I decided to stop working about a year and a half after my first child was born. Seven years and three kids later, I started seriously considering going back to work. I always planned to start working again, and once my youngest was ready to join his brothers in school, I thought it was the perfect time to put this plan in motion. However, rejoining the workforce during a pandemic and school shutdowns was not something I was prepared for.

Still, I felt I had a pretty solid plan. Thinking that all three of my kids would be in school, I figured I would finally have the time and ability to focus on work while hopefully managing the balancing act that is continuously required of working mothers. As it turned out, I started working last July when I joined Haute Hijab, when none of my kids were physically in school.

My plan went out the window and, like thousands of women upon whom the struggle of working and disproportionately caring for family became even more clear during COVID times, I had to figure it out.

Mothers are the queens of “figuring it out,” though. It’s how we navigate anything in our lives that we are either responsible for, committed to or passionate about. There is no quitting; we find a way and get it done (often to the stretching of our own physical and mental health, but that’s another story). I’m not sure if there is anything like the amanah of motherhood that would have better taught me this.

Working from home was both a blessing and a bit maddening this year, as umpteen mothers can attest. I needed to find creative ways to keep my younger two, who are four and five years old, busy while I worked and their older brother attended third grade via Zoom. If they weren’t engaged in an activity, they were engaged in a fight. Their toys no longer held their interest, and they suddenly needed snacks every 10 minutes. (Sound familiar?)

I had to figure something out ASAP.

In the beginning, I wasn’t trying to balance anything. I just needed to stay afloat. Enter survival mode. How was I going to get through each day, and meetings and calls while also meeting the needs of my kids? This was new for us. We needed a routine that worked for everyone. I had to bend on some rules like screen time limits and take on things I don’t care for, like arts and crafts, but we eventually settled into a groove that took us out of survival mode.

Also, naps were huge. If your kids nap, you’re already ahead. (Editor’s note: Sandy is LEGENDARY at Haute Hijab for announcing on Slack that she’ll be gone for 5-10 minutes to put her littles down for a nap, and then she returns in that amount of time!)

Although my end goal was to find balance, writing about my experience has me questioning the very idea of what balance looks like. Is it juggling everything perfectly? Is it kids who (for the most part) feel they have your attention while you get work done? I’m not sure that’s possible depending on how much we want to juggle! Our ambitions might be high, but our time is limited - as are our mental and emotional capacities.

I couldn’t simply add my new HH job into the mix of everything I was already doing. I knew the stress as a result of that was unnecessary. Instead of trying to balance the old with the new, I found myself navigating through work and motherhood by starting fresh. I didn’t need to balance everything.

I needed to shift my focus to prioritize my non-negotiables and let go of anything else. Letting go isn’t easy, but balancing it all is tough and puts us in a position where we have less control over what will inevitably get shortchanged.

My non-negotiables are my family and cooking. I’m trying to get consistent exercising back on that list, but in the meantime, I refuse to stress about it. Cleaning did not make the cut either. Between the kids, work and cooking, there wasn’t enough time or energy to fit in all the cleaning I was doing on a daily basis. I also let go of my strict screen-time rules. This happened during survival mode, but much to my kids’ satisfaction, it has stuck.

Time and priorities look different for everyone, but once something gnaws at you for not getting done, you’ll know it needs to be bumped up higher on your list. Anything below it can be postponed or even eliminated as you see fit. It’s more empowering to be deliberate about what will get our full attention vs. what we’re ok with sacrificing.

Truth be told, the flexibility HH extends to the entire team, especially us parents, is instrumental in the way I am able to be there for my kids while I work. Not only am I physically with them in the same space, but I can easily tend to their needs and be hands on all day long. No one bats an eye if I need to jump out of a meeting to help one of the kids with something.

Also, my husband does help in a myriad of ways. I don’t want to make this sound like I’m doing this all on my own. The hustle is hard and shared. Major shout outs to the women (and men) who are having to manage their children and work singularly.

I don’t have a neat list of advice to offer (this post gives great advice) on how to make this work. We are all, still, literally figuring this out as we go along. And, all our situations are so vast and varied, as are the needs and moods of our kids and our office environments. I just want to offer solidarity in the struggle. There will be hard times for sure, but every new day is a chance to reset and focus.

Setting your intention and keeping your values at the forefront of everything you do will allow you to, Insha’Allah, find some sense of balance without the stress. Well maybe a bit of stress; I mean we are talking parenting and work here.