When the ABC asked the “working mums” of Instagram for their best work-life hacks last week, my reaction was immediate. The post was yet another reminder that, even in 2026, navigating parenting alongside work is still a mother’s problem to solve.
My following thoughts were marked by less clarity. What response did the writer expect, I wondered? Did they anticipate hearing how mums are successfully splitting themselves into two so that they could work like they didn’t have children and mother like they didn’t have jobs?
“When we ask women for ‘work-life balance’ tips, we turn a structural problem into a personal one,” says Prabha Nandagopal, founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, noting that language doesn’t just reflect inequality, it helps to stabilise it. “Until the terms change, assumptions about whose time is flexible, whose labour is visible, and who’s expected to do the care won’t change.”
And nestled next to the word “balance”, you’ll often find “working mum”.
“The term ‘working mum’ isn’t neutral. It frames paid work as an extra on top of a mother’s ‘real’ role, while fathers go unmarked,” says Nandagopal.
If social media is the new town square, the fact there are 121,000 posts under the hashtag “working dad” and 1.6 million posts under the hashtag “working mum” confirms the social narrative: that a mum’s paid work, regardless of her salary and whether her family needs it, comes second to her “real” work inside the home.
“There’s no equivalent cultural preoccupation with ‘working dads’ because men’s participation in paid labour is treated as the default, and their participation at home as optional,” Nandagopal says.
So if – as the ABC put it – “the maths ain’t mathing”, what’s the equation we should be looking to solve?
The answer is both complex and simple. Treating employees like adults is a start, with arrangements that are truly flexible, valuing results over availability.
“As an agency that’s created over $1 billion worth of brands, flexibility is a superpower,” says Bree Johnson, founder and managing partner of agency Willow and Blake. “Happy people are productive, it’s as simple as that, and as long as the work gets done, I don’t micromanage.”
The research supports this. According to Harvard Business Review, there’s a causal link between happy workers and a 13 per cent increase in productivity, and yet, the workplace’s obsession with presenteeism prevails. It’s an obstacle that hurts parents overwhelmingly.
When a mother of two tells me she didn’t get a promotion because she’s not working full-time, we can both recognise that in this instance – as in so many others – presenteeism has been favoured over output. It’s why many mothers are left wondering how they’re supposed to work in systems that aren’t set up to support them.
Through Ready or Not, the podcast I co-host, we interrogate these systems weekly. When we brought fatherhood into the conversation, a long held belief was confirmed: dads want to be meaningfully involved in caregiving.
One new dad recalls the shock and appreciation that came with the first weeks of using the paid parental leave offered by his work. “It’s made my relationship stronger, and I appreciate my wife’s sacrifices even more,” he tells me.
When we empower dads to be involved early, we teach our children and society at large that men belong in the caregiving fold. It’s a conversation many parents believe is missing.
Another mum of two tells me she believes she and her husband are a genuine team. “What isn’t discussed is how hard the patriarchy works to keep heterosexual parents apart, through systems that make it challenging for men to be visible as fathers,” she says.
This sentiment echoes the sentiment that the patriarchy hurts men, too. If a family can’t afford to lose dad’s salary, for example, progressive parenting ideals are swiftly replaced with financial necessity. According to WGEA’s March findings, more than 50 per cent of employers have a gender pay gap larger than 11.2 per cent in favour of men.
While that gap remains, so too will traditional stereotypes. Factor in single mothers and two-mother families, and it’s clear how this gap leads to real-world financial implications. The push for equal pay needs to continue, alongside it is valuing the care work that’s been invisible for centuries.
OxFam reported that women perform more than 75 per cent of unpaid care work globally. When valued at minimum wage this represents a global economic contribution of at least $10.8 trillion yearly, more than three times the size of the global tech industry. Society would collapse without this work. Society needs to see that.
“We need to make the invisible load visible,” says Leah Ruppanner, Melbourne University professor and director of the Future of Work Lab. “We need to verbalise and demonstrate it because you can’t share what you can’t see.”
And, I get it. Communicating the invisible load feels like another item to add to the bottom of a mum’s exhaustive to-do list, but it’s difficult to see how we shift the current narrative without continuing to speak up.
The women who came before us fought for our seat at the table, and now, it’s the responsibility of all parents to make sure us “working mums” don’t destroy ourselves as we fight to keep it.
Mums aren’t clowns, so it’s time they stopped juggling it all alone.
Lucinda McKimm is a mother, writer, producer and the co-host of Ready or Not, a twice-weekly podcast created for and about mums who make work, work.
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Lucinda McKimm is a mother, writer, producer and the co-host of Ready or Not.
