Talk to Me Thursday: The Honest Truth About Being a Working Mom During Summer

Can we just talk for a minute? Like really talk?

Because summer is supposed to feel like magic. And in a lot of ways it does. But if you are a working mom trying to hold it all together while your kid is home and the sun is shining and the pool is calling and your inbox is also calling — you know the particular kind of mental gymnastics that this season requires.

This is my honest, unfiltered take on being a working mom in the summer. The good parts, the hard parts, and the reason I keep showing up for both.

The Routine That Is Saving Me

I want to start here because I think it is the most important thing I have figured out this summer, and I want to share it in case it helps even one other mom who is white-knuckling her way through June.

I get up early. Before the world asks anything of me.

The first thing I do is spend quiet time with the Lord. This is non-negotiable. It is the thing that sets the tone for everything else — the patience, the perspective, the ability to handle the moments when the day does not go the way I planned. I used to think I did not have time for this. Now I know I cannot afford to skip it.

Then I work out. Moving my body before the day starts is something I fought for a long time before I finally made it a habit, and the difference it makes in how I feel — mentally, emotionally, physically — is not small. It is significant.

Then coffee on the front porch with Lennon.

This is my favorite part of the day. Before the meetings start. Before the to-do list takes over. Before I have to be anybody's anything except her mom. We sit outside together, she talks about whatever is on her mind, and I just get to be present for it. It is a small thing that feels like everything.

The Skylight Calendar That Changed Our Days

If you are a mom with a young kid home for the summer and you have not tried a visual schedule, I cannot recommend it enough.

I use a Skylight calendar to give Lennon a framework for her day — a checklist of activities and tasks that she can see and check off herself. It gives her something to work toward, it limits the "what do I do now" spiral, and it has been a game changer for screen time because the rule in our house is no TV until after lunch.

She earns it. She knows it is coming. And the morning feels full and intentional instead of chaotic.

I also schedule intentional breaks into my own workday to be with her — a mid-morning snack break where we play a game together, a real lunch break where I step away from the computer completely, and a mid-afternoon check-in. These are not long. But they are present. And they make a difference in how the whole day feels for both of us.

Is it a perfect system? No. But it is a good one. And on the days it works the way it is supposed to, I go to bed feeling like I actually did both things — I worked, and I was her mom.

If you’re interested in the Skylight Calendar, check it out here for $40 off: https://refer.skylightframe.com/889FXGR

The Hard Parts Nobody Talks About Enough

Here is where I want to be really honest with you, because I think we do each other a disservice when we only share the pretty, figured-out version of things.

There are days when I am on a meeting and Lennon needs me and I cannot be there. Not in the way she deserves. And that feeling — that split attention, that guilt of being physically in the room but mentally somewhere else — is one of the hardest parts of this season.

There are days when the weather is perfect and every part of me wants to close the laptop, pack a bag, and take her to the pool for the whole afternoon. And I can't. Because I have commitments and a day job schedule that does not move just because the sun decided to be particularly beautiful that day.

There is the childcare piece — the relying on other people, the coordinating, the mental load of making sure she is covered and happy and taken care of while I am trying to be present in a completely different context. It is a lot to hold.

And underneath all of it is this persistent, low-grade mental game of trying to make summer feel special and fun and full of magic for her — while simultaneously being tethered to a computer for most of the hours that the sun is actually out.

It is a tension that does not fully resolve. You just learn to carry it with more grace on some days than others.

Why I Keep Showing Up Anyway

Here is the part I need you to hear. Because this is the part that makes all of it make sense to me on the hard days.

I am building something.

Every client I book. Every reel I film. Every email I send, every quote I put together, every late night or early morning that I spend working on my travel business after Lennon goes to bed or before she wakes up — it is all pointing toward something specific.

I want to set my own schedule.

Not someday in a vague, wishful way. Specifically. I have a real timeline, a real goal, and a real dream of being able to wake up and decide what the day looks like — instead of having the day decided for me. To be able to say yes to the pool on a Tuesday because it is beautiful outside. To be able to take Lennon somewhere spontaneous on a Wednesday morning without having to check a calendar first. To build a life where my time is mine and hers.

That is what I am working toward. And my travel business is a huge part of how I am going to get there.

So on the days when the tension feels heavy — when I am on a meeting while she is playing alone, when I am missing another sunny afternoon, when I feel stretched between two worlds and not fully present in either one — I come back to the why.

I am doing this because I want more for us. Not just more money or more flexibility, although yes to both of those things. But more presence. More Tuesday pool days. More mornings that belong to us before anyone else gets a piece of them.

The front porch coffee time with Lennon? That is a preview of what I am building toward. I want more of that. I am working for more of that.

To the Working Mom Reading This

If you are in it right now — the juggle, the guilt, the beautiful chaos of trying to be a good employee and a good mom in the same twelve hours — I just want you to know that you are not alone in it.

The fact that you care this much about getting it right means you are already doing something right.

Find your routine. Protect your mornings. Build in the intentional moments even when they are small. And hold onto your why — whatever it is that you are building toward — because that is the thing that makes the hard days mean something.

We are not just surviving summer. We are building toward something better.

And for me, that something better has Lennon in it every single step of the way. 🤍

xoxo,
Katie

Talk to Me Thursday is a weekly series where I get honest about real life — the beautiful, the hard, and everything in between. Real life. Real magic. Real dreams.

If this resonated with you, share it with a working mom who needs to hear it today.