A friend recently had her first child. As we talked about motherhood and careers, she told me she saw me as a model for how to have both. I was incredibly flattered. I also felt like a complete fraud.

My children are 10, 7, and 3. They are my greatest accomplishments. I also feel very far from having any of this figured out. What my friend sees is a career I love and three children I adore. What she cannot see are the complicated calendars, missed practices/games, work calls taken from parking lots, help from family and friends, convenience dinners, difficult choices, and all the things I have simply allowed to remain undone.

So, to the new mother wondering whether she can remain ambitious: You can. But it may not look like the polished version of “having it all” that we have been taught to expect. It’s tempting to look at women further along in motherhood (and their careers) and assume they have found the formula. Most of us have not. We have developed systems, learned to ask for help, made tradeoffs, and become more comfortable disappointing people occasionally.

The women who look like they are doing it all are usually making choices, accepting help, and letting some things remain undone. That is not failure.

It’s reality. A meaningful life does not require equal attention to every priority every day. Some weeks, work gets more of you. Other weeks, your family does. Balance may be less about achieving a perfect split and more about noticing when something important has been neglected for too long.

Motherhood does not have to erase ambition, but it may change its pace or appearance. There may be seasons when you want the promotion, the difficult assignment, or the seat at the table. There may also be seasons when predictability and flexibility matter more. Neither choice permanently defines your potential. A slower season is not the same as a smaller life.

We often describe ambition as a steady upward climb. In reality, careers are rarely that linear. Ambition can mean pursuing the next role. It can also mean building expertise, protecting your capacity, doing excellent work where you are, or preparing quietly for an opportunity that is not right for you today. But women should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want their next season to look like.

When I was pregnant with my first child, a superior at the county I worked at suggested that a part-time position we were adding to the budget that year would be perfect for someone like me—a less demanding role for a working mother. I don’t believe he was trying to be malicious. He may have even thought he was being helpful. But he was making an assumption about my ambition before I had expressed any desire to change it.

My pregnancy had changed how he saw my career before it changed how I saw it. That experience has stayed with me. Support does not mean deciding that a mother should want less. It means creating an environment where she can be honest about what she wants without having her commitment questioned in either direction.

Working motherhood is often framed as a woman’s personal balancing act. If she can just become more organized, manage her time better, or find the right routine, perhaps she can make everything fit. But the ability to sustain a career while raising children is not determined by individual effort alone. Partners, families, colleagues, supervisors, and workplace cultures all play a role.

Managers should not assume a new mother wants less responsibility or is no longer interested in advancement. Keep offering the visible assignment. Keep asking about her goals. Focus on results rather than constant presence and provide flexibility without quietly reducing opportunity.

I hope my friend continues to see possibility in my life. But I also hope she knows she does not have to recreate it. Ten years into motherhood, I am not her model because I figured it out. I am simply evidence that she can keep adjusting, keep choosing, keep asking for help, and keep wanting more. Her children do not need her to surrender her ambition. They need her to build a life that is honest, sustainable, and fully her own.

EMILY COLON is a partner with The Southern Group.