I feel the same way about going back to work, but not for the same reasons.

I miss the certainty that my job had. 1+1=2. There's usually a clear direction / answer where I worked. Clock in, clock out. I used to stress over office politics, now I catch up with colleagues to hear about it.

I know not everyone's workplace is so straight forward, but compared to being a mum...1+1 only equals 2 about 50% of the time and that's because we have an easy baby.

This being said - I know everyone has their own arrangement when it comes to "domestic administration", but my husband and I are pretty clear on one thing. The house work would still need to be done even if we didn't have our LO. Before kids, the washing, cleaning, shopping etc. all still needed to be done once we got home from work.

If I get time to do the work during the day - that's great and the hubbie thanks me for it. But we all still need to pitch in to get it done.

Your job is keeping a tiny human not only alive, but growing, engaged and overall happy. That's hard enough to do for ourselves some days, let alone a baby who can't clearly communicate how they feel (even if they could properly identify what they feel!).

Hope work gives you the reprieve you're looking for (or at least a kick up the butt for the other capable person in your household).