Women can look radiant in and shortly after pregnancy, its very different to managing toddlers, when the preg hormones have gone, and it depends if you are eating healthily, exercising and getting enough sleep to look 'well'.
Some women have babies that sleep. I can remember when mine were littlies, trying to choose between eating and sleeping (when hungry and desperately sleep deprived) when baby went to sleep (only for about half an hr at a time if lucky!). Ditto when any sickness and up through the night.
When you only have one pair of hands, and others may have real partners who do share responsiblility and raising DC well.
Also, many around me had their own dp who would help, even so they could grab a shower, or babies that slept for longer. Some of them pretty smug about their 'trick' and special aptitude for getting g babies settled, still couldn't help out with mine who were always super active certainly never slept 20 hours!! I never heard anything so preposterous in terms of my situation.
Yes, its also true we can be much harder judges of ourselves looking from the inside, than we are of others that we only see from the outside.
Money makes a massive difference, being able to pay for house cleaning, nurseries, hairdresser to cut hair at home, regular visits by the waxer, and podiatrist, all make life so much easier, when these thing take up vast amounts of time to do with one pair of hands and littlies to manage.
Maybe you don't look as 'bad' as you think you do! You have a great attitude of not having to be in the school pickup 'line up'! Some have enough sleep and help, etc. Everyone's lives are SOOO soo different that it's not equal starting point.