Gulp. First Day of Senior Year, Take 2.
by Hetal Joshi Gordon | Dream Big, Think Big
My favorite role in this world is being a Mama. My heart is 33.3% split across all three babies – now teens and adults.
Today is a big day. First day of Senior Year. Wow.
As I come into this moment, fully present and engaged, I am flooded with memories.
I can picture it now: 2014, my son, starting kindergarten at my old school. I remember every emotion from that year, tangled up with the constant tension of my professional career. It was always on my mind. I wanted to be a great mom and a great employee. Actually, I wanted to be the best mom and the best employee. Sound familiar?
Fast forward. Today is the first day of Senior Year.
I don't have answers to any of those questions. But today I'm full of gratitude for one thing – being present for today and for the road ahead as he navigates this moment. Grateful that I get to be present in a way I may not have been before. And deeply grateful for all the hours I put in at work that got me here.
I share this for every working parent navigating those early years. Finding a human you trust enough to leave your baby with. Losing that gem of a nanny when he/she has to leave. Getting into a specific preschool, then the next school. Figuring out who picks up your kids after school, and who picks them up when they're sick. It's so much for anyone, and for working parents, it is a serious struggle.
But remember – one day – sooner than you realize they will be a senior and it will be the last year of figuring out these details.
Today, I want to focus on gratitude for it all, and for the path that got me here.
I'm grateful for the three maternity leaves that let me spend time with my children in an extraordinary way. As a working parent, that was vital. These weren't holidays. They were full of long days and nights. They were also some of the most formative moments of my life as a mother.
I am grateful for my career at Google, for the years I got to grow up there while the company was growing rapidly and opportunities were seemingly endless. I built deep friendships and navigated the first ten years of parenthood alongside peers who understood exactly what I was living. We were in it together, and they were my lifeline through every unexpected moment of raising young children.
I'm grateful for an incredible group of women leaders who supported me, championed me, and encouraged me to have the third, at my times that I doubted myself the most.
I'm grateful to my parents, my sister, and my husband who were the glue to make it all happen.
I'm grateful I left Google in 2022 to join The Trade Desk, where I got to unlearn, grow, stretch, and build in ways I'd only dreamed of. I was navigating two teens and a rising tween at the time, and I got to mentor colleagues who were living through those early years of parenthood themselves. I loved every minute of it, and I'm grateful for the people from that chapter who are still in my life today.
And as my eldest moved into her senior year of high school two years ago, it became clear I needed a change. So I made it. I left corporate to be more present at home before she left for college.
So today, I'm grateful for the decision that lets me be fully present to realize what this day means. For this guy – and for me.
I still don't know where the years went. But every step, the maternity leaves, the growth at Google, the leap to The Trade Desk, the decision to leave, brought me to this time in my life, the one where I get to be fully present with 100% of my heart.
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