From first day jitters to daycare bugs: How we navigated the return to (paid) work after maternity leave
Ahead of Mother’s Day this weekend, BMF’s creative director, Josie Fox, and associate creative director and innovation lead, Emily Field, share their experiences of returning to work after maternity leave and how their work styles have changed since having kids.
It took just one coffee and some “I don’t know about you, but I” chat to realise we had a surprisingly similar experience of returning to advertising after maternity leave. Not only did we both become first time mums within six months of each other, and both return to BMF in new leadership roles, we had a lot of similar expectations of what being a mum in a creative department would be like. And as it turns out, many similar realities. So, in the hope another creative parent finds comfort or solidarity in it, we thought we’d share some.
Why our first day back at (paid) work didn’t play out like the movie in our heads.
In our minds, our re-entrance into the paid workforce was monumental. We’d both booked ourselves a trim, carefully picked out our outfits, and one of us (deeply afraid of failing at both motherhood and creative hood) downloaded a cringey affirmations app to amp up.
A good and encouraging piece even if it helps one parent feel better (which it will) about their RTW contribution. Thank you both!