We see this again and again at RecruitMyMom. Women don't necessarily become less ambitious when they become mothers.
But what ambition looks like can change.
For one woman, ambition might mean going back to work full-time as soon as she can. For another, it might mean finding a part-time role that allows her to keep her career moving while her children are young. Someone else may take a career break and return years later, ready to pick up where she left off. And another may decide that this is the season to step into leadership, change direction or build something entirely new.
Yet, whichever choice a mother makes, there often seems to be an opinion about it.
Return to work quickly, and someone will ask how you can leave your baby. Stay at home, and someone will ask what you do all day. Work part-time and your commitment to your career may be questioned. Work long hours, and you may feel judged for not being there enough. Ask for flexibility, and it is assumed that you are somehow less ambitious. Take a few years out and suddenly you are expected to explain the "gap" in your CV.
It often feels as though no version of motherhood and work gets an uncomplicated tick of approval.
Ambition doesn't have to look the same throughout your life
After working with thousands of women through RecruitMyMom, one thing has become very clear to us: ambition looks different for everyone.
Sometimes ambition is taking the promotion.
Sometimes it is saying no to the promotion because it isn't right for your family at that moment.
Sometimes it is working three days a week and keeping valuable skills and experience alive.
Sometimes it is returning after five years away and having the courage to begin again.
Sometimes it is choosing a job with less status but more flexibility.
And sometimes, when your children become more independent, it is putting your foot firmly back on the accelerator, or starting your own business.
None of these women necessarily lacks ambition. They are making different decisions for different seasons of their lives.
Flexibility and ambition can coexist
This is an important distinction.
Wanting flexibility does not automatically mean wanting less responsibility, less challenge or a less meaningful career.
We see highly experienced women looking for part-time, remote, hybrid, contract and fractional opportunities. They bring years of commercial experience, professional expertise and sound judgement. What they want to change is not necessarily the calibre of their work. It is how that work fits into their lives.
We also see mothers who want full-time careers, senior roles and significant progression.
And perhaps that is where we sometimes get the conversation about working mothers wrong. We try to find one solution for women when women themselves want very different things.
Your definition of success is allowed to change
Before children, success might have meant the next promotion, a bigger salary or an impressive job title. After children, it might mean being able to do work you enjoy and still fetch your child from school. Five years later, it might change again. That's not a problem or failure. That's life.
Careers are long - there is time. Over 30 or 40 years of working, there will be periods when we have enormous capacity for work and periods when other parts of our lives need more from us.
Motherhood is one of those parts.
We have seen it play out in thousands of women's lives through RecruitMyMom.
Women who thought their careers were over and discovered they weren't.
Women who returned after long breaks and found their confidence again.
Women who chose flexibility for a season and later stepped into senior positions.
Women who changed careers completely.
Women who never slowed down at all.
There isn't one right story.
We need to stop asking whether motherhood makes women less ambitious and start recognising that ambition evolves.
You can want to be there for the school concert and still want the promotion.
You can want flexibility and still want responsibility.
You can love being a mom and love your work.
And you are allowed to define success differently in different seasons of your life.
Motherhood doesn't have to take away your ambition. Sometimes, it simply changes what you are ambitious for.
