The Continuous Breaking of Glass Ceilings

Post 1: A Series on Burnout, Down Syndrome, and the Fight That Never Stops

These past months have been difficult for me. Sometimes life becomes too much to handle. I recognized my own burnout, my mental load, and my limits. I wanted to share some awareness of how much parents of children with special needs go through, especially moms like me who do not stop. Between responsibilities at home, my son, and a career that is demanding, the weight can become invisible to everyone except the person carrying it.

This is a series about burnout. Not the kind that comes from working too hard. The kind that comes from fighting too long on too many fronts simultaneously and loving someone so much that stopping never feels like an option.

I am a working mother of a child with Down syndrome. And I am tired in a way that is hard to explain to someone who has not lived it.

Twenty years ago, when I was an architecture student, a guest critic looked at my presentation and told me this field has very little room for women. I stayed quiet. Because I had never seen myself as someone who did not belong.

I did not become an architect. But I built a career in construction, another field with little room for women, and even less for Latinas. I learned to walk into rooms where no one expected to see me and do the work anyway.

Then Dante was born. And the fight I thought I understood changed completely.

Because fighting for yourself is one thing. Fighting for your child, for his right to be seen, educated, included, and believed in is something else entirely. It does not clock out. It does not take weekends. It lives in your body at 3am and follows you into every meeting, every email, every moment you are supposed to be doing something else.

The glass ceilings I encountered in my career were practice. I just did not know it yet.

This series is about how fights evolve. How they follow you. How they cost you things no one sees. And why, despite everything, you keep going.

Because Dante is worth every single fight.

And I am still here.

El Síndrome de Down no define a una persona, su amor y sus sueños sí.