After the birth of my second child, I decided to become a stay-at-home mom (SAHM). While some women dream of the day that they can kiss their job goodbye and walk out the door Jennifer Aniston style in Office Space, for others it is an agonizing decision. Am I making a mistake? Who will I become? Will I ever get another job comparable to my old one? Will I ever get another job at all? I had been in a field where things changed rapidly and you had to continually work on your skills and education to stay relevant in the workplace, so these were very real concerns for me.
But to my surprise, after being a SAHM for a while, I began to discover something very interesting and very exciting. The more stay at home moms that I talked to, the more I made a very startling realization. The days of the stereotypical 1950s stay at home mom who ‘just’ cooked, cleaned and raised the kids (um, as if this is not more than enough) was no more.
The Rise of Momprenures
Almost every mom I met had a side gig (aka – JOB!), most had several. These women are entrepreneurs, bloggers, personal trainers, they sell upscale products to customers all over the world, they are artists. They might not have a brick and mortar building to go to or a clock to punch in at, but they are definitely working; working in the wee hours of the morning and late into the darkness of night, whenever they can squeeze in some time to themselves.
I began to realize that after the door shutting on my old job, new doors could, and would open. Doors that I could create for myself, that I would be in control of. I now feel inspired and no longer feel the need to worry so much about the career I possibly left behind. Now I concentrate more on the here and now and my kids. I look forward to the avenues and opportunities that lie ahead for me. Avenues and opportunities that I would have never dreamed possible if I hadn’t had the greatest opportunity of all – being able to stay home with my babies.
