There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from never fully arriving anywhere.
You leave a meeting but carry the conversation into school pickup.
You answer Slack messages while making dinner.
You sit in front of your laptop thinking about your children – and sit with your children thinking about work.
For many working parents, the hardest transitions aren’t the obvious ones. It’s the transition management: the invisible mental shifts happening dozens of times a day between professional responsibility and emotional presence.
And the constant switching between the two.
Josie’s Shift Happens series asked leaders:
Their answers weren’t about perfect balance. They were about boundaries, rituals, communication, emotional recovery, and learning how to transition between roles with intention.
Below are their full reflections.
Founder + CEO, Sundays
The transition can be really hard. I often find myself getting deep into something for work right when I need to switch into mom mode. I used to power through and arrive at pickup still half in work-brain, which left me feeling unfocused and not very present with my son.
What changed it was building in even a few minutes of space to make the shift. Now I use the short walk to pickup as an intentional reset. I also used to end the day feeling bad when I didn’t get enough done, now I try to always reflect on everything I actually did, planned and unplanned even just for 30 seconds before I finish my work day.
CEO, MomUp
I have three kids, with my oldest heading off to college, and the biggest shift has been how time changes. When they’re little, it moves in slow motion and the needs are constant; as they get older, it speeds up and the needs become less visible and far less predictable. There’s a brief “golden age” in the elementary years where they’re independent but still want you around, and it goes quickly.
I’ve had to rethink availability completely. It’s no longer about always being present, it’s about catching the moments when they let you in and being fully there when it matters. I don’t always get it right, and I’ve had to let go of the guilt and focus on effort and awareness over perfection.
You don’t flip a switch—you create a transition. Give yourself a few minutes to close the work loop—write down what’s left, set your next step, and mentally put it away so it’s not competing for your attention.
Then shift your role on purpose: you’re not the problem-solver here, you’re the safe place. With older kids, it’s less about fixing and more about showing up—listen, stay calm, and resist the urge to jump in with solutions.
They often open up when things slow down, so be ready for a late-night conversation—and remember, presence matters more than having all the answers.
CEO + Executive Rest Coach, Mom-Care Oasis
I recommend you keep it simple and solid: Name where you are, say what you need, and connect it to how you want to show up.
When I’m on the edge of burnout, I’m not waiting until I completely fall apart… I say something early and I say it clearly. I’ll say, “I’m at capacity right now, and I need a pause to reset so I can show up the way I need to.”
And let me tell you, that one sentence? It does a lot. It tells the truth, and it sets a boundary without me feeling like I have to explain myself or carry guilt.
Founder + CEO, Mother AI
One of the hardest parts of working parenthood for me is being physically home, especially now that I work from home full time, but mentally still at work.
My go to strategy is that before I leave for pickup or shift into whatever the first family routine of the afternoon is, I do a voice brain dump into Claude and it synthesizes everything swirling in my head into organized bullet points that get dropped into a calendar invite for the next morning, with my EA cc’d so she has visibility and can help support follow-up where needed.
Without that, I found myself sitting at dinner half listening to my kids while mentally replaying meetings or thinking about what I still needed to get done. Seeing it all captured somewhere helps calm my anxiety and the mental replay loop that used to follow me into family time.
It doesn’t magically create balance, but it helps me be more present with my kids instead of just physically there and mentally somewhere else.
I don’t set boundaries by over-explaining my life. I don’t lead with “I’m a mom so…” because the moment you frame your reality as a disclaimer, you’ve already positioned yourself as the exception, and you’re not. You’re a professional with a life, which is no different than everyone else.
The clearest thing I ever learned is that kindness is clarity. The trap is thinking you need to justify your existence as a parent in a professional setting. What you need to do is communicate how you work, deliver on what you commit to, and let your output do the rest.
People don’t need your backstory. They need to know they can count on you.
The common thread across all of these reflections wasn’t perfection – it was intentionality.
The small rituals that create separation between roles.
The communication that prevents resentment.
The systems that quiet the mental load.
The realization that being present often looks different than we imagined it would.
Because sometimes the hardest part of working parenthood isn’t leaving work, it’s learning how to arrive somewhere else.
