Personal Essays
Maternity Leave: Groundhog Day for New Moms
In the newborn phase, a unique dichotomy exists: routine without a routine. A set of events and tasks that need to be completed, but in no real particular order or at negotiable times. My newfound non-routine routine involves waking up each day in the early hours of the morning, feeding 1,000 times, changing 2,000 diapers, and venturing no more than an arm’s length away from my little one, ready to swoop in with a pacifier or scoop him up after the crying has prevailed long enough.
The Severest Sunday Scaries
Mother Doesn’t Always Know Best. But Maybe She Does Know Something.
Returning to work — after two days, two weeks, or 12 weeks — is scary because we make it scary. We let the meetings, tasks, and difficult client conversations pile up in our minds, layering on like weights that seem too heavy to lift. Maybe we can choose to view work as a means to an end: a string of tasks and calls we execute to flex our brain muscles and earn a living for our families.
In our digital world, parenting has seemingly been boiled down to a science, with each unique child as the variable tested against the hypothesis. We have more tools than ever to research, measure, and manage our children’s development. But has parenthood become an information-management job because of the abundance of resources, or because our culture of achievement and comparison has changed the way we approach parenting? And why have we come to rely on outside voices to navigate such an intimate experience?
Writing about the privilege, contradictions, and complications of motherhood and modern life.
Work + Motherhood
I explore the intersections of career and motherhood and attempt to answer the unsolved questions that shape how we work and live.
About
Hi, I'm Katherine Reading, MBA, marketing professional, writer, and first-time boy mama.