How to Balance Your Life as a Working Mom

Juggling personal/family situations and work demands can be tough. It takes good communication and understanding from all parties to ensure a healthy environment where everyone can work together towards common goals. Is there anyone you trust at work to discuss such challenges as objectively as possible? no matter what, prioritise your own wellbeing first, if you're the one pregnant and even landed in hospital! Only with better health, then you can make better decisions and overcome work challenges. Seek professional support if you need.

Be kind to yourself. Things are different now when you have a child, it's really like holding 2 jobs! focus on doing what you can for each moment. Emotions are feedback. Guit is showing you that you're a responsible worker. doesn't mean you have to get rid of that guilt. But focusing too much on the guilt and pile of work, will just make your emotions worse and add to mental exhaustion. take a deep breath to slow down and create space in your mind. Identify your priorities for each day, keep your focus on those priorities. Practise bringing your attention back to these priorities and your current task, because your mind will keep trying to look at all the other outstanding tasks (mental habit). With practice, your mind will focus better and be able to let go of the guilt naturally. Multitasking is overrated, it just drains our battery even faster.

thank you for this!

Be patient with yourself. Job search would take time, and returning to the workforce means using some skills that you haven't used in a while. Whatever you encounter, see it as a learning process. to find a suitable job with a healthy environment (team culture and expectations) may take several tries, so keep an open mind to see what you can learn from each experience. With a little one at home, there will be unexpected situations that derail your plans. Be flexible and have realistic expectations for each stage of your life.

Try to find common goals like what do you both want for the family? to be healthy and happy? what need to take place for that to happen? how can we do it together? If talking is difficult due to emotions getting in the way of effective communication, try writing? you can edit to ensure it sounds as diplomatic as possible. Sometimes we need to say it in a flattering way, stroke the ego, eg. "you are really good at xxx, can you do it more often?" Instead of "Why can't you do xxx, since you're just sitting there?"

there are tax rebates and additional subsidies for childcare services, if you're a Singaporean working mom. there are also gov websites with info resources and workshops for parents learning. https://www.msf.gov.sg/what-we-do/ncpr/resources/parent-youth-resources

Don't let others comments affect you, because eventually you are the one living your life. Responsibility can be understood from many angles so if you considered all your options and decided that working abroad is for the best at this point in your life, go for it. You can review the situation again after some time. Life is full of decisions that can never be perfect, we just try and learn from it.

Hmmm I haven't tried any, but these days there are so many options available, so just do a google search depending on your needs and see which has good reviews. You can even ask ChatGPT to help you plan a week's meals based on eg. no more than 3 ingredients per meal, can be ready in 30min etc. Good luck!

Firstly, recognise that self-care is NOT selfish! Self-care gives you a strong foundation so you can do your duties well. Secondly, practice makes it easier. Start somewhere even you feel guilty or unable to fully let go. When you practice self-care and experience the benefits (better mood, better relationships and quality of work etc) you and others around you will become more convinced that it is important!

It helps to share about your family during casual conversations, so your coworkers already get to know your family over time. Then when you have a situation that you need to take urgent leave or go home on time, it will be easier for them to understand because they kind of know your family from earlier conversations. This understanding and concern should be a two-way street, so you could also show interest in their personal lives to build a supportive work culture over time. Be careful not to get into a passive-aggressive or resentful mindset, which I have seen in many counselling clients. They keep quiet and oblige to work requests, but inside they're actually not happy and the resentment builds up over time. Of course, there may be bosses/coworkers who don't care about your personal life, but very often the problem is due to poor comms and assumptions. They won't know what you're dealing with unless you tell them, so practise being clear and assertive so they can have the chance