The motherhood juggle bites: Karoline Leavitt quits White House role

The motherhood juggle has claimed one of the most high-profile jobs in global politics.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will step down at the end of August, just weeks after returning from maternity leave, saying she can no longer reconcile the demands of the role with being the mother she wants to be to her two young children.

President Donald Trump announced the departure, describing the 28-year-old as one of his "most trusted aides" and saying she was leaving to spend more time with her children and family.

It is a decision that cuts through the usual political choreography of a White House departure. 

You see, Leavitt isn't leaving for another administration job or a bigger title. She's leaving because, as many working mothers discover (present company included), eventually the juggle stops feeling like juggling and starts feeling like dropping things.

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‘I cannot be the best mom’

Leavitt welcomed her second child, a baby girl, with her husband, Nicholas Riccio, in May and returned to the White House last month following roughly seven weeks of maternity leave.

Confirming her departure, Leavitt said the role had been "the honour and adventure of a lifetime".

But she also offered a candid account of the tension she had faced since becoming a mother of two while holding one of the most relentless communications jobs in the world.

"Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least," she wrote.

"The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary - and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life," she added.

For all the extraordinary trappings of Leavitt's job, the calculation she described is a painfully ordinary one: there are still only so many hours in a day.

From the briefing room to outside adviser

Trump said Leavitt would remain within his political orbit after leaving the White House.

"Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party," he said.

A replacement has not yet been announced.

Leavitt became the youngest White House press secretary in US history when she took the role and has been a prominent public defender of the Trump administration.

Her association with Trump stretches back to his first term, when she worked as an assistant press secretary and speechwriter.

Her departure will make her the second-longest-serving press secretary across Trump's two administrations, behind Sarah Huckabee Sanders.