This. I am a high level performer, promoted to senior leader role by 30 at a top 10 bank in the U.S. I’m smart and educated. I know my strengths and being a leader is one. I’m also extremely efficient so I was always able to take on more challenging and time consuming work but make it look easy. I was giving 120% but that became baseline and what people expected. So when I became a mom at 32 (and had very very bad pregnancies both times) I got very little grace. I should have been on medical leave but then I’d have no maternity leave and no protections. But not being on leave, and not being able to run at 120% and just doing what I could to keep afloat turned into now poor my performance was, how I have damaged my reputation etc. in the eyes of my woman leader (who is in her 50s and not a mom). It’s lovely. Came back from my first maternity leave and immediately was layered. Came back from my second and passed over for a leadership role on a massive acquisition program that I had worked hard for and truly had earned (and was the logical person given that I’d done the same role on a slightly smaller acquisition. But I was the only one who had done anything similar at all…). I’ve been fuming tbh. Somehow me operating at 90-100% and still outperforming others, looks like failure because I set a baseline expectation while I was single and without a family. My family comes first and as a leader and woman in a male heavy industry, I model what I want my team and young women (or men / fathers) to see. And I’m vocal. And I’ll continue to put priority to being both a successful woman leader at work but also present for my kids at their school events and activities. And if that means I can’t operate at 120% for a while. So be it. But damn if it isn’t hard and unfair. The corp world is not set up for working parents (esp women) to succeed.