Man is good at his job. Man has baby. Man goes back to work. Nothing unusual about that.

Woman is good at her job. Woman has baby. Woman goes back to work. Cue the outrage.

When I saw Abbey Holmes back on our screens, I cheered. It wasn’t for the footy she was commentating, it was for the statement she was making about how working mums just make it work.

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Sadly, there wasn’t the same enthusiastic reaction from everyone.

Comments online passed judgement on Abbey’s return, seven weeks after having her son, Braxton.

Was it the right time? Why isn’t she at home? The judgement kept coming.

It was so blatant that other prominent mums came to her defence.

“Absolutely outraged by some of the commentary online about Queen @abbeycholmes being back on our screens as a new mumma”, wrote Steph Claire Smith on Instagram.

She added: “Honestly over people having a public opinion on what a woman should and shouldn’t do as a new mum”.

I couldn’t agree more. To all the complainants out there, most of them also women, how and when a mother chooses to return to work is really none of your business.

I remember that first day back after having my first baby so vividly. I was hosting a function and it gave me such a wonderful feeling of freedom.

I adore my kids and I love being a mother but it felt so good. It gave me a break from the endless nappy changes and exhaustion, gave my husband a chance to bond with our baby and gave me back a bit of myself.

I got dressed in proper clothes, put a bit of lippy on and felt human again. I took this photo when I got home because it felt like a momentous milestone I wanted to remember. It was 9.19pm on a school night and I was over the moon to have nailed my first night out as a working mum.

Like Abbey, I am lucky to have a job that has flexibility so I didn’t have to return full-time, I could come back on my own terms.

Now, as a mum of two young kids, I can honestly say that coming to work every day makes me a better mother when I get home.

I need the space to think and have some time to myself away from cooking spag bowl, folding washing and picking up Lego. Without it, I would have gone absolutely bonkers and I know I’m not alone.

Australian women are having fewer children, and we are having them later in life according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By the time we have kids, we have already spent many years building careers we value and done a lot of hard yakka.

This is certainly the case for Abbey, who parlayed a storied AFLW career into success at Seven as one of our country’s most admired sports broadcasters.

It’s true for Steph Claire Smith, who has built a multimillion dollar business while successfully raising two beautiful children.

It’s also true for me and the millions of working mothers in Australia who balance the demands of home life while providing for our families.

Speaking exclusively to www.20304050.best, Abbey reacted to the controversy.

“There’s certainly a small minority of people out there that feel that they have the right to tell you what you should be doing and how things are to be done, which is never the case,” she said.

Holmes said one of the comments that annoyed her related to her husband Keegan, who Holmes refers to as a “super dad”.

“(Someone said) ‘oh dad’s on babysitting duty’. I’m sorry, but dads don’t babysit their own children, they’re 50 per cent of the parenting duo,” she said.

Abbey can come back to work two days a week. She told me her caring colleagues at Seven Sport set her up with a private space for breastfeeding at the stadiums on game day and have made travel arrangements around her son’s routine.

If only keyboard warriors were as considerate.