I recently wrote an article over at Health eCareers about coping with the expected – and unexpected – emotions around returning to work after maternity leave. It’s a complicated issue that’s rarely talked about, which is strange given that women make up 47% of the American workforce. What’s more, more and more fathers are taking paternity leave, and may face the same emotional ups and downs when they return to work.

Here’s one tip:

Stay flexible.

Just as there are many ways to become a parent, birth a baby and then actually care for your newborn once she arrives, there are also many emotions that might (or might not!) come up when returning to work. Some women are sad and teary, others guilty and still others ecstatic to be back — perhaps all of these things at the same time! The point is, emotions are varied and variable. What you feel one day might not be what you feel the next. And that’s OK. Keeping your expectations flexible is a good strategy for managing the variability of emotions.

To read the entire article, head over to Health eCareers