Years ago, I attended a popular Catholic women’s conference where a young participant asked one of the presenters for advice on how to pursue a career as a lawyer alongside a vocation to motherhood. She felt called to both. “Maybe some careers aren’t fit for moms,” the presenter proclaimed.
The young woman’s face registered shock and defeat at this blunt, unimaginative response. It wasn’t exactly the mentoring support the event had promised for female faith leaders. Meanwhile, I was fuming at the suggestion that parents just can’t have certain things, period.
Not yet a mother myself at the time, I truly had no idea how complex the dance of desiring a career and a family can be, but I did know that labeling some professions as off-limits for women who also want to have children wasn’t helpful. What works for one family might not be the same thing that works for another, so at best, it felt disingenuous to suggest one thing could be decidedly wrong for all women; at worst, it felt oppressive and sexist.
A limiting approach to a multifaceted life was unlikely to lead to the vocational flourishing and fulfillment I believe God wants for us. There had to be another way.
A few years later, a popular Catholic brand launched an initiative to convince women it is in fact possible for Catholic working mothers to have babies and simultaneously pursue their dreams. At face value, this sounds more like the abundant life promised to people who live in God’s will. But something about this campaign didn’t sit right with me either. By this time I had a baby of my own, so I was more intimately aware of the challenges of working motherhood. I didn’t think having babies was incompatible with accomplishing my career goals, but it certainly wasn’t going to be simple or straightforward. The flawlessly executed career and family life this brand portrayed seemed dishonest, and to emulate women who made it look effortless would have been a disservice to myself that would end in depletion and burnout.
People love to act like achieving “work-life balance” is the ultimate hack to successful working motherhood. They also like to pretend achieving “work-life balance” is actually possible. I no longer think it is possible—or preferable—to have this goal.
After the birth of my fourth child in 2024, I reread a book I had previously read during my first maternity leave six years ago. I realized how much Jennifer Fulwiler’s perspective in One Beautiful Dream (Zondervan) has shaped my own ideal framework as a working mother.
Unlike other messages directed at working moms implying women can have it all if they just work hard enough and have faith in God, Fulwiler described her early-motherhood struggles and joys, celebrations and sacrifices, with honesty and humor that assured me the various parts of my life were not in competition with each other. Treating them that way would only make me feel I was failing at both.
Fulwiler’s story drives home the idea that not only can women do good work and be good mothers but understanding these parts of ourselves as bound to each other and better together can also result in more joy along the way. After all, I’m living one life of abundance in God’s glory, not parallel lives, each with a singular success.
“Why would we think separating parts of ourselves would ever make sense?”
A wholesome life isn’t about maintaining perfectly stable balance. It’s about existing within a harmony that ebbs and flows, says Fulwiler; different parts take center stage at different times, but they always belong to the same symphony.
In her recent YouTube comedy special, Maternal Instinct, Fulwiler even talks about how our children can contribute to making our work better, citing examples of how her own kids have been involved in the orchestration and planning of her national comedy tours. Likewise, she says in her book, only when she involved her children in the process of writing was she able to finally complete her manuscript. I have found this mindset of cooperation, rather than competition, to not only be more effective and fulfilling but also to be more directly supported by my understanding of the Catholic faith. Catholicism urges us to love alongside one another in communion, solidarity, and interdependence. Never does it suggest isolation or division as the way to the heart of God. So why would we think separating parts of ourselves would ever make sense?
Another Christian motherhood book, Shannon Evans’ Rewilding Motherhood (Brazos Press), makes the point even more strongly that we don’t find fulfillment by denying parts of ourselves.
What we—and the world—need are women who are fully alive because they’ve embraced all parts of their God-given nature, not stifled some passions in the name of prioritizing others.
This doesn’t mean Catholic working mothers can do it all. It means we each get to make our own choices about what feels right for us, our families, and our careers. God created us to have unique desires and capabilities. So what works for one family might not work for another, and that’s part of why this mindset can work for everyone. It sometimes requires tough choices, job changes, or moves—but we each get to decide when and what is necessary and if it will lead to more joy.
I won’t pretend a harmonious work-home mindset makes everything easy. But it does make it easier to focus in a sustainable way on all the things I feel called to in life. That has meant making career choices that might not make sense to others. That’s OK. They make sense for me.
I am now collecting my own litany of moments when my children’s integration into my work has resulted in vocational fulfillment on all fronts. Like when my kids’ messy playroom inspired the linguistic theme of what would become an award-winning editorial. Even if this piece hadn’t won any awards, it would have remained a noteworthy achievement for me as a working mother.
Parenting advice is rife with recommendations to divide and conquer. The secret to success, it often seems, is just to separate things enough so that they never impact each other. But God designed creation to work a different way, where everything is connected and works better when we’re attentive to that relationship. It has done me immense good to embrace that truth.
This article also appears in the April 2025 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 90, No. 4, pages 43-44). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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