Suddenly, as office buildings closed during the pandemic and millions of parents started working from home, many of us breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, no more commuting. More time with our kids. A once in a lifetime opportunity to concentrate on career and family with fewer hassles. Answer emails while cooking pasta sauce, join team Zoom in yoga pants, and always be there for bedtime. But five years into the remote-hybrid experiment, the arrangement is tougher than we expected. Yes, this flexibility has given us choices that did not exist before, but it’s also erased the lines so much that many working parents aren’t even sure if it’s freedom they are experiencing or just a different kind of trap.

Flexibility: Leash or a lifeline

This new way of working was liberating at first. Parents could make school pick up without getting the side-eye from coworkers. Doctor’s appointments for your child, no problem; just log back on after dinner. It was a way of easing the stress that we feel from the need to be perfect in the workplace and at home. The problem is that the work never actually stops. The laptop on the kitchen table is both a liberation and a ball and chain. Slack messages buzz through the entire swim meet, and the “always on” culture makes boundaries virtually disappear.

This flexibility, surprisingly, has made life more difficult for some parents. If you can work from wherever, you end up working all the time. The mental load (doctor’s appointments, playdates, meal planning) is now just part of the workday. And “having it all” now means you do it all at the same time.

The messy reality of ‘integration’

In theory, hybrid work offers the best of both worlds: days at home for focus and days in the office for face time and collaboration. But in reality, it can feel like living in two worlds at once. Parents ping-pong between spreadsheets and science projects, quarterly reports and permission slips. Life has become a constant state of multitasking. The cost: more burnout and guilt than you had before. You are working and you are parenting. You are parenting, but your mind is on your inbox.

Let’s face it: having it all was always a set up. It suggests that you can have a fulfilling career and blissful family life, and that you should. If you don’t, you’ve failed. Unfortunately, remote and hybrid work didn’t dismantle this myth. It repackaged it. We have gone from work-life balance to the fantasy of work-life integration. But integration does not mean harmony. Parents say they have longer days, shorter tempers, and a feeling they are failing at both work and life.

Getting real about what matters

The real question isn’t whether parents can have it all. It’s how we redefine what “all” even means. Does it mean being equally devoted to quarterly earnings and the bedtime routine? Or can we accept that sometimes a big presentation takes priority and sometimes it’s okay to step back for our family? We should give ourselves permission to choose what matters the most in different seasons of our lives. Employers must step up too by setting clearer norms about availability, respecting true off-hours, and offering flexibility that is functional, not suffocating.

The reality is nobody has it all. Not the CEO. Not the stay-at-home parent. And certainly not the hybrid worker. What we can have is a life that reflects what matters most to us. It might be messy, and it definitely won’t be perfect, but at least it will be realistic.