For most viewers, Laura Rutledge looks like someone who has figured it all out. She’s one of ESPN’s most recognizable faces, hosts some of the network’s biggest football shows, travels coast-to-coast covering college football and the NFL, and somehow still manages to be present for her family. But if you ask her, that’s not the reality she sees when she looks in the mirror.

During a recent appearance on Gramlich & Mac Lain, Laura Rutledge opened up on a conversation many working mothers know all too well: Guilt. When Kelly Gramlich asked how women can balance being mothers while still reaching the highest levels of their careers, she didn’t pretend to have a polished answer.

“Goodness, I need the tips too,” she admitted with a laugh. “I never want to seem like I’m complaining, but I also feel like there’s this fine line between presenting something that looks so amazing publicly and people being like, ‘Well, I could never attain that or wow, she’s got it all figured out.’ When in reality, everything’s just kind of a mess at all times.”

Laura Rutledge explained that she hesitated for years to discuss the harder parts of motherhood publicly because she never wanted to sound ungrateful. After all, she loves her career her family and she’s grateful for both. Yet she also worried that constantly presenting a perfect image might create unrealistic expectations.

“But I think what we’re all trying to figure out all the time is what is the balance, especially as a woman, because I think mom guilt is such a real thing,” she added. “It’s like we are trained to feel guilty at all times.”

From the outside, Laura Rutledge’s career looks like a dream. Last season, she added another milestone by joining ESPN’s Monday Night Football crew as a sideline reporter. But what people didn’t see was how she was dealing with the same challenges many working parents face.

Laura Rutledge’s rise came with a slow start. After graduating from University of Florida, she covered the Tampa Bay Rays and San Diego Padres for Fox Sports before joining ESPN and the SEC Network in 2014. Then, in 2019, she and her husband, Josh Rutledge, learned they were expecting their first child, Reese. The excitement was real, but so were her questions. 

But motherhood ended up changing her perspective. 

Laura Rutledge doubles down on the guilty feeling 

On the day leading up to Mother’s Day this year, Laura Rutledge opened up about that evolution during an appearance on The Pivot Podcast.

“In my case, every single day I’m like a ball of guilt,” she admitted. “Like, I just sit there and beat myself up all day… But there’s always this feeling (guilt) with me, and I’ll even say it to my mom because she’ll try to make me feel better about it.”

She described feeling like the member of a wolf pack who constantly leaves and returns because of work obligations. Her children have adjusted to her schedule so well that, in some ways, it hurts. The guilt hasn’t disappeared. It instead became part of the daily routine. But something else happened too.

“I was afraid being a mom would hold me back, and then it became my greatest strength,” she admitted. 

That realization helped reshape how she views success. Instead of seeing her career and family as competing priorities, Laura Rutledge now views them as connected. Her daughter, Reese, and son, Jack, aren’t obstacles to her ambitions but the reason she keeps pushing forward.