Cally Dupe: Pondering the juggle of chasing news and a toddler after a special year of maternity leave

There were many moments while huddled away in a dark room — holding a wriggly baby who did not want to sleep — that I dreamed about a return to work. It was ambitious to think my exhausted brain and tired eyes could have held it together to write any words that made sense or that I would have been remotely safe to drive hundreds of kilometres across the Wheatbelt. In those moments, mainly during our daughter Lily’s first six months of life, it seemed like a return to work — which I thought represented normality and some independence — was eons away. And yet after what feels like the longest yet shortest year of my life, I returned to the Countryman office this week to take on my previous role as the newspaper editor in a part-time capacity. Sitting at my desk this week, I realise what I was really craving in those trying moments wasn’t work but simply some space for my brain to think about something outside the feed, burp, sleep (or not sleep) routine. Prior to going on maternity leave in December 2023, messages of good luck and words of advice flooded into my email and phone inboxes from across WA’s amazing agricultural community. “Being a parent is different (to work) … no one knows how to do the right job, we all make it up as we go along,” read one of my favourite messages from a rough-and-tumble farmer. “All I’ve worked out is they are born with their own personality and the parents’ job is to smooth the edges on the way along.” While so appreciated and so interesting, none of these messages could have prepared me for the journey ahead. A rocky start, with a long labour and a two-week stay at Perth Children’s Hospital, was followed by a sinkhole opening up in our front yard when our daughter was just four-weeks-old. My husband’s last week of paternity leave was spent wheelbarrowing and compacting seven tonnes of soil into the void of two giant septic tanks that gave way decades after a middle-aged Italian man hand-dug and bricked them together. The months that followed were a blur of learning about how to care for a baby and how to adjust to a new world where our main priorities were no longer our careers and relationship, but keeping alive the most adorable little creature we’d ever seen. Nothing could be more humbling than looking in the mirror at 5pm on an average Monday, to find a scary-looking stranger staring back at you with spew and milk down her front and six loads of washing to do. At the time, I would have traded a toe for a full night of sleep and an Aperol Spritz. Those first six months navigating early parenthood now seem like a blur as my husband Rourke and I emerge from the past year. Now, with a one-year-old daughter and three days of work to juggle each week, I find myself re-reading those messages farmers and friends sent through in December 2023. These days, we are getting a bit more sleep (four to five wake-ups is now one or two, and on an occasional “good night” we get a miraculous, soul-replenishing full night’s sleep), and are feeling much more like ourselves. Our daughter is a beautiful, bright, and bubbly being, who is nearly a toddler after celebrating her first birthday this month. Motherhood has turned my sense of self upside-down, and I feel like I should be returning to the office with new ideas about my leadership style, boundaries and priorities in life. But I think the reality is that most parents are still figuring this out day-by-day, and all you can do as a parent navigating the return to work, is your best. I look at the fresh-faced headshot attached to this piece and wonder how long I can keep that picture before I replace it with a photo featuring my new eye bags and a few grey hairs. I also wonder how my brain will adjust to the juggle and added mental load of returning to work. I’ve been fortunate to come back to my role in a part-time capacity, and have a new appreciation of Australia’s national employment standards that mean all parents have the right to request flexible work. As I join the many parents both in and outside of our office that have navigated this journey before, I am looking forward to a new chapter of chasing news stories — and a toddler. Cally Dupe is the editor of the Countryman newspaper and Mum to one-year-old Lily.