Why I Was Glad My Co-Host Skipped Her Kid’s School Event
My co-host Teresa's daughter had a bird project presentation at school this week. Teresa didn't go.
When she told me, my first thought was: good. Here's what else was on her calendar that same two-week stretch: a book publishing event, two separate classroom visits, and a spring performance her daughter had been talking about for weeks. Six different asks packed into fourteen days. At some point, the only rational move is to look at that list and pick.
This is what ambition actually looks like once you have kids. It's not doing less. It's knowing exactly which things deserve your limited energy, and guarding that energy like it's the scarce resource it is.
Why Working Moms Keep Running On Empty
Almost every working mom I coach is capable, committed, and trying hard. They are also running on fumes in a way that a good night's sleep doesn't fix.
The reason usually isn't too much work. It's that their ambition is getting spent in places it was never supposed to go.
The custom balloon arch for a five year old's birthday. The spirit week costume that took three trips to the craft store. The "quick" classroom volunteer sign-up that quietly became a monthly obligation. None of these are bad on their own. Some people genuinely love this stuff. But a lot of moms aren't doing it because they want to. They're doing it because it feels mandatory, because somebody else did it first, posted it, and now that's the bar.
That's not ambition. That's social comparison wearing a "good parent" costume.
Psychologist Leon Festinger's social comparison theory explains why: humans instinctively measure themselves against the people around them. For most of history, "around them" meant your actual neighbors. Now it means anyone with a phone. A mom in a different tax bracket, a different city, with an event planner on speed dial, posts her kid's birthday party, and suddenly that's the standard. Not for your neighborhood. For everyone.
How This Plays Out At Home
The result is that women end up competing in contests they never agreed to enter, burning energy on things that will be forgotten in 48 hours, then wondering why they have nothing left for the things they actually care about.
I used to define ambition the way most of us are taught to: bigger title, bigger paycheck, a resume that lands well at a dinner party. I chased that version hard. And I hit a point where I was earning more than I ever had and felt no happier for it. Just tired. Just busy.
There's data behind that feeling. A widely taught Yale course on the science of happiness cites research showing that once your income covers real security, housing, childcare, the basics without constant dread, additional income stops moving the needle on happiness. Past that line, a raise buys you more to manage, not more joy.
I felt this before I ever saw the research. Seeing the data just confirmed I wasn't imagining it.
Teresa had her own version of this. Planning a family trip, she and her husband weighed the Hamptons, the "obvious" choice, expensive, status-coded, against a rental in the Catskills with a pool and a grill. They picked the Catskills. Once they got there, she realized the zip code was never the point. What she actually needed was outdoor space and room to exhale. That was available anywhere.
What Actually Shifts After Kids
Here's the reframe: becoming a parent doesn't shrink your ambition. It sharpens your aim.
Once your time is visibly finite and you're watching a small person grow at a pace that makes you a little panicked, the question of where your ambition is actually going stops being abstract. It becomes urgent.
For me, clarity showed up when I started my coaching business. I'd wrap a session at 10pm, still lit up, while my partner was ready for bed hours earlier. That energy was the signal. That was where my ambition belonged. I got honest about the trade, too: I'd leave New York before I'd give up this work. I'd trade the address before I'd trade the feeling of doing something that mattered.
Teresa's version looks different on the surface but runs on the same logic. She still wants a serious career. She's still deeply proud of her work. But her scoreboard changed. It's no longer the title or the number. It's the quality of the problems she gets to solve, who she gets to build with, and whether she's home for the spring performance instead of the bird project.
The One Question That Changes Everything
Author Ramit Sethi writes about defining your own "rich life," the idea that financial success isn't one universal picture. For one person it's a house. For another, travel. For someone else, a four-day work week.
The question worth sitting with isn't how do I want to be perceived. It's what do I actually need to feel like my life is mine.
The birthday party arms race, the school event overload, the pressure to perform good-enough parenting online: none of that is your rich life. It's someone else's definition, amplified by an algorithm until it felt like the default setting.
Protect Your Ambition Like It's Finite. Because It Is.
Your ambition doesn't disappear after kids. It gets specific. You get to decide where it goes.
Not the bird presentation. The things you'll actually be glad you showed up for.
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Want the full conversation? Listen to Episode 105 of Rewritten: Real Talk for Working Moms Who Want It All on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
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Jess Wass is the Founder of Reworkit, a leadership development and coaching company, and co-host of Rewritten: Real Talk for Working Moms Who Want It All. She helps women ditch the script they were handed and build a life that's actually theirs.
Ready to get clear on where your ambition belongs? I work with women one-on-one on exactly this. Book a free consultation at reworkit.co/schedule-a-consultation.
