Going back to school as a working mom: what no one tells you about the juggling act
The first time I opened my laptop after putting the kids to bed, I stared at the blank screen for eleven minutes. The cursor blinked. The kitchen was still full of dinner dishes. My daughter had asked me to read one more chapter and I’d said no, which led to a small, tearful negotiation that ended with her falling asleep mid-protest. My son had left his homework folder on the table, half-finished, and I knew the teacher would send a polite email in the morning. I had a deadline for a course assignment in forty-eight hours. And my actual job—the one that pays the mortgage—was waiting on an email I was too tired to write.
That was three months ago. I’m now halfway through a postgraduate certificate in early childhood education. Which means I’m a mother, a staff accountant at a regional firm, and a student who sometimes forgets which hat she’s wearing. If you’re thinking about doing this yourself, or if you’re a teacher watching a parent in your class attempt this high-wire act, I want to be honest about what it actually looks like. Not the motivational poster version. The version where you cry in the supermarket aisle because you forgot to print the permission slip for the field trip.
The idea started innocently enough. My youngest started kindergarten, and for the first time in eight years, I had a solid block of daytime hours that weren’t consumed by diapers, playgrounds, or preschool pickups. I told myself I’d just take one class. Something that might help me move from accounting into school administration, or maybe just something interesting. My husband was supportive in that loving-but-vague way. That’s great, honey. He said it the same way he says I’ll take out the trash later.
I registered for a single evening course. The first week, I felt like a genius. I carved out a small desk in the corner of the bedroom, bought a cute notebook, and announced to the family that Thursdays were now Mommy’s school night. Everyone cried a little, but I felt purpose flowing back into my veins.
Then week three happened. The class was given a group project, and my group included a twenty-two-year-old who had never had to arrange a playdate and a woman who talked about her inner journey during every Zoom call. We had a meeting scheduled for eight p.m. on a Tuesday. At 7:58, my son announced he had to build a Roman aqueduct for a school project. Out of cardboard. By Thursday. I looked at him. He looked at me. I logged into the Zoom meeting with one earbud in while helping him glue a toilet paper roll onto a shoebox.
The teacher for my course—a sharp, gray-haired woman who had raised three kids—said something during week four that I still think about. We were discussing time management. She said, You don’t need to be a good student. You need to be a good enough student. Perfection is a luxury for people without laundry.
That changed the game for me. I had been treating my return to studies like I was twenty-one again. I wanted every reading finished, every note color-coded, every discussion post thoughtful. That version of me existed when my only job was to write a good essay. This version of me finds it a win if I can remember where I left my keys.
So I started making small, concrete adjustments that had nothing to do with willpower.
First, I moved all my study materials out of the bedroom. It sounds simple, but that half-folded laundry, my husband’s snoring, and the lure of my phone charger made it impossible to focus. I now study at the kitchen table, after dinner, but only with a timer set for forty-five minutes. When the timer beeps, I stop. If the kids need something, I handle it, but I’m much less likely to get distracted by ambient mess when I have a clear start and stop time.
Second, I told my daughter’s teacher exactly what I was doing. That was terrifying at first. I worried it would sound like an excuse. But I sent her a short email saying, I’m back in school part-time and I’m trying to help Alyce with reading every night, but some evenings are chaotic. Any suggestions? She wrote back the same afternoon and said she’d rather have picture books with one missed page than a tired, resentful mom. She even gave me a list of “parking lot activities” – simple oral spelling games we can play during the drive home. That one email saved my sanity more than any study app.
Third, I stopped trying to protect my kids from my own stress. That sounds counterintuitive, but here’s the thing. I used to hide in the bathroom to cry or to cram. My daughter once asked why I was gone so long. Now I say things like, Mommy has a test tomorrow and she’s nervous. I need to read for twenty minutes. You can sit next to me and read your book. She doesn’t get to interrupt me constantly, but she sees me struggle. She sees me underline a passage, whisper “I don’t get this,” and then look it up online. Teachers tell me all the time how much kids learn from watching adults persist. I used to think that was fluff. Now I see her trying to sound out a difficult word, and she’ll say, It’s okay, Mommy made mistakes too.
The group project? I had to be honest with my teammates. I sent a message two days in: I have two kids and a job. I can do my part, but I can’t meet late nights. Can we shift to Sunday mornings? The twenty-two-year-old said, No problem, my weekends are free. The inner journey woman said she’d appreciate morning energy anyway. It worked. People cannot read your mind, and most people are more accommodating than you expect, especially if you say it early instead of ghosting them or showing up with half-work.
There are still absurd moments. Last week, I had a call with my academic advisor while sitting in the school pickup line. I held up a finger at my daughter, mouthed one minute, and tried to sound professional while a mini van beeped behind me. The advisor, who has clearly done this before, just laughed and asked if I needed her to repeat the registration dates. She also gave me a piece of advice I’ll keep: When you’re a parent, your study time isn’t a block. It’s a series of crumbs. Eat them.
What I’m learning is that this isn’t about clever hacks or becoming a superhuman scheduler. It’s about admitting, over and over, that you have limits, and then gently expanding the ones that matter. I used to think that being a good mother meant being always available. Being a decent student meant producing flawless work. Being a competent professional meant never missing a deadline. That’s a recipe for lying awake at 2 a.m. with your heart racing.
Now I have a whiteboard on the fridge with only three things written for each day. Not ten. Three. Yesterday it said: 1) Make lunch 2) Submit discussion post 3) Walk the dog. I didn’t walk the dog. But I did submit the post, and my daughter saw me cross it off and say, Yes. She said, Good job, Maman. She said it like I was the one who needed the praise.
Will I finish this certificate? I honestly don’t know. I might hit a semester where work gets heavier or one child gets sick, and I’ll have to drop a class. That’s allowed. The school has a policy for parental emergencies, and I learned that from asking, not from staring at the website. The biggest shift isn’t that I’ve become better organized. It’s that I’ve stopped treating every misstep as a sign of failure. Missing a study session is just missing a study session. It doesn’t mean I’m a selfish mom or a mediocre employee.
Tonight, my husband is making dinner. That’s part of the arrangement now, and he still forgets to make sure the kids have clean socks. But he’s learning. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, watching my daughter do her spelling homework while I read a chapter on child development. Neither of us is getting it perfectly right. But we’re both sitting here, and that feels like enough for now.
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