There is a strange contradiction that many women experience when returning to work after maternity leave.
You might have spent months looking forward to getting back to your career. To having adult conversations, using your professional skills, earning your own money and feeling like a part of yourself again.
And then you return.
The job is familiar. The people are familiar. You know what you're doing. But something feels different.
Perhaps you're less interested in the promotion you once desperately wanted. Maybe you feel guilty leaving your baby, anxious about what your colleagues think, or frustrated that you're no longer able to work in quite the same way.
Or perhaps you're more ambitious than ever, but struggling to understand how that ambition fits alongside your new responsibilities.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone.
In a conversation on The Mothership Podcast, maternity leave and matrescence coach Nicky Underwood-Booth and I explored why returning to work after motherhood can feel so complicated, and why the answer isn't always to change careers, work harder or simply push through.
Hello, World!
Why Returning to Work After Maternity Leave Can Feel So Difficult
We often talk about returning to work as though it's a logistical exercise. Arrange childcare. Agree your working hours. Organise your commute. Get your laptop working. Return to your desk. But returning to work after having a baby is about much more than logistics. While you've been away, your life has changed enormously. You've become responsible for another human being. Your relationships, routines, priorities and sense of self may have shifted.
Meanwhile, your workplace has carried on without you.
Colleagues may have taken on new responsibilities. Teams might have changed. Projects have progressed. People who were once junior to you may have developed professionally while you've been away. You're stepping back into a familiar environment, but you're doing so with a very different life outside it. That adjustment can be unsettling, even when you're happy to be back.
Matrescence: Understanding How Motherhood Changes Your Identity
One of the most useful ways to understand this experience is through the concept of matrescence. Matrescence describes the physical, psychological, emotional and social transition into motherhood. Just as adolescence represents a significant developmental transition, becoming a mother can involve profound changes in how you understand yourself and your place in the world. These changes don't stop when your baby reaches a particular age or when maternity leave ends. They can continue to influence your confidence, relationships, ambitions and career decisions for years afterwards. And importantly, they don't affect every woman in the same way.
Your Ambitions Are Allowed to Change
During our conversation, Nicky shared how differently she approached returning to work after having her two children.
After her first maternity leave, she wanted to return, do her job well and spend time with her son. She wasn't interested in pursuing the next promotion. After her second maternity leave, her perspective changed completely. She wanted to progress professionally, take on more responsibility and move into a senior leadership position.
Neither decision was wrong. And neither represented a permanent definition of who she was.
It's an important reminder that your career ambitions don't have to follow a predictable trajectory simply because you've become a mother.You might want to slow down for a while. You might want to accelerate. You might want something entirely different. You are allowed to reassess what success looks like.
The Return-to-Work Wobble: Do You Really Need a New Career?
One of the most interesting ideas Nicky shared was something she calls the wobble. It's that uncomfortable period when you return to work and begin questioning whether your career still fits. You might find yourself thinking:
Is this really what I want to be doing?
Have my priorities changed too much?
Am I still the right person for this job?
Should I be doing something more meaningful?
For women who have spent years building successful careers, these questions can be particularly unsettling.
You may have invested a decade or more developing your expertise, progressing professionally and establishing your identity through your work.
Then motherhood comes along and suddenly the career you worked so hard to build doesn't feel quite the same.
Before You Change Everything, Explore What Has Changed
What I particularly appreciated about Nicky's approach is that she doesn't automatically treat this discomfort as evidence that someone needs to leave their job.
Sometimes a complete career change is absolutely the right decision.
But sometimes the issue isn't the career itself. It might be the working hours, the expectations, the lack of flexibility, the kind of work you're doing or the fact that your values have shifted. For example, perhaps you've realised that helping others has become more important to you.
That doesn't necessarily mean abandoning your career in marketing, finance or law and retraining in an entirely different profession.
Could you take on a mentoring role? Become involved in a parents' network? Contribute to a community project? Move into a different area of your organisation?
The important question isn't simply whether you should leave. It's whether the life and career you've built can evolve to reflect the person you've become.
Can You Progress in Your Career While Working Flexibly?
One of the biggest fears many women have about returning to work is that asking for flexibility will mean sacrificing their ambitions.
Nicky's own experience challenges that assumption.
After her second maternity leave, she accepted a senior leadership position heading up a department. She negotiated a four-day working week, finishing at 4pm, with two days working from home and two days in the office. The organisation hadn't previously had someone working in that arrangement. Rather than assuming it was impossible, they agreed to try it.
Initially, Nicky worked alternate Fridays. Once the arrangement had proved successful, she moved to a four-day week. She remained in the role for four years. Her experience doesn't mean every employer will agree to every request, or that flexible working is always straightforward. But it does demonstrate something important: flexibility and ambition are not necessarily opposing choices.
How to Start a Conversation About Flexible Working
If you're preparing to return to work, consider approaching the conversation collaboratively.
Think about what you need, but also how your proposed arrangement could work for your team.
You might discuss:
Which working hours would allow you to meet your responsibilities effectively.
Whether some work could be completed remotely.
How important meetings, deadlines and communication would be managed.
Whether a trial period could help both sides evaluate the arrangement.
When you and your manager would review what's working.
The goal is to move away from the assumption that asking for flexibility means asking for special treatment.
Instead, it's about finding an effective and sustainable way of working.
Your legal rights and your employer's obligations will depend on where you work, so it's worth checking the relevant guidance before making a formal request.
The Handover at Home Matters Just as Much as the Handover at Work
This was one of the most practical and important parts of our conversation. When women prepare to go on maternity leave, considerable attention is often given to their handover at work. Projects are reassigned. Responsibilities are documented. Colleagues are briefed. But what happens when it's time to return? Who's responsible for the handover at home?
During maternity leave, one parent may gradually become responsible for most of the day-to-day decisions about the baby. They know the nursery routine, medical appointments, feeding preferences, clothing requirements and all the small details that keep family life functioning. Over time, that knowledge and responsibility can become an enormous invisible mental load. And when that parent returns to work, those responsibilities don't automatically redistribute themselves.
The Conversation Every Couple Should Have Before Returning to Work
Nicky shared a moment from her own experience that will feel familiar to many parents.
Shortly after returning to work, her son had a medical appointment.
When she asked her husband who would take him, his immediate assumption was that she would. But she was now back at work. The family arrangements needed to change, even though the habits established during maternity leave hadn't yet caught up. It's a simple example of a much bigger issue.
Before returning to work, it can help to discuss:
Who handles nursery drop-offs and collections?
Who takes time off when a child is ill?
Who books and attends medical appointments?
How will household tasks be divided?
What happens when both parents have important work commitments?
Who is responsible for remembering and organising everything?
These conversations aren't about dividing every responsibility perfectly. They're about making expectations visible, rather than allowing one parent to carry the responsibility by default. Returning to work shouldn't mean returning to your professional responsibilities while continuing to manage every aspect of family life alone.
What Managers Need to Understand About Returning Parents
There is also a significant responsibility on organisations. One of Nicky's strongest observations from her experience in corporate learning and development and coaching is that managers and returning employees often make assumptions about one another.
A manager might assume that a woman returning from maternity leave wants a gentle introduction back into work. Another might assume she wants to be treated exactly as she was before and immediately return to her previous workload. Neither approach is necessarily right. One woman may be desperate to take on new challenges. Another may want time to rebuild her confidence. Someone else might need a few weeks to understand how childcare and working hours will fit together. And those needs can change quite quickly.
Why Regular Conversations Matter
Rather than relying on assumptions, managers need to ask questions.
How are you feeling about coming back?
What would help you settle in?
What are your priorities professionally?
Is the workload manageable?
Has anything changed since we last spoke?
Crucially, these conversations shouldn't happen only on the first day back. Nicky highlights the importance of the weeks leading up to a return, followed by ongoing check-ins once someone is back at work. A person who needs a gradual introduction in week one might be ready for additional responsibility by week three. Without communication, both sides can end up frustrated, despite having good intentions.
Why Matrescence Belongs in Workplace Conversations
We are becoming increasingly comfortable discussing significant life transitions such as menopause in professional environments.
But matrescence remains far less familiar.
Understanding that motherhood can affect identity, confidence, values and professional ambitions could help managers respond with greater awareness.
It doesn't mean making assumptions about what mothers can or cannot do.
Quite the opposite.
It means recognising that every individual will experience the transition differently and creating space for those differences to be discussed.
For organisations concerned about retaining experienced women, supporting career progression and building inclusive workplace cultures, this is a conversation worth taking seriously.
Why High-Achieving Women Can Find Motherhood Particularly Challenging
Another theme that stood out was perfectionism.
Many women have spent much of their professional lives being rewarded for working hard, achieving excellent results and staying in control.
They know how to meet expectations.
They know how to succeed.
Then motherhood introduces a level of unpredictability that simply doesn't respond to the same strategies.
You can prepare carefully, organise everything and make thoughtful decisions, but there will still be days when the baby doesn't sleep, childcare falls through or something at work goes wrong.
And when you're trying to maintain the same standards across every part of your life, the pressure can become enormous.
Nicky spoke about the difficulty of accepting that you cannot be perfect at everything, all the time.
This doesn't mean giving up your ambitions or lowering your standards across the board.
It means recognising that your time and energy are finite.
Sometimes doing a good job is enough.
Sometimes being present with your children matters more than answering one more email.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is establish a boundary.
And sometimes the expectations you need to challenge are your own.
Five Things to Consider Before Returning to Work After Maternity Leave
If you're approaching the end of maternity leave, or you've already returned and are finding the transition difficult, these five questions may help.
1. What Do I Actually Want From My Career Right Now?
Not what you wanted before having children.
Not what your colleagues expect.
Not what you think an ambitious woman should want.
What matters to you at this stage of your life?
2. What Would Make My Working Life More Sustainable?
Think about your working hours, flexibility, commute, responsibilities and the support available to you.
Which changes would make the biggest practical difference?
3. Have We Properly Discussed Responsibilities at Home?
Don't assume that childcare and household arrangements will naturally adjust when you return.
Make time to talk about how family life will work when everyone is balancing different responsibilities.
4. Have I Communicated What I Need?
Your manager cannot necessarily know what you're thinking.
A clear conversation about expectations, ambitions and concerns can prevent misunderstandings.
5. Am I Experiencing a Temporary Adjustment or a Deeper Change?
You don't have to make an immediate decision.
Give yourself some space to understand whether the discomfort comes from adjusting to a new routine or whether your values and priorities have genuinely shifted.
Both deserve attention.
You Don't Have to Return as the Woman You Were Before
Perhaps the most reassuring message from my conversation with Nicky is that there is no correct version of returning to work.
You don't have to pursue the promotion., You don't have to step back. You don't have to change careers. And you don't have to prove that motherhood hasn't changed you.
The important thing is finding a way of working and living that reflects who you are now. Because motherhood doesn't erase your professional identity. But it can change your relationship with it.
And that's something worth exploring, rather than fighting against.
Listen to the Full Conversation
In this episode of The Mothership Podcast, I speak with Nicky Underwood-Booth about returning to work, matrescence, career confidence, flexible working, the mental load and why women deserve better support through parental transitions.
Listen on Spotify: CLICK HERE
Watch on YouTube: CLICK HERE
About Nicky Underwood-Booth
Nicky is the founder of Maternity & Matrescence and a maternity leave and matrescence coach.
She spent over 15 years in corporate learning and development across law firms and fintech, most recently as Head of Learning & Development. She holds an MSc in Leadership and HR and has trained as an executive and career coach.
Through her coaching practice, she supports women preparing for maternity leave, returning to work and navigating the relationship between motherhood, identity and career.
Website: https://www.maternityandmatrescence.co.uk
Instagram: @maternityandmatrescence
Navigating Your Own Transition Into Motherhood?
At Lou Nevitt & Co, I support mothers navigating changes in identity, confidence and direction, helping them reconnect with themselves and create a life that feels right for who they are now.
I also work with organisations looking to better support employees through parental transitions, strengthen workplace cultures and create environments where mothers can continue to thrive.
Explore coaching and corporate consultancy at www.lounevitt.co.
Connect with me on Instagram: @lounevitt.co.
Together, let's change the conversation around motherhood.