Caregiving Is Not Linear

This has been one of those weeks where the idea that older kids need you less feels laughable…

In some ways, yes, my children are much more independent than they were when they were little. I can work for the day and trust that they will figure out most things, even if they would often prefer that I figure those things out for them. I can leave the house without packing toys. I am no longer buckling car seats, cutting grapes, or trying to remember which small plastic cup has suddenly become emotionally essential.

There is more freedom in this stage, and I do not want to pretend there isn’t.

But this week has also been full of unexpected needs from multiple children, doctor calls, appointments, follow-ups, and the kind of care coordination that does not look anything like early motherhood but still takes up an enormous amount of space in both my head and my calendar. It has been an especially heavy week with my oldest, for both him and me, as we keep trying to understand what has been going on with his health since he got sick this spring.

I am not going to write about the details, because the story is not only mine, but I can write about the shape of it.

The shape is online portals and phone calls and forms. It is trying to remember which doctor said what, and which follow-up still needs to be scheduled, and which question I forgot to ask until the appointment was already over. It is the particular kind of attention required when a child is old enough to have his own privacy, his own fear, his own frustration, his own dignity, and still needs a parent beside him to help hold the edges of a system that is not especially easy to navigate.

It is different from the physical intensity of early motherhood, but it is not small.

And this is the part I think we often miss when we talk about care.

We tend to imagine caregiving as a straight line. Babies have the most needs, and that is when you are on leave. People understand that you are physically needed and that your body and sleep and time are all visibly claimed by someone else.

Then, slowly and steadily, the line is supposed to move toward less need.

The child sleeps through the night.
The child feeds herself.
The child gets dressed.
The child makes her own plans, packs her own bag, walks herself into school, texts when she needs a ride.

And some of that happens.

My kids ARE more independent in many ways.
But it is not a constant progression away from support.

The reality is much more “spiky.”

The work changes shape. Sometimes it gets lighter. Sometimes it gets much heavier. Sometimes it recedes for a while and then comes back in a form you did not expect, at a time that is not especially convenient, with needs that are harder to explain and much harder to outsource.

This summer, that has been true in several directions at once. One child has needed a lot of medical support and advocacy. He is also doing an incredibly ambitious research project in astrophysics, which is still slightly funny to me because I can offer many things as a mother, but meaningful content support in astrophysics is not one of them. What I can offer is help around the edges: structure, timelines, reminders, breaking things down into steps, staying connected to the work when it gets overwhelming.

Another child has needed more coaching around anxiety and how to find structure in the long, open stretches of summer, especially in the weeks without camp or work or some outside rhythm for his day.

None of this looks like the exhausting parts of early motherhood.

No one is waking me up to be fed.
No one needs me to carry them everywhere.
But the need is still real. It is just less visible.

We want caregiving to be linear. To get easier.
And it does in some ways, but not consistently and not in every way.

Older kids get sick too. Teenagers need support in ways that are harder to summarize in a parental leave policy. Neurodivergent kids may become more independent in some ways while still needing a great deal of scaffolding in others. A child who seemed settled may need more again. A parent may get sick just as your career is growing. A diagnosis may arrive on a timeline that does not ask what else is happening in your life.

Caregiving comes in waves. And ambition has to live alongside that.

Not after it. Not once the caregiving is complete. Alongside it.

This is the part I am very much living right now. I am three weeks away from launching a book I care deeply about. I want it to reach women. I want it to open doors. I want it to matter. There is a part of me that wants to pour everything I have into this book right now.

And I am also coordinating appointments, helping with timelines, thinking about medication lists, managing worry, and trying to stay steady for the people in front of me. And I also want to be there to do this for them.

That is not a failure of planning. It is not a sign that I should have waited for a cleaner season. It is just the truth of being a person with ambition and attachments.

The lives we build do not pause one part of themselves so another part can proceed uninterrupted. Work does not stop mattering because someone you love needs care. Care does not stop arriving because work matters.

And maybe this is part of why the fantasy of balance can feel so punishing. It suggests there is some arrangement, some perfect distribution, some ideal calendar architecture that will finally keep everything in its lane.

But so much of motherhood is learning that the lanes do not hold. They never did.

They blur. They merge. They close unexpectedly.
And then you are rerouting again, trying not to blame yourself for the traffic.

I don’t have a clean answer for this. What I have is the ability to hold the complexity for myself and for all of you. To see so clearly the love, growth and ambition of the mothers and caregivers who are doing meaningful work while quietly holding far more than most people can see.

The woman leading the meeting after spending the morning on hold with insurance. The founder building her company while coordinating care for a parent. The lawyer reviewing documents from the parking lot of a specialist’s office. The mother who looks, from the outside, as if she has older kids and therefore more time, while inside her actual life there are appointments, worries, forms, reminders, and a level of vigilance that does not photograph well.

This is ambitious motherhood, too.

Not only the baby on the hip. Not only the pumping room. Not only the return from leave. Also the teenager who needs help making sense of his own capacity. The child whose body is asking questions no one has answered yet. The parent who needs care just as your career is growing. The invisible load that returns at inconvenient times and refuses to ask whether this is a good week.

It rarely is.

And still, we keep going. Not by pretending it is easy, and not by convincing ourselves that if we just had the right system, caregiving would stop interrupting ambition. But by telling the truth about the life ambition has to live inside.

That is part of why I wrote Ambitious Mother. Because I do not think women need another voice telling them to manage their time better while ignoring the fact that time is not the only thing being asked of them.

They are being asked to hold uncertainty. To coordinate systems. To anticipate needs. To keep showing up for work and for love. To want things for themselves while responding to the needs of people who matter deeply to them.

We deserve workplaces that understand caregiving is not a short phase or a linear decline, support that reflects the actual shape of family life, and to stop wondering whether the return of need means they have somehow failed to build a sustainable life.

Sometimes the need returns because nothing about being human is linear.

This week, I am living that. I am launching a book and tracking appointments. I am thinking about preorders and follow-ups. I am helping with timelines I barely understand and trying to offer calm where I can.

I am tired. I am grateful. I am interrupted. I am ambitious.
All of these are true.

Ambitious Mother comes out August 6th. If you are a mother, a caregiver, or someone trying to build a meaningful life inside the unpredictable shape of care, I wrote this book with you in mind.

And if this made you think of someone whose caregiving is less visible than the world assumes, send it to her. She may need the reminder that she is not doing it wrong.

She may simply be caring in a season no one remembered to design support around.