Back to Work Diary #2: Finding the Rhythm
w/c 2 March
***Hi — welcome to this diary. This series follows my return to work after 12 months of maternity leave. I went back on my son’s first birthday.
I work in employment policy, so I’m documenting this transition as it happens — what returning to work actually looks and feels like in practice. Partly, this is for me, but I also hope it resonates with others trying to navigate work, care, and everything in between.***
The second week was easier than the first. Not easy - but easier. Which, at this stage, feels like enough.
Monday & Tuesday, 2–3 March
The week started quietly. Highlight of Monday was a joining a kick off meeting on youth employment - timely, given everything happening in that space right now, and genuinely exciting to be part of.
Tuesday brought something harder. My son has started to understand, in whatever way a one-year-old understands anything, that I am not always there. He used to be unbothered and securely attached boy. Now he reaches for me when I leave the room which is the most difficult part of this transition.
Wednesday, 4 March
Which takes us to Wednesday. This time, I managed to unbox my work clothes ahead of time and find something I actually liked!
But Wednesday brought a small logistics issue that I hadn’t fully thought through. We’d talked about expressing milk at work before I came back and there was flexibility around it, but staying for a full day meant I needed to actually do it. Meeting rooms have to be booked in advance, and I hadn’t planned ahead - so I noticed very late that every room was taken on the day.
I considered my options. The toilets were not it. Pumping at my desk felt like one step further than I was ready for. I didn’t want to go out for this. I could have asked someone to help find a solution. I didn’t. Instead, I made a mental note to sort it out before next week.
It felt less like a major issue and more like one of those things you only really figure out once you’re back!
The other thing that happened on Wednesday: a meeting about the Work & Health Summit I’ll be presenting at later this month- focused on practical ways employers can support workforce health. It felt like picking up a thread I’d left hanging and finding it was still there.
Thursday, 5 March
A roundtable on single worker status- one of the more contested ideas in employment policy right now. I had to do some reading beforehand. Things had moved on while I was away.
For non-policy readers: UK employment law currently splits people into three categories - employees, workers, and the self-employed - each with different rights. Single worker status would collapse those into one, giving everyone, including gig workers and freelancers, the same basic floor of protections. It sounds simple. It isn’t.
Friday, 6 March
Rhyme time.
We sat in a circle and sang about wheels on buses and sleeping bunnies. I found myself thinking how much I am enjoying this new normal and spending quality time with him on Fridays.
Week two. A routine beginning to form- working days, office days, walks before sunset, rhyme time on Fridays. The separation anxiety is new and harder than I expected.
More soon.
