Two weeks ago, I celebrated the Australian launch of my most recent book, Maternal Ambivalence: The Loving Moments & Bitter Truths of Motherhood, in Sydney. All was going well as I presented my ideas on mothering as a messy, interrupted, and loving experience, in which we constantly make mistakes and try to repair them, becoming better mothers and people in the process. Among a group of my friends, peers, and fellow psychologists and mothers, we discussed the importance of flow in mothering and how taboos and rigidity can be problematic and paralyzing. Our conversation delved deeply into the issues of maternal ambivalence: that as moms we experience multiple feelings on a daily basis, that we have loving, joyful ones as well as darker, disturbing ones, and that these difficult emotions offer their own value as they teach us about ourselves and our children. These are the moments in mothering that stand out, that melt, restore, and renew us. This is the lived experience of maternal ambivalence.

Then a young friend of mine, a full-time working mom herself, became the heroine of the evening as she bravely and honestly told her story of a recent day-in-the-mom-life.

“I thought you would appreciate my day today,” she began. “After a long day of work and feeling totally depleted because my project manager was frustrated with me, complaining that I was doing something too slowly, I finished at 4 p.m. and raced to the train so I could get home to my mother-in-law, who’d picked up the kids. I couldn’t wait to see my kids, who both just wanted to watch TV and were exhausted themselves, so I let them watch while I made dinner because it was already 5 p.m.

“Both, naturally, had a meltdown when I asked them to turn off the TV so we could sit down........

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