Work is the only part of my life where I feel any sort of competency. Anything else I'm just a ship on a stormy sea being battered around. I can change the sails and move the rudder, but the sea takes me where it wants me to go anyway.
The joke was "welcome to your vacation" when people got back from paternity leave for their new kid. I don't think I ever left that vacation.
And what can also help is talking to your partner or to a friend who's also a parent. And realizing it's normal to look forward to the weekend being over so you can sit down and work on the thing you're good at and know how to do... unlike dealing with our kids, who are always creating problems we don't know how to solve.
That said, you say "it's normal to look forward to the weekend being over so you can sit down and work on the thing you're good at and know how to do" - this isn't what I'm getting at. I look forward to the weekend being over so that I can spend time away from my kids. I trudge through work for the week while trying to regain mental energy to tackle the after-school pickups and the next weekend. I'm just always running at a mental energy deficit. I enjoy my work, but I just have no energy to apply myself - the kids suck it out of me.
How do you separate how much having kids affects this, and how much of it is just being 30+ and not taking care of own health?
I have a few childless friends who say the same thing word for word.
I had a week where the kids were with Grandma and Grandpa. I got more done on a Wednesday after work than I did in the previous few weeks including weekends.
I don't think everyone needs kids and I don't subscribe to the 'moral high ground' of having kids, BUT I have zero sympathy for childless peers that think their life is too busy.