CEO by day, single mom by night – I thought I had everything under control until I found those diapers. My perfect student son had been lying about school, and now I held proof something was terribly wrong. The working mom guilt I usually suppressed came roaring back as I trailed Liam to a dilapidated house across town.
What I discovered inside shook me to my core. There was Liam, the boy I worried was too sheltered, calmly feeding a baby while our former janitor Peter rested. The full story emerged through tears – a struggling single grandfather, an absent mother, and my son who’d quietly become this family’s lifeline.
As Peter described trying to job hunt with an infant, I realized with shame that I’d fired him for tardiness without asking why. My son had shown more humanity than I had in years of leadership. That afternoon, I didn’t just regain an employee – I rediscovered my own compassion, buried beneath years of board meetings and bottom lines.
Watching Liam gently rock baby Noah to sleep, I made a silent vow to be the kind of person my son already was.
