My home office. There's nothing corporate about it.  

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I quit my job. Not in the usual, professional, two-weeks notice method preferred by corporations. No, I walked off the job. A six-figure, corporate job. I slammed the door behind me. Literally. I’m not proud of it, but I was 8 months pregnant when I did it, so you’ll understand, I think.

My life before I made the quick decision to quit my job was a carefully orchestrated nightmare. It was my usual frenzied routine. I’d rush out of my office at about 5:30 p.m. and leave downtown Los Angeles, headed to pick up my 2 year-old daughter at preschool in Hollywood. As I sat in barely-moving rush hour traffic, my anxiety was at an all-time high. Pick up time at our preschool was 6:00 p.m. I usually made it on time, but my routine just wasn’t working. I was a career-obsessed, stressed-out mess.

I had just negotiated a “part-time” position with the global public relations firm where I was a vice president. That meant 8:30 a.m-5:30 p.m. My previous full-time hours were much longer and included evening events with clients. This was not exactly conducive to having a small child.

As I tried to pretend I could “have it all”, the glamorous six-figure job, the child, the husband, the designer clothes and the house, my daughter was beginning to show signs that something was wrong.

Just 2 years old, she wasn’t speaking at preschool. She wouldn’t talk to her teachers, the school director or other kids. She was completely silent. She had been at preschool about 6 months and I was growing concerned. The school told me to give her time to adjust. She talked at home, but refused to answer even basic questions at school. “What if she never speaks at school,” I worried silently. When I typed in a few key words on the Internet, the term “Selective Mutism” came up. It’s a rare, but serious condition where a child refuses to (or cannot) speak in certain settings. Panic doesn’t begin to describe my mindset.

I realized I couldn’t continue to “have it all”. I knew intuitively that my daughter was suffering from my absence. Her way of expressing her pain was silence at school.

The day I quit my high-paying job was a day I’ll never forget. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would change my life and the direction of my husband’s career forever.  In a single moment, with no planning or preparation, I made one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Sitting in a senior staff meeting at 8:00 a.m. one typical morning at a stuffy, exclusive private club downtown, I was prepared, as usual, for the general manger’s stormy moods. He was a brilliant and mercurial person, a former newspaper editor and Marine, prone to fits of rage without provocation. This particular morning as soon as I entered the room, I sensed trouble. His mood was grim and the look in his icy blue eyes told me the staff meeting would be rough.

The general manager started by going around the table asking each of the staff for updates on the firm’s client events. When it was my turn, he fixed his gaze on me. “Why didn’t you go to the Urban League Dinner last night?” he demanded to know. I started to respond that I was 8 months pregnant and the dinner ended at 11:00 p.m., too late for me to attend, but that I’d found somebody to take my seat at our firm’s table. He cut me off and berated me for not going, raising his voice. In a moment of daring, something inside me decided I wouldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a prisoner about to make my bold escape. Being pregnant makes you vulnerable and invincible at once. It’s a strange combination.  At that moment, I felt invincible. It wasn’t until later that the feelings of vulnerability hit me.

After exchanging heated words with the general manager, I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. In a comedic moment (according to my former colleagues) I realized I’d left my handbag inside the meeting room.  It wasn’t just any handbag. It was an expensive Prada purse. Unwilling to leave the handbag behind, I asked one of the busboys to go into the private dining room to get it, offering him $20. He refused. I offered $40 and he still declined, motioning toward the closed door where the general manager remained, shaking his head. Everyone, including the busboy, was afraid of the general manager. I went back into the conference room, grabbed my purse and left again, just as quickly and loudly as I had the first time. My colleagues sat there, stunned and speechless. In that conference room filled with smart, well educated, professionals, including one Pulitzer Prize winning writer, nobody said a word. 

Driving home, my hands shaking, I called my husband. He told me he was relieved I’d quit and wouldn’t have to see “that fuc*#@#ing as@#$hole” again.  I’d been the general manager’s butt of jokes for months. You see, he didn’t like pregnant women. I was ridiculed for eating too much, for getting “fat”. I came under attack whenever he felt like berating somebody. I’ll never forget one horrible incident in his office. Before the meeting started, in front of several colleagues, he grabbed a lamp, pretended to shine it on his crotch and acted out a “hospital delivery scene” complete with moaning and shrieking noises concluding with him telling a story about how the doctor “stitched his wife up tight” after her delivery. I was sick to my stomach, partly because of his behavior and also because I sat silent and said nothing, knowing he’d do the same thing again to another woman.   

Quitting my job was a big deal financially for our family and emotionally for me. Suddenly, I was no longer the vice president of a major corporation. I was now a stay at home mom with no friends who stayed home.  

The first few months at home were stressful, lonely, yet oddly liberating. Suddenly, I could pick up my daughter at 2:00 p.m. and spend a few minutes talking with the teachers. I could take long walks with her and not feel rushed.  I could grocery shop. I could breathe.

Within a few months, I met a few moms in my neighborhood and we became each other’s late afternoon SOS call. “Want to come over?” we’d ask each other.

After about two weeks of picking up my daughter early at school, staying and chatting with the teachers and other moms, my daughter began to talk to her teachers. Suddenly, she started communicating with other kids, the teachers and everyone around her at school. I was incredibly relieved.  My worst fears that she would never speak at school hadn’t transpired.

Since those early years, I’ve never returned to a full-time job. The transition from corporate executive to stay at home mom isn’t always easy. It was very lonely until I figured out a routine with the kids and found new friends. The days as a stay-at home mom can be long… very long. At work, the day seemed to fly by. At home, the pace is different and it took me time to adjust to it.

My instant decision to quit my job meant that my husband could travel around the world building a tiny business into a global company while I stayed home with out kids. I spent a few years caring for my kids and volunteering at their school. Then, I embarked on a new career as book author, lecturer/speaker and mom blogger. This new gig gives me the time I need with my children and husband while I spend about 30 hours a week working from home.

Now that I’ve been a career mom with a full time job, a stay-at-home mom and a work-at-home mom, I have respect for both positions. They each have their benefits and drawbacks, rewards and downsides. Some days, the grass is greener, but I’ve never looked back. Looking ahead with optimism has allowed exciting opportunities to come my way.

Instead of “having it all”, I now feel like I have all of it: family, friends and flexibility. I feel connected to my family in a way I that never did when I had the impressive corporate title.