The Forty Files

I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for eleven years.

For most of those years, I taught part-time, exclusively online, in an asynchronous environment that gave me the incredible luxury of being a present mama to my two girls.

I love them. They are challenging and brave, so much bolder and more openly curious than I remember being at their ages. Though I’ve learned that memory is funny—we don’t always remember ourselves accurately. Time softens the edges.

My girls are my sheroes. It has been, and remains, a privilege to be their mama.

Motherhood is a calling I answered willingly and lovingly. But that doesn’t mean it has been without its bumps and bruises.

I think we undersell motherhood.

I don’t remember anyone really talking to me about how profoundly motherhood would change me. Not to scare me. Not to prepare me for the worst. But simply to tell me the truth.

Because I was a wreck with worry.

I still am, sometimes.

I still wish for more patience, more certainty, more strength, more ability to know when to hold on and when to let go.

And yet, when I look back, I can see that I’ve done some of my best work with these girls.

And I think my best work remains ahead of me.

Maybe that’s one of the gifts of motherhood: realizing you are never finished becoming the mother you want to be. Every season asks something different of you. Every season stretches you.

And somehow, in every season, I feel a little stronger.

Not because I’ve figured it all out.

But because I’ve kept showing up.

For them.

And, increasingly, for myself.

And I need to acknowledge that I can keep showing up because of the team I’m on.

My husband has been beside me through every version of these eleven years—the sleepless years, the chaotic years, the firsts and lasts, the seasons when everything felt manageable and the ones when it didn’t.

Marriage and parenthood aren’t spectator sports. They require communication when you’re tired, compromise when you’d rather be right, and a willingness to carry more when the other person can’t.

I’ve had the privilege of being the more present parent for much of these eleven years, but I have never confused being home more with doing it alone.

I haven’t done this alone.

I’ve had a partner who has shown up again and again, in the ordinary ways that become, over eleven years, the remarkable foundation of a family.

And then there are the women in my life.

My girlfriends have carried pieces of me I didn’t always know were too heavy to carry alone. They have listened without fixing, reminded me when I was overthinking, challenged me when I was underestimating myself, and given me permission to exhale.

They have taught me that friendship among women can be a form of shelter.

Not a place to hide from life, but a place to catch your breath before stepping back into it.

And then there is my own mom.

Her example echoes.

I am not her. I find that glaringly noticeable in my strengths as much as in my weaknesses. There are things I’ve carried forward from her, things I’ve consciously chosen to do differently, and things I’m still figuring out how to name.

But her belief in me—that unwavering kind of belief that can only come from a mother—is what I find most sustaining.

There is something extraordinary about being believed in by your mother. To have someone see you before you can fully see yourself.

I know now that I am trying to give that same gift to my girls.

Not the promise that they’ll always get it right.

But the deeper assurance that I believe in them.

That I see their courage, their curiosity, their tenderness, their strength.

My mother gave me that kind of belief.

And I carry it with me now.

And now, for the first time in eleven years, I am heading back to work full time.

There is something both exhilarating and emotional about writing that sentence.

I’m fortunate that my return brings me back to a place I know and love: higher education. I’ll be working with students, helping them find their voices, pursue their passions, and imagine possibilities for themselves that they may not yet be able to see.

And I realize that, in many ways, I’ll be doing the same work I’ve been doing at home.

Helping someone become.

Helping someone believe they are capable.

Helping someone find the courage to take the next step.

The difference is that now, I’ll be doing that work while also giving myself permission to chase some dreams of my own.

For eleven years, my life has been organized primarily around the needs, schedules, dreams, activities, meals, appointments, milestones, and tiny emergencies of two other people.

I wouldn’t trade those years.

Not one of them.

But I also don’t believe motherhood requires us to disappear inside it.

I’ve watched incredible working mothers show me that you can build a career and a family. That pursuing your ambitions doesn’t mean loving your children any less.

And now I get to try it for myself.

I am not leaving motherhood to go back to work.

I am bringing motherhood with me.

I’m bringing the patience, perspective, resilience, empathy, diplomacy, flexibility, humor—and the ability to solve approximately twelve problems before breakfast.

Probably the snacks, too.

I’m bringing eleven years of learning how to show up for other people.

But I’m also going to practice showing up for myself.

Maybe that’s the next lesson motherhood is asking me to learn:

That caring for yourself isn’t a betrayal of the people you love.

That having your own ambitions doesn’t make you less devoted.

That your children can watch you build something, try something, fail at something, begin again, and pursue something simply because it matters to you.

Maybe that’s what I want my girls to inherit from me.

Not just the certainty that I’ll always be there for them, but the example of a woman who was willing to keep becoming.

A woman who loved being their mother deeply and completely—and who also understood that she was still a person with dreams of her own.

Maybe that’s the real work of motherhood.

Not doing it perfectly.

Not doing it alone.

Not even always knowing what you’re doing.

But showing up, again and again, with whatever strength you have that day—and trusting that the people who love you will help you find the strength you need for the next one.

I’ve been a mother for eleven years.

I am still learning how to do this.

I suspect I always will be.

And somehow, that doesn’t feel like failure anymore.

It feels like the privilege.

It feels like the work.

And, perhaps most of all, it feels like love.

So this is for the mothers.

The stay-at-home mothers. The working mothers. The mothers working from home, from offices, from classrooms, from cars parked outside soccer practice. The mothers starting over. The mothers who are exhausted. The mothers who are thriving. The mothers who are simply getting through Wednesday.

The mothers who have help and the mothers carrying more than anyone realizes.

The mothers who feel like they’re getting it right.

And the mothers who went to bed last night convinced they got everything wrong.

We are all doing the work.

So much of it is invisible.

The remembering. The anticipating. The packing. The planning. The worrying. The comforting. The advocating. The encouraging. The driving. The listening. The loving.

It is the work of raising children while, somehow, continuing to raise ourselves.

And perhaps the most beautiful thing I’ve learned after eleven years is that none of us are meant to do it perfectly.

We are meant to do it together.

To borrow strength from one another.

To remind each other that we are doing better than we think.

To celebrate one another’s seasons instead of comparing them.

I don’t know exactly what this next season will look like.

I know it will be busy.

I know there will be guilt.

I know there will be days when I wonder if I’m doing enough at home, enough at work, enough for my marriage, enough for myself.

But I also know this:

I am surrounded by women who have shown me how to keep becoming.

I am loved by a partner who has shown me that motherhood is a shared responsibility.

I am shaped by a mother who taught me what it feels like to be believed in.

And I am raising two girls who remind me every day that becoming is never finished.

So, for the first time in eleven years, I am heading back to work full time.

And I’m going to keep doing what motherhood has taught me to do best:

Show up.

Be present.

Keep learning.

Keep loving.

Keep becoming.

For my girls.

For my family.

For my students.

And, finally, for myself.

To every mother doing the work—whatever that work looks like today—I see you.

I hope you see yourself, too.

Because this work matters.

You matter.

And none of us are finished becoming.

Thank God for that.