There’s something nobody really talks about when you’ve been a stay-at-home mom for a long time — how discouraged you feel when you finally try to go back.
Ten years. Ten years of cooking, cleaning, managing schedules, raising four kids, doing all the invisible labor that keeps a household running. The kind of work that never gets tracked, never gets praised, and definitely never gets paid. And then one day you decide it’s time to go back to work and you realize — the world kind of moved on without you on paper.
I watched both of my sisters go through this before me. of coz first the work attire haha.
My oldest sister got a job at a daycare. She made it work. My middle sister had a harder time — she has banking experience, real estate and mortgage office background, years of solid work history before she stepped back for her family. She can get hired. That’s not the problem. The problem is the schedule never works. Her husband isn’t available to help with the kids, she’s the one driving them to every extracurricular activity, she’s the cook, the housekeeper, the everything. She’s gotten jobs and had to quit more times than I can count because the logistics just don’t add up. Right now she’s working six days a week just to make it work.
Six days a week. That’s what “going back to work” looks like for a lot of moms.
Now it’s my turn.
My three older kids are going to school full time. My youngest starts full-time preschool at 8:25. That opens up a window and I’m taking it — because honestly? I’m ready. I love being a mom. I genuinely wanted to stay home and I’m grateful I could. But I hit a wall about six months ago where I realized I have no outlet, no adult interaction beyond the occasional mom’s night out that I always miss because it conflicts with Girl Scouts or gym lessons or something else. I couldn’t even keep my one hour a week at church because my daughter’s Saturday morning gym lesson took over that slot.
I was done.
So I started job searching about a month before our family vacation — sending applications, preparing, trying to get back into a rhythm I hadn’t been in for ten years. By the time we were ready to leave I already had two interviews scheduled. I couldn’t push them back. I couldn’t reschedule. So I took them on the road.
The first one I took standing outside a zoo entrance — I had just stepped out because it was too loud inside, found a quiet corner near the parking lot, and did the interview with bad connection and worse audio. I was nervous, I hadn’t had time to properly prepare because we were in the middle of a family trip, and I knew it didn’t go well the moment it ended. Which made it worse because the job was perfect for me — they were looking for someone with homeschooling experience and I had ten years of exactly that. I walked away from that call genuinely disappointed in myself.
Three days later I had a second interview. This time I prepared. I went in more confident, answered the questions well, and there was only one thing I didn’t know — which I admitted honestly because I’m not going to lie in an interview. By the end I felt good. Like really good. Ninety percent sure I had it.
I kept checking my email every day after that. I had a feeling about it — the kind of feeling where you just know they liked you, you could tell the conversation went somewhere real. I kept checking. And checking.
Then the email came.
And my heart already knew before I opened it.
I wasn’t picked.
I sat with that for a while.
Discouraged doesn’t fully cover it. Disappointed, yes. But also that quiet voice that creeps in after a rejection that asks — was it something I said? Was I not enough? Or did they already have someone in mind and the interview was just a formality?
Because that happens. We all know that happens. Sometimes the job was never really available to the public. Sometimes it goes to someone’s friend, someone’s connection, someone who already had a foot in the door before the posting even went live.
And that’s a hard thing to sit with when you prepared, when you showed up, when you did everything right.
I’m still searching. Still applying. Still showing up to interviews for jobs I’m qualified for and waiting on emails that sometimes never come.
I recently signed up for FlexJobs. It’s been two days. I’ve applied to about ten jobs. Not a single response — just automated “thanks for applying” emails that tell you absolutely nothing.
And that’s its own special kind of frustrating. Because you don’t even know if the company is real. You don’t know if it’s a legitimate employer or a staffing agency collecting your resume and your information and doing who knows what with it. You submit your application into what feels like a void and you just wait. And wonder. And refresh your email.
Job searching in 2025 is its own obstacle course.
It’s discouraging in a way that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it — this particular kind of discouragement that comes from working hard your whole life, raising four kids, managing an entire household for a decade, and still feeling like nobody wants to give you a chance.
I’m at the point where I’m looking at fast food applications. Not because it’s my dream. But because I just need a foot in the door. I just need to be somewhere that isn’t my house. I just need to be useful in a way that somebody actually acknowledges.
And here’s the thing nobody tells you about being a stay-at-home mom for ten years — by the time you’re ready to go back, even the idea of going to work feels like a break. Punching a clock, doing a task, being somewhere with adults, coming home. That sounds like relief right now.
That’s not a complaint about motherhood. I loved being home. I’d do it again.
But I’m ready now. I’ve been ready. I just need someone to give me the chance to show it.
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