There's something I've been noticing about major life transitions.
How quickly we're expected to move on.
Back to work.
Back to productivity.
Back to normal.
Back to being the person we were before.
But what happens when we're not quite that person anymore?
This is something I think about a lot in relation to becoming a mother and returning to work after maternity leave.
Because motherhood can bring enormous joy, love and meaning.
But it can also involve loss.
And we don't always make much room to talk about that.
Can you love being a mother and still miss your old life?
I think this is one of the harder things to acknowledge.
You can love your children deeply and still miss parts of your life before they arrived.
The freedom to make spontaneous plans.
Having time that belonged entirely to you.
Being able to focus on your career without constantly considering the logistics of family life.
Or simply feeling like you knew who you were.
These feelings aren't necessarily contradictory.
You can be grateful for the life you have and still feel a sense of loss for the life that's changed.
But because motherhood is often framed as something entirely positive, it can be difficult to admit that some parts of the transition feel complicated.
Especially when you're surrounded by messages about how lucky you are.
And of course, you may feel lucky.
But that doesn't mean every part of the adjustment has to feel easy.
Why motherhood can change your sense of identity
There's a term for the wider transition into motherhood: matrescence.
It describes the psychological, social and identity changes that can accompany becoming a mother.
Just as adolescence involves changes in how we understand ourselves and our place in the world, becoming a mother can involve a period of adjustment.
For some women, that includes questioning aspects of their identity that previously felt familiar.
Who am I outside being a mother?
What matters to me now?
Do I still want the same things?
Where does my career fit into all of this?
Not every woman experiences motherhood in the same way.
Some feel a strong sense of continuity with who they were before.
Others experience significant changes.
And many find that different feelings emerge at different stages.
But what matters is recognising that becoming a mother can be more than a change in responsibilities.
It can also change how you understand yourself.
The parts of your old life you might miss
Sometimes the losses associated with a major transition are obvious.
A relationship ends.
You move away from somewhere familiar.
You leave a job.
Other times, the losses are harder to name.
You haven't necessarily lost something completely.
But your relationship with it has changed.
Perhaps you still have your career, but you no longer have the same freedom to work late or travel.
Perhaps you still see your friends, but spontaneous evenings out are harder to arrange.
Perhaps you still have time to yourself, but it requires planning in a way it never used to.
Or perhaps you miss the version of yourself who felt confident, independent and certain about what she wanted.
These changes can feel difficult to explain.
Particularly when the transition has also brought something you value enormously.
Missing your old life doesn't mean you want to go back to it.
Sometimes it simply means acknowledging that something important has changed.
Why returning to work can bring these feelings to the surface
Returning to work after maternity leave can be a particularly interesting point in this transition.
Because you're stepping back into an environment where so much may look familiar.
The same colleagues.
The same office.
The same responsibilities.
Perhaps even the same desk.
But you might feel different.
And that contrast can be unsettling.
You may have expected work to feel like returning to a familiar part of yourself.
Instead, you find yourself questioning where you fit.
Perhaps your confidence feels different.
Perhaps your priorities have shifted.
Or perhaps you're struggling to reconcile the professional identity you had before with the person you've become.
For some women, work provides a welcome sense of familiarity and independence.
For others, returning makes the changes in their identity more noticeable.
Neither response is wrong.
But both deserve space to be understood.
The pressure to get back to who you were
We use the word back a lot around motherhood.
Getting your body back.
Getting your confidence back.
Getting your career back on track.
Getting back to normal.
And I understand why.
When so much has changed, the idea of returning to something familiar can feel reassuring.
But it can also create an expectation that the goal is to become exactly who you were before.
What if that's not what you want?
What if some of your priorities have genuinely changed?
What if you've developed strengths, perspectives or ambitions that weren't there before?
Or what if you still want the same career, but need a different way of making it work?
Perhaps the question isn't always how to get back to your old self.
Perhaps it's how to make room for who you are now, without feeling you have to abandon everything you valued before.
Why acknowledging loss can help you move forward
When something feels difficult, we often want to solve it quickly.
Find the right routine.
Make a decision.
Get organised.
Move on.
And practical solutions can be important.
But sometimes we try to solve a feeling before we've understood it.
If you're missing parts of your old life, it may help to identify exactly what those parts represented.
Was it freedom?
Independence?
Recognition?
Time to think?
A sense of achievement?
Feeling connected to other people?
Because once you understand what you're missing, you can begin thinking about how those needs might be met in your life now.
It may not look exactly the same.
But that doesn't mean those parts of you have disappeared.
An exercise: What have I lost, and what have I gained?
If you've been feeling unlike yourself since becoming a mother, here's something you could try.
Take a piece of paper and divide it into three sections.
1. What do I feel I've lost?
Write down anything that comes to mind.
It might be time, freedom, confidence, spontaneity, professional identity or something else entirely.
Don't worry about whether you should feel that way.
Just notice what's there.
2. What have I gained?
This might include new relationships, experiences, strengths, perspectives or things you've learned about yourself.
You don't need to force yourself to find a positive for every loss.
The aim isn't to cancel one out with the other.
It's to acknowledge that both can exist.
3. What do I want to carry forward?
Look back at what you've written.
Are there parts of your old life you want to make more space for?
Are there things you've gained that you want to protect?
What matters most to you now?
And what might that mean for the decisions you're making about work, family life or your future?
You don't need to have all the answers.
Sometimes understanding the question is a useful place to begin.
You don't have to choose between your old self and your new one
I think there's a tendency to talk about motherhood as though there's a clear before and after.
The person you were.
And the mother you've become.
But identity isn't necessarily that simple.
You can still value your career.
Still want independence.
Still enjoy the things you enjoyed before.
And also have new priorities, responsibilities and parts of yourself that matter just as much.
You don't have to choose one version of yourself over another.
And you don't have to rush to make sense of every change.
Major transitions can take time to understand.
Sometimes the most helpful thing is simply having space to acknowledge what's changed.
Not because you want to undo it.
But because you want to work out what comes next.
You can love the life you're building and still miss parts of the life you had before.
Both things can be true.
Finding your feet after becoming a mother
At The Parent Shift, I support women navigating questions about identity, confidence and career direction after becoming mothers.
Sometimes those questions emerge during maternity leave.
Sometimes they appear when you return to work.
And sometimes they surface months or years later, when you realise that what you want from your career has changed.
Through one-to-one coaching, we create space to explore what's happening, what matters to you and what you want to do next.
My three-session coaching package is £395.
Explore one-to-one coaching or book a free introductory conversation.
You can also download my free guide to confidence, identity and work after motherhood.