Why Ditching the Career Ladder After Childbirth Could Be Your Best Decision Yet!

If you’d rather spend more time with your new baby while still earning an income, but dislike the 9–5 grind, read this.

If you enjoy this article please leave claps, a comment or simply buy me a coffee, so I can continue providing value for mothers who want to stay home while earning an income.

Your happiness is theirs — Photo by Elina Fairytale: Pexel

Are you living by the classic American dream standard that suggests success is only achieved by climbing the career ladder?

I am beginning to see through the cracks of this ideology.

Hear me out.

A ladder can only allow for bidirectional moves, upward or downward but I don’t think a career should be that way. Don’t you think it’s too restrictive?

Certain circumstances could cause people to reconsider their career paths. Think of childbirth, chronic sickness, change of interests, you name it.

Since my purpose is to empower mothers to make choices that fit their dream lives, I’ll take the example of childbirth.

I acknowledge that all mothers are different:

• Some thrive at work and prefer pursuing the path they started before welcoming a child because it allows them to remain grounded.
• Some know before childbirth that they will be fulfilled by staying home, focusing on their children’s education, and being homemakers.
• Others thought they’d return to their traditional career path but started questioning everything during maternity leave.

Mama #3 is who I am talking to.

Rule #1 — don’t make decisions under emotions.

Granted in America, maternity leave is a joke because by the time your wound is halfway healed you already have to return to work and are expected to perform like you aren’t doped up on hormones.

That’s no way to live and anybody would avoid this situation, so my first advice is to take the time to heal if you can, allow your hormones to be “somewhat” stable, and only when your emotions don’t rule your thoughts, re-evaluate your lifestyle.

Rule #2 — Do a short period trial if you can so you can validate your assumptions first.

I almost quit my job when I was on maternity leave because I couldn’t imagine myself leaving my child to somebody else at that moment.

Eventually, I went back, it was a disaster because my body was in front of a computer but my mind was with my baby so I decided to take 3 unpaid months off to see what life would be like on my husband’s paycheck.

One income was not suited for our lifestyle since we had a mortgage to pay and claimed my mother as a dependent.

Do it for them — Photo by Vlada Karpovich: Pexel

Rule #3 — if you can validate your assumptions great! If not, it’s okay — you need to do some delayed gratification and better planning.

I returned to work full-time but didn’t give up on my goal to stay at home; I just had to find another way to bring money that wasn’t full-time.

What I am about to tell you is proof that God exists and if you put something out in the universe it’ll come to you.

Don’t settle, don’t give up, and trust the process.

You should do this if you want to spend more time with your child and less time working a 9–5, yet still want to bring in some income.

1. Write down the lifestyle that you want as detailed as possible.
2. Create some SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) around the above.
3. Start tackling them one at a time, starting with the easiest goals.

If you do the above, this will happen:

• your mind will only gravitate towards the things that feed your goals and you’ll make true progress toward your dream lifestyle.
• you will build confidence as you achieve your goals leading you to take on bigger goals.
• it’ll feel like the stars are finally aligning!
• you will live your dream lifestyle!

It sounds very simple because it is.

Start being more intentional with your actions based on what’s more important to you which is spending time with your child.

A career ladder doesn’t fit the above in my opinion. It’s restrictive because you have to follow your employer’s lifestyle which doesn’t always match the one you want for your baby and yourself.

Our society is not empowering mothers enough so we need to take control.

This is my personal experience:

• I returned to work after 3 unpaid months off — I was committed to starting a side hustle while being an A player at work because we needed this paycheck.
• In early 2024, I built a vision board and wrote in my journal that I wanted to start my first business this year and have side hustles so I could slowly let go of my job.
• I started working towards the above.
• My position was eliminated on January 8th, 2024. I couldn’t believe what the universe was doing to me! This was a sign that I was moving in the right direction.

Since then,

• I started my Etsy shop in February and already made 31 sales! (Mind you I had never sold anything before so this is a huge milestone for me)
• I brought in my first paycheck from writing on Medium in March.
• I work a part-time consulting gig that gives me complete flexibility in my schedule.

The above allows me to live the lifestyle I want for my family which is:

• Cooking healthy meals for everyone
• Taking my daughter to play outside every day
• Reading to her whenever she wants me to
• Driving her to activities like swimming and story time at the library
• Caring for my mental health so I can be at my best
• Making our house a home
• Building our Airbnb business

It took a bit of delayed gratification, a lot of questioning our society’s ideology, and the support from my husband to make this move.

In a sense, you’d say that losing my job was a blessing in disguise because it gave me the little push that I needed.

Some people just need to have their back on a wall to take things seriously and make a move.

Regardless of your circumstances, your journey is unique so I’d highly advise you to draw a lifestyle that makes sense to you, be more intentional, and take all of the signs around you as a reason to keep moving forward because everything happens for a reason.

I don’t think the traditional American career ladder fits the kind of mother I want to be. Does it fit you? Tell us what you think in the comments.

If you got through the end of this article, I am deeply grateful to you.

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