Variable Motherhood

I can’t tell if motherhood slowed me down, or if I’m just using my child as a convenient excuse for the fact that I never arrived where I told myself I’d be.

It’s a persistent, low-grade fever of a thought. At 38, the math should be adding up to something more substantial than this. I am a Head of Marketing. On paper, that looks like a destination. In reality, it feels like a plateau I climbed onto because I ran out of breath, not because I reached the summit.

When you’re a high-performing hidden depressive, you get very good at building scaffolds. You build them out of titles, out of "crushing it" in Q4, and out of the sheer terror of being found out. Then you have a kid, and the scaffold starts to creak.

People like to offer variables for why things feel stagnant. They say it’s the "mom brain," or the "immigrant tax," or the general malaise of the post-2020 economy. But I can’t isolate the variables. I don’t have a control group. There is no version of me in a parallel universe who didn’t move to Canada in 2018, who didn’t have a child at 35, and who isn’t now sitting at a desk in Vancouver wondering if she’s actually just mediocre.

the biological scapegoat

It is very easy to blame the three-year-old.

Motherhood is a socially acceptable reason for a lack of professional velocity. If I say I’m "prioritizing my family," people nod with a kind of patronizing respect. It’s a clean exit from the rat race. But the truth is more jagged. I don't know if I’m prioritizing my family or if I’m just tired of the performance and using the toddler as a human shield.

If I didn't have to leave at 4:30 PM for daycare pickup, would I be a CMO? Would I have started that agency? Or would I just be staring at the same spreadsheets for three more hours, fueled by a different kind of emptiness?

The uncertainty is the heaviest part. In marketing, we love data. We love A/B testing. But you can’t A/B test a life. I am stuck in the B group, and I have no way of knowing if the A group: the childless, high-octane version of me: is actually winning or just better at pretending.

the 2018 reset

Then there’s the immigrant variable.

I moved to Canada from Asia in 2018. I traded a life where I understood the unspoken rules for a life where I am constantly decoding them. Being 38 and an immigrant means you are playing a game of catch-up where the rules keep changing and the other players have a thirty-year head start.

You arrive with a certain amount of professional capital, only to find the exchange rate is insulting. You spend years rebuilding your professional identity from scratch, trying to prove that your "international experience" isn't just code for "irrelevant."

By the time I hit my stride, I was already "late" for the milestones I’d set for myself at twenty-two. Then came the pregnancy. Then came the medication.

I often wonder if the feeling of being "behind" is just a symptom of the move. Maybe I’m not stagnant; maybe I’m just still recovering from the transplant. But then I see people who moved at the same time and are seemingly soaring, and the motherhood variable pops back up. It’s a circular argument that lives in my head, and I’m the only one arguing both sides.

the medicated mask

For a long time, my "performance" was fueled by untreated depression and a desperate need to be useful. In many Asian cultures, utility is the only metric that matters. If you aren't being useful, what are you even doing here?

I was a "high-performing hidden depressive." It’s a common trope, even if we don't talk about it. We are the ones who get the promotions while privately wondering if jumping off a bridge would be more efficient than finishing the slide deck.

Now, I am medicated. The highs aren't as high, and the lows aren't as lethal. But there is a side effect no one mentions: the loss of the emergency fuel. When you are no longer running on cortisol and the fear of failure, you have to find a new engine.

I haven't found it yet.

Sometimes I look at my career and think, is this it? Is this the medicated version of me? Is the "stagnation" just what a normal, healthy level of ambition looks like? Or have I lost the edge that made me successful in the first place?

It’s hard to separate the career identity from the mask. If the mask was the thing that got me to the Head of Marketing role, what happens now that the mask is slipping?

the utility trap

We are taught that our value is tied to our output. As a mother, your output is supposedly a human being. As a marketer, it’s revenue. When you are doing both, and feeling like you are failing at both, the weight of being "behind" becomes physical.

I’m 38. In tech, 38 is "old." In motherhood, 38 is "advanced maternal age." In the immigrant timeline, 38 is "just getting started."

The intersection of these things is a very lonely place to be. I don't feel like I belong in the "mommy blogger" world of soft filters and organic snacks. I also don't feel like I belong in the "hustle culture" world of LinkedIn thought leaders who wake up at 5:00 AM to meditate.

I wake up at 6:00 AM because a toddler is poking my eye. I go to work because I need the money and the ego stroke, even if the stroke feels more like a slap lately. I don't have a "work-life balance" because that implies there is a balance to be found. There is only a series of trade-offs, and I am currently convinced I am making all the wrong ones.

the quiet unresolved

I’m writing this for the people who are quietly unresolved. For the people who aren't looking for a "5-step plan to reclaim your career."

There is no plan. There is only the examination of the mess.

We talk a lot about meaningful work and career clarity, but what if the clarity is just realizing that you’ve reached a point where you can’t tell the difference between your choices and your circumstances?

I look at my child and I feel a fierce, uncomplicated love. Then I look at my LinkedIn profile and I feel a cold, complicated resentment. I hate that these two things are linked. I hate that I can’t think about my daughter without thinking about the promotions I didn't chase because I was too tired, or the projects I handed off because my brain couldn't handle the load.

Is motherhood the variable? Maybe.

But maybe I was always going to end up here: 38, slightly bitter, and wondering where the time went. Maybe the child just gave me a reason to stop running a race I was never going to win.

no conclusion

I don’t have a lesson to wrap this in. There is no "but at the end of the day, her smile makes it all worth it." Her smile is great, but it doesn't pay the mortgage or fix the feeling that my brain is turning into mush.

I am a Head of Marketing who isn't sure she wants to market anything anymore. I am an immigrant who isn't sure she’s ever going to feel at home here. I am a mother who isn't sure if she’s using her motherhood as a crutch or a cage.

I am just here, in the middle of it. Examining the variables. Not solving for X.

For more thoughts on the messy intersection of identity and career, you can check out my about page or look through the sitemap. Or don't. I’m just stating things as they are.