I Love Being a Mom But Lost My Identity Outside Parenting: What Small Changes Have Helped Me
I’m sitting in a scuffed blue plastic chair at my kids’ pediatrician’s office last week, pen hovering over the “occupation” line on a new patient update form. My 4-year-old is climbing the arm of the chair next to me, crumbs of Goldfish crackers falling down his front, and my 7-year-old has hijacked my phone to watch Minecraft speedruns. For the past four years, I’ve scribbled “homemaker” here without a second thought. This time, I pause. Before kids, I was a graphic designer, built book covers for small independent presses. I haven’t opened my design software in three years. Can I still put that? I end up writing “mom” anyway, fold the form, and hand it to the nurse.
Two days later I met my college roommate for coffee at the place by the playground. I told her about the form, how it hit me like a cold wave: I can’t remember the last time someone asked me what I like, what I’m working on, what I think about anything that isn’t snack time or homework or why the dog keeps digging up the yard. I love my kids. I wouldn’t trade the early mornings building blanket forts or the bedtime stories for anything. But I feel like I’ve misplaced the part of me that existed before they were born. She nodded, said she went through the same thing when her kids were little, that almost every mom she knows feels this way at some point, but no one talks about it.
I got home that day and started digging through the back of the hall closet, where I stashed all my old work boxes when we moved after the second kid was born. I found my sketchbook, the one I carried to every client meeting before kids, full of half-finished thumbnails and scribbled color notes and coffee stains. I carried it to the kitchen table, poured a second cup of coffee, and just flipped through it for 12 minutes. I didn’t have to draw anything, I didn’t have to pitch a project, I just looked at the work I did when it was just mine.
I’ve seen all the big advice online about this, right? Quit your job (or go back to work full time), take a weekend away by yourself, join a fancy gym, overhaul your whole life. That doesn’t work for me. We can’t afford a babysitter for a whole weekend, I don’t have the energy for a big new commitment after running after two kids all day. So I started with tiny, zero-pressure changes that fit into the messy rhythm of our life.
First, the 15 minute rule. Every day, I carve out 15 minutes that are just for my thing. Some days it’s right after breakfast, when the kids are playing with blocks and haven’t started fighting yet. Some days it’s after bedtime, before I crash on the couch. I don’t have to finish anything, I don’t have to make it good. I just doodle in my sketchbook, or mess around with old design files on my laptop. That’s it. If a kid needs me halfway through, I stop. No guilt, no checking off a box for self-care. It’s just 15 minutes where I’m not “mom” — I’m the person who likes messing around with color and line.
Second, I changed one line in my Instagram bio. It used to just say “Mom of two, boy mom.” I added “Graphic designer, book cover nerd” to the start. It sounds silly, how small that is, but now when I comment on a local parent group post or connect with an old classmate, the first thing they see isn’t just that I’m a mom. I also started changing how I introduce myself to new people at the playground or school pickup. I used to automatically say “I’m Sarah, Jake and Leo’s mom” — now I say “I’m Sarah, I’m Jake and Leo’s mom.” My name first. It’s a tiny shift, but it reminds me who I am before it reminds anyone else what I do for my kids.
A month ago, I saw the local library post that they needed a volunteer to design flyers for their summer reading program. It was two hours a week, while the kids are in school, no pay, just getting the flyers printed by the end of May. I almost didn’t apply. I thought I was too rusty, I’d lost the touch. But I sent them three old sketches, and they got back to me the next day and said they loved them. I’ve been going every Wednesday morning for a month now. I sit at a table in the library basement, drink bad vending machine coffee, and mess around with fonts. No one asks me about potty training or homework. We talk about whether a dinosaur illustration is too silly for the 3rd-5th grade group. It’s not a career. It’s not a big life change. It’s just a few hours a week where I’m just me.
Some weeks, I don’t get my 15 minutes. Last week, Leo had a stomach bug, and I didn’t open my sketchbook for six days. I still automatically say “Jake’s mom” sometimes when I meet a new parent at soccer practice. I still wrote “mom” on that pediatrician form, after all. I don’t think I’ll ever get back the exact identity I had before kids, and that’s okay. That person doesn’t exist anymore — I’m a mom now, that’s a big, important part of who I am. I just don’t want it to be the only part.
Last Friday, I picked the kids up from school, and a new mom stopped me by the gate. She said she saw my summer reading flyer at the library, loved the stray cat I drew in the corner of the main one. I stood there for a minute, talking about the cat, and for that minute, I wasn’t anyone’s mom. I was just the person who drew the cat. It’s small, but it’s enough for now.
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