The Split: Living Two Lives Between Meetings and Motherhood

You cannot separate the mother from the worker

There’s a moment most working mothers know well, even if they’ve never named it.

You close the door.
You wipe your face.
You take a breath.
And you become someone else.

On one side of the door is the part of you that just negotiated with a toddler over socks, or kissed a baby who didn’t want to be put down, or carried the weight of someone else’s emotions before you even checked your email. On the other side is the version of you that’s expected to be composed, articulate, strategic, and fully available.

You don’t bring the whole thing with you. You can’t. So you split.

This is the part of working motherhood that doesn’t show up in productivity metrics or leadership frameworks. It’s the constant switching between identities that both require your full presence. The emotional whiplash of moving from caregiving to competence, from softness to sharpness, from holding someone else together to holding yourself apart.

It’s not balance. It’s fragmentation.

The workday asks you to minimize your motherhood. The home day asks you to minimize your work. And somewhere in between, you’re left trying to remember where all of you actually fits.

Many working moms aren’t burned out because they’re doing too much. They’re exhausted because they’re never fully anywhere. They’re always transitioning, always translating, always compartmentalizing pieces of themselves so they can function in spaces that don’t make room for the whole truth.

You learn quickly what parts are welcome.

The professional part that gets things done.
The maternal part that stays off-camera.
The emotional part that waits until after bedtime.

So you become fluent in code-switching. You soften your voice in meetings and sharpen it at home. You mute yourself when things get loud. You answer emails with one hand while rubbing someone’s back with the other. You learn how to look “fine” even when your nervous system is anything but.

And over time, the split becomes normal.

That’s what makes it so hard to talk about. Because from the outside, you’re functioning. You’re showing up. You’re delivering. You’re doing what’s expected in both roles. But inside, there’s a quiet sense of dislocation. Like you’re living two parallel lives that never quite touch.

Work asks for focus, ambition, and professionalism. Motherhood asks for presence, patience, and emotional attunement. Both are demanding. Both are meaningful. And neither is meant to be done halfway.

Yet that’s exactly what many women are forced to do.

The cost of this split isn’t always immediate. It shows up slowly. In the dull ache of always being “on.” In the grief of feeling unseen. In the exhaustion that rest doesn’t quite fix because the fatigue isn’t physical—it’s psychological.

It’s the fatigue of constantly editing yourself.

What working mothers often want isn’t less responsibility. It’s integration. The ability to exist as one person instead of two carefully managed versions. The freedom to bring their full humanity to work without fear of penalty. The permission to acknowledge that caregiving is not a distraction from leadership, but a part of it.

But most workplaces aren’t built for that level of honesty. They’re built on separation. On the idea that personal life should stay personal, as if parenthood doesn’t shape how you think, lead, and make decisions.

So the split persists.

And yet, something remarkable still happens in the middle of it.

Women build strength in the seams. They develop depth, empathy, and resilience not because it’s celebrated, but because it’s required. They learn how to hold complexity without falling apart. How to navigate contradiction. How to lead while caring deeply.

That capacity is real. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of wholeness.

Working mothers don’t need to be taught how to juggle better. They need environments that stop forcing the split in the first place. Cultures that understand that a woman doesn’t leave half of herself at the door just because it makes things neater.

There is no clean line between meetings and motherhood. And there shouldn’t have to be.

The real work ahead isn’t helping women manage two lives more efficiently. It’s building systems where they don’t have to live divided at all.