From Stay-at-Home Mom to Working Mom: My Journey to Find Balance & Grace by Janine Owens

I don’t have the answers. In fact, according to my 10-year-old daughter, I don’t know much of anything (she might be right, but I won’t tell her that). I have three kids (10, 5 and 22 months). My husband stayed home with our oldest for the first two years of her life; I stayed home with the last two for the first year of each of their lives. I hated it. I loved my kids, but for me, being a SAHM was so isolating. I was a career woman at heart so I went back to work. 

What I thought was the ticket to my happiness turned into a confusing tetherball of emotions. I now missed my kids – yet I had missed my work for so long. So which did I want? 

I want both. It’s always going to be both. The early morning meetings for work that allow me to be home to get my kids off the bus in the afternoon. The adult-only Friday lunches that recharge me for a chaotic Friday night “kids-gone-wild” dinner. The sweet spot isn’t a spot at all – it’s a myriad of meshing my old life and my new life together into one big ol’ ball of balance and grace. 

I don’t have the answers, but I know that I’m closer to the “sweet spot” when I’m a balanced mom.