‘To the mothers hiding in plain sight, doing it all with work and family: I see you’

You look like any other colleague. Laptop open. Head down.

But underneath, you’re calculating: can I get the kids to swimming and still make that 4pm meeting?

You’re a mum in disguise, hiding in plain sight. Wearing clean-ish clothes. Feigning interest in strategy decks while your phone buzzes constantly with notifications from school, kinder and the fifth WhatsApp group called ‘Class updates’.

You have 200 tabs open on your computer and even more mental tabs constantly flickering in your brain.

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You’re not fooling anyone. And yet – somehow – you are.

Spending lunchbreaks and stolen moments booking flu shots, ordering school photos, or Googling “high-iron snacks with hidden vegetables” to compensate for your toddler’s current white-food diet.

Trying hard to not constantly mention your kids during small talk with child-free colleagues, despite that almost every minute of the time outside work revolves around them.

Smiling and nodding non-committedly when your boss mentions a work event you should attend on one of your ‘home days’ – the sacred window you’ve set aside for rest and connection with your pre-schooler. For playgrounds, painting and baking muffins.

(But realistically they’re more for Coles for bananas, Bunnings for painting tape and Target for replacement school shorts because your six-year-old keeps cutting holes in his.)

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But you smile, knowing full well you can’t ask for more help from ageing parents or afford a babysitter, and quietly hope your boss is swallowed up by a sinkhole on the way to the car park.

I see you – juggling it all, carefully tossing those fragile balls in the air, one by one, with fingers as greasy as the dirty pan still in the sink from last night’s dinner.

Staying up too late because it’s the only time you’re alone. To breathe. To think. To recover from the sensory overload of small children. To eat something that wasn’t scavenged from an abandoned plate. To get lost in Reels that make you laugh-cry, spiking your endorphins and ruining your sleep hygiene schedule in one hit.

You’re up again at some ungodly and indeterminable hour during the night, to a child with nightmares, a wet bed or – worse – the dreaded bum worms.

You avoid mirrors and your wardrobe drastically narrows as you refuse to go up a size, choosing instead to wait, patiently, for the mythical post-baby body ‘snapback’ you were promised in the women’s mags at Woolies.

You miss yourself. Or the idea of yourself before. The version with energy, a separate identity, plans.

Those dreams are still there. Buried beneath school forms, daycare drop-offs, and half-finished coffees. Every now and then, you feel them stir.

I see you – exhausted and touched out, but still dishing out the biggest cuddles to the little people who need their warmth and comfort.

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Listening to long, meandering Minecraft monologues. Fielding wild questions about death, the moon or whether ants have best friends.

Wiping sticky handprints from glass windows, crouched on the floor picking up risoni carelessly shaken from small hands, discarded socks and upside-down Matchbox cars.

I see you enduring bedtime – the final boss level – and its never-ending requests: one more drink, one more story, one more perfectly timed existential spiral.

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And finally, once they’re quiet, flopping onto the couch (devoid of the cushions and throws that lie scattered on the ground from a recently abandoned game of ‘the floor is lava’) and, instead of watching the TV show that everyone’s talking about, scrolling baby photos.

And you feel that familiar warmth inside. The one that reminds you it’s worth it. That they’re happy. That they’re growing. That you’re doing something huge – even if it mostly feels like crumbs and chaos.

You think you’re hiding in plain sight, disguised as a fully functioning adult. But I see you. I am you.

Happy bloody Mother’s Day.

Emily Purcell is a journalist-turned-corporate communications specialist. She has three kids, a constant pile of washing to fold and strong opinions about the school newsletter font.