Working Mumma
Working Mumma is the podcast redefining what it means to build and have a career after having children. From the emotional rollercoaster of returning to work, to navigating identity shifts, rebuilding confidence, pay, flexibility and redesigning work to match your new life, where real stories and practical strategies meet. Because motherhood doesn’t end ambition - it reshapes it. Hosted by Carina O’Brien, mum of 2 boys, businesswoman, and founder of Working Mumma, each episode delivers relatable stories, expert interviews, and practical strategies to help you. You will hear from experts, leaders, and women like you who are juggling career and...
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Returning to Work After Maternity Leave? Here's What I Wish Every Mum Knew
<p>You're back at your desk, but half your brain is still at daycare. You said yes to the meeting, forgot to eat lunch, and you're already dreading tomorrow's drop-off. If that's your version of returning to work after maternity leave, this episode is for you.</p><p>In this episode, Carina goes solo to unpack what it actually feels like to return to work after maternity leave — not just the logistics, but the identity shift, the mental load, and the quiet pressure to prove yourself all over again.</p><p>Drawing on her own two returns to work (10 months of...
Running on Empty as a Working Mum? Why Taking a Break Might Be the Most Productive Thing You Do
<p>Have you ever come back from a holiday feeling like you need another holiday?</p><p>Or realised, only after you've stopped, just how exhausted you really were?</p><p>That's exactly what happened to Carina. After a busy period of balancing her corporate role, work travel, Working Mumma, two young boys and the mental load of running a household, Carina headed away for a week's holiday with her family.</p><p>Carina talks about:</p>The difference between taking time off and actually mentally detaching from workWhat Carina noticed when her own brain finally started to quietenThe real...
Lost Yourself in Motherhood? How to Reclaim Who You Are Beyond Being Mum
<p>Is it possible to absolutely love being a mum... and still feel like something is missing?</p> <p>For so many women, motherhood brings immense joy—but it can also bring an unexpected sense of loss. The loss of confidence, identity, ambition or simply remembering who you were before everyone needed a piece of you. In this deeply honest conversation, I sit down with author, speaker and coach Benita Bensch to talk about the parts of motherhood we don't often say out loud.</p> <p>Benita shares her journey through raising four boys on the land, experiencing two significant pe...
Feeling Lost Returning to Work After Maternity Leave? How to Find Your New Rhythm
<p>Returning to work after maternity leave is often portrayed as the final hurdle for new mothers, but what if it's actually just the beginning of a much more complex journey?</p> <p>In this eye-opening episode, Carina challenges the common narrative and reveals why the hardest part of motherhood may not be the leave itself, but the transition back to work. </p> <p>You'll discover the concept of "matrescence," a term that captures the transformative process of becoming a mother and how it impacts your confidence and career trajectory.</p> <p>Carina dives into the real struggles many working m...
Why does "ambitious mother" feel like a contradiction? How to reclaim your ambition after kids, with Dr. Anne Welsh
<p >Do you feel like you have to choose between being a good mum and having a meaningful career?</p> <p >Carina speaks with clinical psychologist and executive coach Dr. Anne Welsh, a mum of four who specialises in maternal mental health and works with women in leadership and working mothers navigating exactly this tension.</p> <p >We talk about why the "escalation of modern motherhood" means today's mums are being asked to do more, emotionally, logistically, and professionally, than any generation before them, and why that's not a personal failing, it's a systemic shift.</p> <p >Anne shares the...
Wondering If You Should Increase Your Work Days? 5 Signs It's Time
<p>Most conversations about returning to work after maternity leave focus on the return itself: the first day back, childcare drop-off, the mental load of becoming "mum and professional" again overnight. But what about six or twelve months later, when the arrangement you came back on stops fitting the life you're actually living?</p> <p>In this episode, Carina shares her experience moving from three to four days at work after her second maternity leave and the slow realisation it wasn't sustainable, the guilt that showed up, the conversations she had with her husband, her friends, and eventually her manager...
The Good Girl Trap: Why So Many Working Mums Are Burnt Out, Overwhelmed and Doing Too Much
<p>Have you ever returned to work after parental leave and found yourself saying: “I should just be grateful I have my job back” even when the role doesn’t fit your life anymore?</p> <p>That feeling has a name. It’s good girl conditioning. And it’s one of the most quietly powerful forces shaping the lives of working mothers.</p> <p>In this episode, Carina sits down with Caitlin Judd, a business consultant, coach, podcast host and author of Good Girl, for an honest, deeply relatable conversation about the inherited scripts that keep women small, silent and stuck. And...
Returning to Work After Maternity Leave? How to Handle the Guilt and Separation Anxiety
<p>Missing your baby at work?</p> <p>Feeling like your heart is in two places at once?</p> <p>You’re not alone, and more importantly, there is nothing wrong with you.</p> <p>In this episode, Carina talk's about one of the most common (yet rarely spoken about) parts of returning to work after maternity leave: that quiet ache of missing your baby, the constant mental juggling, and the guilt that seems to follow you everywhere.</p> <p>If you’ve ever sat at your desk wondering how your baby is doing, felt distracted in meetings, or questioned whet...
You're Not Less Ambitious. The World Around You Just Hasn't Caught Up Yet With Kat Francis
<p>Since going back to work after maternity leave, has anyone - a manager, a colleague, a well-meaning relative - implied that you've changed? That you're not quite as driven as you used to be? Maybe your focus has shifted?<br> <br> Because here's the truth: you haven't changed. Not in the way they think. Your ambition is still there, it's just evolved into something sharper, more purposeful, and more powerful than it's ever been. The problem isn't you. The world around you just hasn't caught up yet.</p> <p><br> This week on Working Mumma, I'm sitting down with...
Going Back to Work Pregnant? How to Tell Your Employer Without the Guilt or the Panic
<p>Returning to work after parental leave is already a huge transition. But what if you're going back and you are pregnant?</p> <p>This week's episode comes straight from a listener DM, and it's one of the most relatable, raw, and important questions we've ever received on the show. In this episode, host Carina O'Brien tackles the fear, the guilt, and the very real practical questions that come with going back to work while pregnant.</p> <p>In this episode, I share: </p> Why the guilt you're feeling is normal, and why you need to let it go The t...
