The Motherload
The Truth About Motherhood in Adland
I became a mother on December 28th, 2022, and it nearly broke me.
The birth was brutal, but the aftermath was worse—a haze of pain, trauma, and a fragile new life entirely dependent on me while I was barely holding it together. I wasn’t just thrown off course—I was bulldozed. Everything I thought I knew about myself shattered in an instant.
Day by day, I tried to rebuild, but there was no ‘bouncing back.’ I was starting from scratch—with new scars, new strengths, and new depths of vulnerability. And just as I began to piece myself together, I had to go back to work. As the breadwinner, I didn’t have a choice. Forget ‘finding myself’; I needed to find cash flow. The pressure was crushing.
But I wasn’t ready. Exhausted, scattered, and still reeling, I lost my biggest client—the one piece of stability I was clinging to. Eleven weeks postpartum, I was spiralling—financially and emotionally—forced to choose between survival and simply being with my baby. Just as I started to claw my way out, I found out I was pregnant again. My daughter was nine months old, and instead of joy, I felt dread.
I turned to other mothers, desperate for a solution. But I quickly learned there’s no hack. Every woman I spoke to—whether with newborns or grown children—shared the same struggles: isolation, self-doubt, panic attacks, and the relentless pressure to ‘bounce back’ as if our identities hadn’t been torn apart and stitched into something entirely new. Now add in the relentless pace of Adland, and you have a recipe for disaster.
If you’re a mother in advertising, I see you—the exhaustion of juggling a career while the industry claps itself on the back for hollow nods to “work-life balance.” Mothers in Adland aren’t just bending; they’re breaking. We’re surviving on frayed mental health and threadbare patience, propping up a system that demands the impossible and gives nothing back. The speed, endless deadlines, and ‘always-on’ expectations aren’t just incompatible with motherhood—they’re openly hostile to it.
That’s why I created The Motherload report. Part essay, part survey of 200+ women, it’s a raw and unflinching look at the realities of motherhood in advertising. This isn’t a plea for sympathy; it’s a demand for change. Because when agencies drive out their most experienced, creative talent, everyone loses.
The future of advertising doesn’t lie in forcing mothers to adapt—it lies in redesigning the system to support, accommodate, and celebrate them. After all, if the industry can’t figure out how to value mothers, it can’t claim to value true creativity or progress.
This is my way of sounding the alarm—because I’ve lived it, and I see too many others suffocating under it. We’re tired of just surviving. It’s time for the industry to evolve—or risk losing its very best.
I absolute love this, I know many feel the same way, thanks for being so honest! Accidentally just saw Vice report today along similar lines, great the topic is rising up, since nothing is really changing.. I live in Sweden and own my business, and while benefits are in general great here, being a business owner is kind of the only loop hole that does not help for mothers at all, there is no realistic solution to being independant and a mother...
Zoe, thank you for your insane passion, talent and championing this cause close to so many of our hearts (also side bar - awesome Canva skills). I really appreciated the research, nuance, depth of thinking and this mama copywriter found something that hit me hard in the feels and made me take a little breath on every slide of your amazing report. I feel seen, something that I rarely had the pleasure of feeling in 25 yrs+ in advertising. Like so many of the mothers you spoke to, I left the world of full-time agency life when the boys club became too much, tried freelance for many years (a softer option while going through harrowing IVF for 3 years), I then tried taking my big senior skills into smaller places so I could negotiate flexibility and walk my kids to school. A couple of years ago, with the extra layer of being over 50 and a tween mum, I decided to take my portable skillset and pivot into an adjacent career stream - still a copywriter, but in a marketing department, so infinitely different (light years really) from advertising agencies. Seeing older women walk the halls, seeing mums celebrated, seeing gloriously sensible hours, seeing flexibility, hybrid working models in play and outcome-based rewards has made this Gen X mother so, so grateful. The community and talk is necessary and I wish I had more time to bang the drum more myself (what mother has the commodity of time, right? And yet, you still made this happen, so I hope someone can make you many cups of tea in gratitude). Onward to a better way - and thank you. Look forward to reading more x