The Working Parent Reset: A System to Reclaim Your Time and Energy

The Working Parent Reset: A System to Reclaim Your Time and Energy

Working parenthood can be complicated. For many, it feels like a constant balancing act—juggling professional responsibilities with the demands of family life, often with little time to pause. Marti Bledsoe, founder of a’parently, which offers consulting, training, and programming designed to support working parents, and keynote speaker at WiM’s upcoming Moms in MFG virtual conference for caregivers, has spent years thinking deeply about how to make the experience of working parenthood more sustainable, joyful, and real.

She’s learned that it starts with a new kind of honesty—not just about what’s happening inside our homes, but about the larger systems that were never really built to support families in the first place.

Step One: Get Real About Your Family’s Reality

"We are trying to do something that's quite larger than the container that's built to hold it," Marti points out. American society offers little in the way of structural support for working families—no universal daycare, no guaranteed paid leave, and in many areas, a shortage of affordable childcare.

That’s why Marti encourages parents to begin by taking stock of your own situation.

"Every family should ask, ‘How are we going to operate without the societal resources that we need?’" she says. "Do we have family nearby? Long commutes? Financial constraints? Special needs?"

Getting clear on your own circumstances is the first step toward feeling less overwhelmed—and more empowered.

Step Two: Build Solutions That Fit Your Season of Life

Once you assess your reality, Marti recommends creating a strategy for your current season.

“What's our chapter?” she asks. “Are the kids in daycare? School? Will we need to manage a summer break? Are we dealing with doctor visits? Then you can dial up or dial down what you really need: more help with meals? More time together as partners? Relief from work pressure?”

Instead of feeling like life is simply happening to you, you can build deliberate solutions that meet your family where you are right now. Then, as your circumstances evolve, it’s important to regularly revisit and adjust those solutions to stay aligned with your current needs.

Crucially, Marti also suggests examining the assumptions that you bring into parenting, often unconsciously inherited from your own upbringing.

"Really ask yourself, What assumptions am I bringing from my family of origin? Because oftentimes they’re not fair to anybody," she explains. Challenging old mindsets—like who should cook, clean, or plan—can open the door to creative, customized solutions.

Marti notes that as your creativity comes alive, you might realize, ‘We don’t actually need to spend money on X, Y, or Z—we’d be better off putting it toward a meal service or something that actually supports us right now.’ It becomes a conscious decision: ‘This is what this chapter requires, and here’s how we’re going to meet the moment.’ That clarity helps shift you out of survival mode and into a sense of agency—where your choices feel intentional, not reactive.

Step Three: Curate Content for Your Current Needs

Another tip Marti shares is about managing and customizing your content intake.

"You can’t just stack your nightstand with more parenting books," Marti emphasizes. "You have to curate what you're consuming based on what you need right now."

If you’re overwhelmed by meal planning, focus on recipe feeds, quick meal prep ideas, or nutrition podcasts. If you’re struggling with co-parenting communication, find voices and resources that offer practical advice in that area. Let go of content that doesn’t serve your current season—and re-curate as your needs change.

Importantly, Marti adds, these resources can also be tools for communicating with your partner, older children, or even your employer. “You can share a podcast or an Instagram carousel to create common language and tools for tackling challenges together.” Marti points out that when we’re stressed, it can be difficult to express what we’re thinking and feeling, which is why having tools and a shared language is so powerful—it helps make the invisible visible.

Step Four: Redefine Success—and Teach Your Kids Too

Above all, Marti reminds working parents that the struggles they face are not personal failures.

"You are being asked to do the impossible," she says. "It's not that you haven’t tried hard enough or figured out enough hacks. It’s that you live in a time where everyone expects you to do the impossible—and then judges you for not doing it perfectly."

One of the most empowering things parents can do is model healthy boundaries around energy and resources. Marti shares the example of a friend who consciously tells her children, ‘I’m not choosing to deploy energy against that this week.’

Teaching kids that energy, time, and money are finite resources gives them a realistic—and ultimately empowering—view of the world.

"You’re raising adults who will understand when others set boundaries and who will someday feel permission to do the same for themselves," Marti says.

Redefining Success on Our Own Terms

Reclaiming our time and energy demands more than quick fixes—it requires a conscious shift toward a vision of success that feels authentic and achievable.

By stepping back, assessing our realities, building personalized strategies, curating content for our needs, and rejecting unfair expectations, we can start to claim something better—not just for one day, but for every day.

And maybe that’s the best way we can honor ourselves as working parents: by giving ourselves grace, creativity, and the freedom to build a life that fits our real lives—not the ones society pretends we have.

To register for the upcoming the Moms in MFG virtual conference taking place on May 8, click here. To join WiM's Moms in MFG LinkedIn community, click here.