Why is Australia Letting its Mothers Go Back to Work Alone?

Alone in My Search

Have you ever felt completely alone trying to accomplish something? That’s how I felt when I had to first look for a job after my maternity leave “Completely alone. I’m saying it out loud for the first time. I always thought “this is the way it’s supposed to be,” so I never expressed my disappointment about that experience.

Women who go on maternity leave are faced with a hard reality. We flip a switch on them and expect them to just forget their career and focus on motherhood completely and then we expected them to flip that switch back and juggle them both. It’s crazy! In fact, I expected that of myself and was very hard on myself, let me tell you that.

The lack of emotional, mental and physical support is appalling. True there are childcare centres to assist us getting back to work but the work it takes to sustain it (pack lunches, childcare fees, detour and extra commute and time), the morning and evening rush is never accounted for.

Raising a family is an incredibly challenging, albeit rewarding experience of a woman’s life. She should have all the support she can get. As we try to grow our Australian economy we need to make mothers, the focus of development.

In today’s blogpost, I explore how a woman with little or no planning can still get back on her feet and find her independence through her work after motherhood, with joy in returning rather than the stress of starting on the backfoot.

Women’s Liberation and the Care Gap

Women have been part of the workforce for much longer than popular belief. In the 1900s. about one in five women worked for pay, but only about one in twenty married women did. Our participation fell as industrialization made it harder to combine paid work and home life, then rose again with the service economy. Women’s work was never new; it was just uncounted.

In 1950, 33.9% of US women aged sixteen and over were in the labour force. The rate peaked at 60.0% in 1999. Today, Women make up about two-fifths of global employment, and in 2025 they were 24.2 percentage points less likely than men to be in the labour force. The engagement of women in labour force peaked and stalled because of the care gap. 748 million people worldwide are outside the labour force because of care responsibilities, and 708 million of them are women. (Source: ILO, via a secondary summary from November 2024.)

The ABS recorded a female participation rate of 54.5%, and women made up 43.6% of the total labour force from 1999 to 2000. The ABS says women do around 70% of unpaid child care in Australia. Mothers spend an average of 3 hours 34 minutes a day on child care, while fathers spend 2 hours 19 minutes.

Additionally, women also encounter pay gap and unshared workload at home. Nobel-winning economist Claudia Goldin’s research shows that the pay gap widens sharply after a woman’s first child. Globally, gains in female participation have stalled. The reason is not ambition. It is the load carried at home.

No Plan

I was born in the age of the second wave of the feminist movement of women’s liberation. I was raised with the idea that a good education and a salaried job my way out of mediocre and dependent existence.

The joy and excitement of the first pregnancy for me made me forget all about my future position in the workforce. Giddy with the onset of a new chapter of my life I was looking forward to being stay-at-home  mother to my first baby.

Months turned into years and I was content playing the dutiful mother’s role and for a while this formed my whole identity. But as time passed the baby grew and I started to think about what it would be like to do something other than being a mother. I felt the urge to get back to work and the natural choice for me was architecture and construction because that’s where I’d always been.

I started off with part-time work at an architectural firm that my former firm has previously partnered with. At first, I felt out of place, like a new kid at high school at a new school. I found that my drafting skills had deteriorated due to being out of touch and I was so much slower than the others.

I felt zoned out most of the time. Just because I had resumed work didn’t mean that the late nights with my bub had stopped. The late night wakeup-to-feed were exhausting. The day off were mostly catch up work. Overall, I wasn’t enthused about work anymore, but I persevered despite the exhaustion.

Fast forward a couple of years, and in the wake of a meatier role I took up full time work. With this came and increased distance of commute and greater workload. I was micro-sleeping at the wheel just to get to work and even had a minor accident on a road. Add to this, the micro-management at work was stifling. 16 minutes late in the morning in, 16 minutes later out, never mind picking up the child on time.

Unlike post Covid, working from home was an unthinkable option. In a male dominated industry where presence at work was always expected, balancing home and work was an impossible task handed to us without ever asking for it. Compounded with micro-management and the lack of exciting work proved to be the death knell of my career in architecture.

Starting on the Backfoot

But it wasn’t just the workload and home-work balance that was off. There was an internal battle with self-esteem with which I was struggling. At work, I was competing with other younger employees who didn’t have children and those whose body hadn’t undergone a transformative change, who didn’t have to drive back home in time to pick up their child from long day care or after school care. Late nights were glorified and employees like us were, viewed as an inconvenience rather than an asset to the society.

Additionally, the understanding that a woman could have baby brain and still want to get back to work simply wasn’t there. Women have been and still are facing, the internal struggle to balance and manage their motherhood and career, due to the lack of understanding and emotional as well as physical support. Many times, it feels like it’s all on us! None of this is fair in my opinion for a gender that gives so much back to society and is the primary source of furthering the populace and therefore, civilisation.

The Gap That Needs Filling

In my head, the solution is simple. It’s to have a career counsellor offered to every working woman who is or wants to be part of the workforce. The career counsellor would have to be someone who understands parenting, motherhood and juggling work and home life. They would ideally be from a health care background and be equipped with mental healthcare advanced knowledge. The journey would start as soon as a woman is pregnant or planning her pregnancy. This would, automatically entitle her to the free service of a lifelong career advice based on their current situation and needs.

This would have to be a government funded scheme fully free for the women. Why? Because an empty cup can’t give. A mother who is exhausted, unsupported and second-guessing herself cannot pour into her children, her workplace or her community, no matter how much she wants to.

Because mothers bring something to work that no course can teach. It’s the maturity to know what matters most in the moment, and the willingness to set aside what she’d prefer in order to get the outcome that’s needed. I learned it standing at the stove, with a baby on my hip and a sore back I didn’t even notice. Employers call it multitasking. I’d call it leadership.

Because the economy depends on her. Every future worker, taxpayer and customer began with a mother. So why aren’t the women who bring the next generation into the world showered with support, instead of left to figure out the way back alone?

And because a private service would leave the woman in the middle behind. A middle-class mother is already paying childcare fees. If she then had to pay for career counselling on top, how much would be left to support herself? The women who need this most would be the ones who couldn’t afford it.

Now picture the first appointment. A woman walks in feeling tired and unsure of herself, and she is met with relief, the feeling that at least someone is looking after her. She walks out stronger, bolder and ready to return to her family, her community and her work, because she finally feels valued.

I know how much that matters because I watched my own mother give her strength and sacrifice to raise us in a healthy, wholesome home. She was never given a plan, a counsellor or a thank-you. She deserved all three.

The ‘women’s care’ organisation would have a profile for every woman that ever worked which they would manage and maintain all on the behest of the government. When I started my motherhood journey I had no plan. Having a care profile with a ‘women’s care’ worker would definitely help me get through the awkward journey of getting my foot back in the door of my chosen field.

This women’s care worker would help me decide what kind of industry would now be suitable for me, having stayed at home for a length of time and my mind, body and soul completely transformed with the life changing experience of having a baby.

They would help me decide what kind of hours would work for me and actually find a role fitting that criteria. They would be someone that reminded me that drafting rust is normal. They would help me find a therapist when I would struggle with managing both very important roles of raising children, the future of the world, along with supporting ourselves financially.

It’s true that this ask is incredulous but so is the task assigned to working mothers.

Finding your Footing again

Motherhood is a hard but rewarding labour of love, and it shouldn’t be made harder by a world that tells us, directly or indirectly, how unwanted we are in the workforce. We are expected to function at our best while doing the hardest job there is, and few people realise how much it takes out of us, physically and emotionally. Until the support I’m asking for exists, here is what I wish someone had told me about finding your footing again.

While you’re still on leave

• Use your Keep in Touch days. If you’re on paid parental leave, you may be able to do a few paid days of work without losing your payments. They are a gentle way to stay connected to your team, your skills and your professional identity. Check the details with Services Australia.
• Be gentle about the rust. Whether it’s drafting, coding or clinical practice, a few rusty skills after time away are normal. It comes back faster than you fear, and it says nothing about your worth.
• Give yourself a runway. It can take months to find the right role, and that’s normal. Rushing into the first offer is how many of us end up exhausted in the wrong job, so give yourself permission to be selective.

Getting ready

• List your transferable skills. Write down everything you can do that travels from one industry to another. Mothers are often better at project management, prioritising and problem-solving than they give themselves credit for.
• Sharpen one skill, not all of them. You don’t need to relearn everything. Pick the one or two skills that have changed most in your field, whether that’s new software, regulations or tools, and take a short course. It builds confidence faster than worrying about everything you’ve forgotten.
• Know your non-negotiables before you apply. Decide in advance what you need, whether that’s hours, commute, flexibility or pay, so you can say no to roles that will cost you more than they give. The commute that nearly cost me everything is the one I’d tell myself to refuse.
• Find your people. Look for other mothers in your industry, through alumni groups, LinkedIn or local networks. They know which employers are genuinely family-friendly, and they will remind you that you’re not the only one going through this.

Applying and interviewing

• Own your break. Don’t hide the gap on your resume. Name it plainly and let it show what those years built: patience, negotiation, logistics, and the ability to keep calm in chaos. Those are skills, not a pause in your career.
• Knock on old doors. Reach out to the talent acquisition teams of your previous employers. They already know your work, and they are often the warmest way back in.
• Follow up with a human voice. After you apply for a role, call the recruiter and tell them your situation. Offer to meet, even if the baby comes along. A real conversation says what a resume can’t.
• Practise out loud. Answer interview questions in front of a mirror until the words stop feeling foreign. Your confidence may be a little rusty, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.

Negotiating and settling in

• Ask for flexibility, and put it in writing. In Australia, parents of young children can formally request flexible working arrangements, such as different hours, fewer days or working from home. Employers have to respond in writing and can refuse only on reasonable business grounds. Check the current rules with the Fair Work Ombudsman before you ask.
• Test the water before you dive in. You don’t have to jump straight back to full time. Part-time, contract or casual work can be a stepping stone that rebuilds your skills and your confidence, and it often leads to something more permanent.
• Plan the logistics like a project. Sort the childcare, the morning routine and the back-up plan for sick days before your first day, and share the load at home with your partner or support network. A plan won’t remove the pressure, but it will stop it from catching you by surprise.

A Future Worth Building

A mother also needs to live and feel rewarded. When her work makes her come alive and gives her financial independence and self-reliance, she should be encouraged, not made to feel like an inconvenience.

I didn’t have a plan when I became a mother, and I paid for it with exhaustion, self-doubt and, eventually, a career I loved. But I don’t want that to be the story for the next woman. If this post reaches one mother who is standing at the edge of going back to work and feeling completely alone, I want her to know that she isn’t. What she’s feeling is shared by thousands of women. It isn’t a personal failing. It’s a gap, and gaps can be filled.

We raise the future of the world, and we deserve to be supported while we do it. Until the system catches up, let’s be each other’s career counsellors: share what we know, say the hard things out loud, and remind one another that a little rust is okay.

If you’ve come back from mat leave, I’d love to hear what helped you, or what you wish had been there. Tell me in the comments.