I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: being a woman—and especially being a mother—is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re working, not working, have one child or many. There isn’t one easy or “best” way to do it.
Sometimes I’d prefer that we didn’t need all the labels. Working mom. Stay-at-home mom. Single mom. Full-time mom. Other times, if it’s a title you’ve chosen and it makes you feel strong—“I’m a full-time working mama, hear me roar!”—then great, embrace it. The problem is when those labels start being used to measure whether we’re doing enough.
You can feel guilty for not working while you want to, need to, or are simply in a position to focus most of your time on children or other responsibilities that don’t come with a paycheck. The flip side happens too—women can feel guilty for working while their children are cared for by someone else for part of the day. Personally, I think there’s a difference between time—the number of hours on a clock—and the impact you have on your children. But that’s a conversation for another blog.
What I want to talk about here is one of those pivots that can shake things up more than we expect: going back to work after being away.
Going Back to Work Is a Bigger Transition Than It Sounds Like
Maybe you’ve been home for a year. Maybe it’s been five years, or fifteen. Maybe staying home was exactly what you wanted. Maybe it wasn’t the original plan. Maybe childcare costs made working impractical, or your family needed you, or life simply unfolded that way. And now something has changed. You want to work again. You need to work again. Or, probably pretty commonly, it’s some combination of the two.
I’m going to be honest: most likely, the transition is going to be hard no matter how you spin it. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision. It means you’re changing a routine, a role, and probably a family system that you’ve spent years building. So rather than pretending you can make the transition completely seamless, let’s talk about some things that can make it a little easier.
Don't Confuse an Employment Gap With a Skills Gap
One of the first things I hear women worry about when they’ve been out of the workforce is the gap on their resume. “What am I supposed to say about all those years?” The answer is: you tell the truth. You took time away from paid employment to care for your family. That’s not something you need to apologize for.
At the same time, it’s worth taking an honest inventory of what has—and hasn’t—changed while you’ve been away. Some of your previous skills may still be completely relevant. Others may need refreshing, whether that’s technology, your industry, a certification, or software you need to relearn. The goal isn’t to convince yourself that nothing has changed—it’s to figure out what you already bring with you and where you may need a little updating. Those are two very different things.
Figure Out What Fits Your Life Now
Don’t automatically assume you need to return to exactly what you were doing before you left. You aren’t necessarily the same person you were five or ten years ago. Your priorities may be different. Your family is different. Your tolerance for a long commute, unpredictable schedule, travel, overtime, or after-hours emails might be different too.
Before jumping straight into job postings, spend some time figuring out what you actually need from work right now: hours, flexibility, whether working from home matters, salary, commute, what happens when a child is sick, and whether you want a job that stays at work when you leave or are comfortable carrying more. Maybe most importantly: what do you want this time? You don’t have to recreate your old career simply because it’s the one you already know.
Separate Your Must-Haves From Your Nice-to-Haves
Once you’ve figured out what you’d like, narrow it down. Because unfortunately, the perfect job with the perfect schedule, perfect pay, perfect boss, perfect commute, incredible benefits, unlimited flexibility, and work you find deeply meaningful may be a little hard to find. Decide what actually matters most. Maybe you need to be done by 3:00. Maybe you need health insurance. Maybe you need to earn at least a certain amount for returning to work to make financial sense. Maybe flexibility matters more than salary.
Pick a few things that are genuinely important and let the rest have some room. This also makes searching for work much less overwhelming, because you have a filter for deciding which opportunities deserve your attention.
Remember That You Haven't Been Doing "Nothing"
I want to be careful with this one. Sometimes we try to make stay-at-home motherhood sound more professionally acceptable by turning every parenting task into corporate language—“I managed complex schedules for multiple stakeholders!” Technically? Sure. But you also don’t have to turn raising your children into a fake job description to justify the time you spent doing it. You were caring for your family. That’s enough.
At the same time, you probably haven’t stopped learning, problem-solving, communicating, organizing, volunteering, managing responsibilities, or making decisions simply because you weren’t receiving a paycheck. You may also have developed skills through volunteer work, church or community involvement, freelance projects, education, caregiving, managing a household, or other things you’ve done during that time. Give yourself credit for those experiences without feeling like you have to turn every part of your life into resume material.
Give Yourself Time to Rebuild Your Confidence
This may be one of the hardest parts. You can know intellectually that you’re capable and still feel completely intimidated walking into an interview after years away. You might look at job descriptions and think, “I used to be able to do that.” Used to? Chances are, you still can.
But confidence doesn’t always show up before we start doing something again. Sometimes it comes because we start doing it again. Your first interview may feel awkward, your first few applications may take forever, and you may have to Google things you once knew without thinking. None of that means you can’t do this. You’re rusty. Rusty and incapable are not the same thing.
Don't Be Afraid of a Stepping-Stone Job
Your first job back doesn’t have to be your forever job. Actually, sometimes putting that much pressure on the first job makes returning to work harder than it needs to be. A position might help you rebuild recent experience, learn new technology, make professional connections, update your resume, or simply figure out what you do and don’t want next.
You can take a job knowing it’s a bridge. That isn’t settling—it’s a strategy. And sometimes that bridge leads somewhere you couldn’t have planned from where you started.
Talk About the Logistics Before They Become a Crisis
Going back to work doesn’t only change your schedule—it changes everyone else’s too. Who handles school drop-off and pick-up? What happens when someone is sick? Who starts dinner, or remembers that tomorrow is apparently “Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character Day” when your child tells you at 8:47 p.m.?
These things sound small until you’re trying to manage them while adjusting to a new job. If you have a partner, talk about how responsibilities may need to shift before you’re exhausted and angry about them. And expect some trial and error—you’re not just adding a job to your existing life. Your family is creating a new routine.
Expect Some Mixed Feelings
You can be excited to go back to work and sad about leaving something behind. You can love being with your children and also desperately want something that’s yours. You can be grateful for the opportunity to work and exhausted by trying to balance everything. You can miss being home while also knowing you don’t want to go back to staying home full-time.
Those feelings don’t cancel each other out. Transitions are messy that way. Try not to use every difficult morning or guilty feeling as evidence that you’ve made the wrong decision. Sometimes change feels uncomfortable simply because it’s change.
You Don't Have to Know Exactly Where This Leads
One thing I’ve learned from years of career counseling is that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to figure out the entire plan before we’re willing to take the first step. But careers rarely work that neatly, especially after a major life transition.
Maybe your next step is updating your resume, or just looking at job postings to see what’s out there. Maybe you need to refresh a skill or certification. Maybe you aren’t even sure you want to return to your old field, and career exploration would help you figure out what else might fit. Or maybe the practical career questions aren’t actually the hardest part—maybe you’re struggling with guilt, anxiety, confidence, or the feeling that you’re supposed to somehow do everything you did before, plus work. That’s worth paying attention to too.
Returning to work after being a stay-at-home mom isn’t just about finding a job. It’s about figuring out how work fits into the life you have now. And you don’t have to have all of that figured out before you begin.
A Few Questions Worth Sitting With
- What do you actually want from work this time, separate from what your career looked like before you left?
- Which of your must-haves are non-negotiable, and which are things you’d simply prefer?
- Is there guilt, anxiety, or an old expectation of yourself getting in the way of taking the first step?
- What would it look like to treat your first job back as a bridge, rather than a decision you have to get perfectly right?
Sit with these honestly. The answers usually surface once you stop trying to force them.
If you’re standing at this particular crossroads and could use support figuring out what fits your life now—practically and emotionally—this is exactly the kind of transition I help clients navigate, often using assessments like the MBTI and WOWI to get clarity faster than guesswork alone. If you’re in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, or Colorado, I’d love to help you sort it out.Â
