Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of articles, studies, opinion columns and blog posts about what the future of the workplace and motherhood looks like, post-pandemic.

The cynic in me says all this attention will flame out shortly, and we will be back to balancing all the spinning plates, and being told that we can “have it all” at the same time, and nothing will change.

But, there is a small shred of hope that believes the hype that I’m reading, and thinks that maybe, finally, this time, things will change.

I know as far as our household goes, we’ve stuck to a pretty traditional model when it comes to gender roles, careers and child-raising.

Our initial plans to both pursue our careers, while we had loving family members to provide quality child care way beyond what a day care or nanny could provide, got tossed aside quickly when we realized the extent of A’s health problems. At that point, we decided that it made more sense for me to scale back to working part time, while the Wonderful Husband pursued his career full-bore.

We still depended on our family for child care, but not to the extent that we had planned to. Until we got done working around frequent doctor visits and hospital stays, a few years had flown by.

While the WH had continued his career climb, I remained grateful to still be employed in the same position, which allowed me some income and access to my benefits.

I was also lucky to have a few hobbies, which allowed for additional flexibility and income. I continued to coach for a few hours a week, and also picked up writing assignments here and there.

I was, in general, pretty content, as the emotional roller coaster of dealing with three kids, with multiple health problems, and then adding school and extracurricular activities didn’t allow me much time to worry about my stagnant career.

The WH has always been a stellar dad, coming home from a full day at work ready to take over child care so I could make dinner, run some errands, or even, sometimes, have a few minutes of peace. But like they do in most families, most of the other stuff, like staying home with sick kids, scheduling the eye doctor checkups, remembering that G had outgrown his cleats last season, and practice starts tomorrow, all that sort of stuff was still firmly in my realm.

Then, pandemic! Suddenly, the WH was forced to reckon with three kids who decided to have a battle royale in the kitchen over a pot of macaroni and cheese right in the middle of the most important conference call he’d ever been on.

He quickly learned that “mute” had to be the default mode for his microphone, a trick I’d learned years earlier. Now, he did get off a little easy, since there was absolutely nowhere to go and nothing to schedule, but the few times that we did have to leave the house with the entourage now required so much additional planning, that it gave him a good run for the money.

It’s important to note, though, it wasn’t all about him. I started to learn to delegate a little better.

As my work hours started to meander more around responding to work, then kids’ school help, then work, then more school help, and so on, my evenings were less dedicated to homemaking, and when someone was brave enough to ask what was for dinner, instead of jumping to it, I simply said, “whatever you want to make.”

I did try to lay the groundwork so we didn’t end up eating hot dogs and scrambled eggs all the time.

I’ve also gotten lucky in that my decision to refocus more on myself coincides with my children really entering the realm of independence. We’re at a point where all I need to do now, and “need” is my choice, not theirs, is knock on doors or give a shout to make sure everyone is up in the morning.

I no longer have to help anyone get dressed or pack their lunches, or get their practice gear together. To be sure, I’m still issuing reminders 24/7, and they only get heeded about 50 percent of the time, but I no longer take responsibility for missing articles in book bags.

My kids are at an age where I can comfortably say, “watch your sister for an hour, I have some errands to run.” Whether the errand is grocery shopping or running out for a quick cut and color is irrelevant, I’ve reclaimed a little time for myself.

I’m as guilty as just about everybody of taking an extra half-hour to sit in the car after I’ve run out for a gallon of milk. That became such a standard practice, I have to remind myself not to hide in the driveway these days. Not having to worry about child care as much (I still am not ready to leave them the house for a weekend, my own teenage years aren’t that far away) opens up a lot of possibilities, but so does having a partner who has also learned a lot about the balancing act over the last year.

Every day, around lunch time, I get a “what’s on the agenda for tonight?” message. Now, I plot my agenda out by the week, but I’m thrilled that he’s started to tune into what’s going on daily and how he can pitch in.

I’ve also made it a point to stop saying “I” have to run here, here and here. Instead, I say, “this one is going there, that one is going there, that one is going here, which one do you want to take?” I even went crazy and asked him to reschedule the family dentist appointments the other week!

It’s been an interesting evolution, one that I definitely don’t think would have happened as naturally as it has had we not been forced into it. I still feel like the expectations that society places on working moms are insane, but not nearly as insane as the ones we place on ourselves.

I don’t think I’ve lowered my expectations, because I still feel like I want to do “it all,” but for the first time in a long time, it actually feels like something attainable.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.