real understanding of what it means to balance career and family, and so they make policies that further drive a wedge between workers and mothers.
The cost of childcare alone is enough to keep many families in a perpetual state of stress. In some cases, the cost of daycare can easily double a family’s mortgage payment. At that point, is the mother even working for herself? Or is she simply working to pay for someone else to raise her child?
The Privilege of Being a Stay-At-Home-Mom
For a long time, I saw being a stay-at-home-mom as a sacrifice. Now, I see it as a privilege.
I can only imagine how much harder those years would have been without Grandma’s help. But what about the mothers who don’t have that support? What about the women who are raising children alone?
The reality is that we’ve been sold a lie. Instead of telling women they can have it all, we should be having real conversations about how to restructure work, family, and society in a way that doesn’t break mothers in half.
Conclusion
We need to stop pretending that success means doing everything at once. It doesn’t. Success means living a life that aligns with your values, without sacrificing your health, your family, or your sanity in the process.
If I could do it over again, I would. I would choose to be a stay-at-home-mom without guilt. I would recognize that the most important contribution I could make was to my family, not to an employer who saw me as replaceable the moment I showed signs of wanting more.
But more than that, I want a world where women actually have a choice. Not a false choice between burnout and poverty, but a real choice—one where careers are structured to accommodate mothers, where childcare isn’t an impossible financial hurdle, and where the act of raising children is valued as the critical, society-sustaining work that it is. Because our birth rate is ever falling, and Canadians aren’t even replacing themselves anymore. As of 2023, our replacement rate was 1.26. That’s 0.84 less than the 2.1 required to sustain us. If we don’t do more to encourage motherhood and make it possible, we will reap the consequences as a society.
Because right now, the way we live is a lie. And it’s a lie that’s working women to death.
