13/02/2026
It looks like freedom.
Midweek bowling.
Just me and my son.
One-on-one bonding time. 🎳
From the outside?
“How lovely.”
“How lucky.”
But here’s the part no one sees.
I didn’t just “pop out” for bowling….
I pre-planned my workload.
I mentally carried my to-do list into the bowling alley.
And at 7:30pm?
I was back to work.
That’s not freedom.
That’s double-shifting.
Because when you’re a working mum, “stepping away” during the day isn’t time off.
It’s borrowed time and you repay it when everyone else is asleep.
People talk about work-life balance like it’s this neat, aesthetic pie chart. But for most of us, it’s more like:
-Doing emails in the car park.
-Feeling guilty for thinking about work when you’re not suppose to be working.
-And this one couldn’t be more true….Smiling through the stress because “you chose this!”
You can cherish the memory and still resent that it cost you your evening.
You can be grateful and exhausted.
Present and overwhelmed.
Proud and stretched thin.
That doesn’t make you ungrateful.
It makes you a working mum.
And the truth?
The bowling mattered.
But so did the pressure I carried to make it happen.
If this is you too, you’re not alone! 🤍
