As May wraps up and another Mother’s Day passes, I’ve been sitting with something I haven’t been able to shake — gratitude for the rupture that redirected everything.
This was my second Mother’s Day with my son earth side, and reflecting on my growth from pregnancy to now genuinely takes my breath away. When I stepped into motherhood, I also stepped into one of the biggest professional losses of my life. I had just made what felt like the career pivot of a lifetime from local government into the world of startup tech, landing a director-level role I was proud of. I felt like I was just getting started on my trajectory as a working mom.
And then life moved fast, the way it always does when you’ve got plans.
I was laid off. And two days later, I found out I was pregnant.
At the time, all I could see was the loss. But looking back? That moment was the permission slip I didn’t know I needed — my permission to want more as a mom, out loud and without apology.
The Rupture That Redirected Me
Losing that job was the sharpest professional rupture I had ever experienced and it happened at the exact same moment as my greatest joy. The grief was real. So was the disorientation of suddenly not knowing what my career was anymore while simultaneously preparing to become someone’s mother.
If you’ve experienced a layoff, you already know: it doesn’t just shake your income. It shakes your identity. (I wrote about navigating that season more practically in Facing a Layoff? Find the Silver Lining — the reframe that helped me finally move forward.)
What I didn’t realize then was that the disappointment was doing something important. It was clearing the path for a version of my life I hadn’t given myself permission to want yet.
Permission to Rest — and Permission to Want More as a Mom
That layoff gave me something I hadn’t allowed myself before: rest as a necessity, not a privilege. But it gave me something else too — permission to stop accepting a narrow version of what my life was supposed to look like.
I realized I don’t have to choose between being a working mom or a stay-at-home mom. I get to create a motherhood experience that is tailor-made for my ambition and my desire for flexibility. Those two things are not in conflict. They can coexist, and they do.
And more than that — I gave myself permission to want more.
More money. More access. More impact.
My years in public service didn’t put a ceiling on those desires. If anything, my background equips me perfectly to steward the fruit of them. The work I’ve built — consulting, supporting our family business, doing meaningful work on my own terms — has been more aligned with my values than anything I chased before the rupture.
The Binary Is Breaking and it’s a Good Thing
I think a lot of women are in this exact in-between space right now. Not fully one thing, not fully another. Consulting during nap time. Building during the margins. Pausing a traditional career without pausing ambition.
And yet, there’s still this exhausting pressure to pick a lane: working mom or stay-at-home mom. As if those are the only two options. As if wanting more somehow means you’re not grateful for what you have.
(If that tension feels familiar, this one hit close to home for me too: I Have a Master’s Degree and My Job Title Is “Mom” Right Now — on navigating the identity shift that nobody warns you about.)
The truth is, we are living in a time where women are refusing to be flattened into a single label. We are multidimensional. Our ambitions don’t disappear when we become mothers and our love for our children doesn’t make us less serious about our careers or our goals.
Give Yourself the Yes
If you’re in a season of negotiating with yourself — if the doubts are loud, the indecision is heavy, and you’re not sure if you’re allowed to want the thing you keep circling back to — I want to offer you this:
You don’t need someone else to hand you a permission slip. You just need one yes. From yourself.
The scariest thing you’ve been wanting to do? It’s waiting on that one, yes.
Your background is not a limitation. Your pause is not a detour. Your desire for more is not too much.
Give yourself the permission slip.
If this resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with another woman who might need to read it today. And if you want to keep exploring what intentional motherhood looks like in real life, come find me on Pinterest — where I share more of this journey, one intentional moment at a time.
