I. The Agency I Brought Into Motherhood

I’m mostly really good at things.

Not everything, but the things I choose to be good at? I’m good at getting good at them.

In my experience, to excel at something, you identify a goal, develop skills, execute, and measure progress. Effort and ability typically correlate with outcome… the more information you have typically leads to better execution… which typically leads to better outcomes.

It’s a virtuous circle.

This was my “agency” framework for modern life and I built my identity around the ability to create momentum:  goal → strategy → execution → results → measurement → revised goal. Rinse and repeat and rise.

Examples:

In my career: Complex projects, broken down and delegated, executed and delivered. Clear inputs to get to outputs that add value. The board praises Maggie!

In athletics: Set a goal, follow a plan, hit a milestone. Body responds predictably to consistent effort. Maggie advances in pickleball!

In learning: Decide to understand something—audience development, financial modeling, audiobook distribution, whatever—and acquire that knowledge through regimented study and practice. Maggie is a smart cookie!

This “agency” I built over decades depended on three things: external validation (bosses, grades, paychecks, praise), linear progress (do A, get B, advance to C), and clear markers (deadlines, deliverables, finish lines).

I didn’t question this framework because it worked. For everything.

Until I became a mom… and it didn’t.

 

II. When the Signals Disappear

My first daughter was born in 2018. After the initial intensity faded and we settled into the rhythm of life with a baby, something started to feel off.

The competence signals I’d relied on were suddenly invisible: I could follow the wake windows, stick to the feeding routine, go to BabyGroup every week, and she’d still be up all night. Then we’d get off schedule, miss a class, ignore the nanny’s advice and she’d sleep perfectly. 

There was no clear cause and effect. Input often did not affect outcome, and the performance metrics were immeasurable… with one exception: my child is still alive! 

How would I even know if I was momming correctly? Why is my nanny making me feel insecure but my mother-in-law singing my praises? Why do I feel like I’m putting in so much work and accomplishing nada?

The framework I’d used to navigate the world had stopped working. Clearly.

 

III. The First Break

Sarah was five months old. The first night she slept through the night, I felt like I had won the parent olympics. I’d cracked the code. Information → Strategy → Execution → Result. The old framework worked after all! Hooray! I even humble-bragged in my BabyGroup text chain.

Three nights later, she was up every hour on the hour. Like an alarm clock.

Nothing had changed. The same black tape was covering the tiny green light of the baby wipe warmer. Blackout curtains were installed properly. White noise machine was at 50dB!

It was the same everything. Except it wasn’t the same little baby.

I remember sitting on the floor of the nursery at 3am, overhead lights on, with Sarah cooing and smiling at me as if she was taunting me with her cuteness. And that’s when a (very dim) lightbulb went off in my brain: I can’t control this creature or this chaos she is sowing into my life. 

The rules I brought into motherhood don’t work here.

 

IV. The Two Responses (I’ve Done Both)

It would be so much easier if babies were adorable little projects… but they’re not. They are living systems. And these living systems change the rules of the game by nature of the fact they are developing and growing. 

This is where most women stall, because it feels like failure. The goalpost keeps moving and there’s no referee to call “foul” or “timeout” or “game over”.  And when the game feels rigged, it’s easy to default in two directions:

Tighten control. More rules, more structure, more rigidity. If you tighten your grip just a little more, it will work. Brute force, organization, perfection.

Numb. Disengage emotionally. Stop trying and just survive. “This is just how it is. I’ll guess I’ll have to just get through it.”  Wine, weed, whatever.

Sadly, both of these directions erode away the psyche.

 

IV. The Agency of Motherhood

That night on the nursery floor, when I had the first inkling I couldn’t control any of this insanity, I didn’t yet see that I actually had a choice. 

If I could rewind time to that very moment, here’s what I would love to pipe into my eardrums via God Mode:

“Maggie, you can either keep pushing for the wins in a game you’re going to lose. Or you can become the gamemaster.”

The agency framework I brought into motherhood wasn’t wrong, but it isn’t designed for parenting. Control works when the variables are stable. Motherhood is nothing but shifting variables.

So what do you do when effort doesn’t equal outcome? 

You stop waiting for the game to make sense and you start crafting your own game. Especially when you don’t know if it’s right and you don’t know how exactly you’re going to do it. 

This is The Agency of Motherhood. But it took me many more years to figure out how to tap into it.

Almost eight years later I’m still figuring out how to be the gamemaster. Next week I’ll tell you what I’m discovering.