I’m a Working Mom Who Quit $200K Job for a 6-Month Break

• Jeanne Pastrano quit her $200,000-a-year job in New York after feeling burned out.
• After a six-month break, she said she felt rejuvenated and was ready to get back to work.
• She disclosed the sabbatical on her LinkedIn profile — and still found it easy to get a new job.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeanne Pastrano, a 37-year-old mom based in New Jersey. Pastrano quit her job in April after feeling burned out. This story has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has reviewed compensation documentation for her previous job and her current job as a strategic account manager at Sardine.

People would always tell me, “You make being a working mom look so easy.” Maybe I did — but that doesn’t mean it was easy.

I’m 37, and I have two boys who are 10 and 12. I was an account manager at Adyen, a financial technology company until April. I liked my job and made about $200,000 a year. We lived in New Jersey, and I worked in New York.

As a working mom, you put up a face of strength, because if you don’t, a lot of things will fall apart. The only way to keep it together is to be very organized and stay on top of things all the time — and that’s what I did. But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t exhausted by the end of the day.

I felt like I was stretching myself too thin. When I was at home, I was thinking about work. When I was at work, I was also thinking of a million things I had to do for the house for the kids. Over time, that feeling of inadequacy in both capacities piled up.

For the majority of my career, I was the primary breadwinner, so my family depended on my income. There was that weight of everything depending on me that I wanted to break free of. Even when my husband’s career took a turn and he started to take over the majority of things financially, I just wanted to get that break. I also had a hunger to experience being a full-time mom.

Quitting my job wasn’t an easy decision. I was at a good place career-wise at a very stable company. It was months and months of planning and preparing financially. But I knew that if I didn’t take a break, I would always feel I missed the chance to take one.

I had a hard time slowing down during my sabbatical

The first day not working actually slapped me in the face. In my first three months of being unemployed, I was still running. I’d been on the hamster wheel for too long.

I had household projects and volunteer work. I’m very active at church. I had to take on more work at home with the kids.

I never really slowed down, and I was still feeling overwhelmed. Chores and to-do lists were still piling up. Three months in, I wondered how I was still so busy after quitting my job. And I realized it was my fault. I didn’t know how to not work.

Eventually, I was able to slow down a bit more. I could be with the kids more in the summer, and we were able to travel. This was the first time I traveled without a job, where there’s still that anxiety to check emails and stress that once you’re back in the office, there’ll be a million fires you have to put out. So that was very refreshing.

I thought I was leaving for good, but in those six months, I appreciated the 9-to-5. Sometimes, we like something but we just need a breather.

I never thought I’d be this ready to go back to work or able to revive that excitement I had early in my career, but I felt like I was already there after six months of my sabbatical.

Some people work 20 to 30 years without a real break. I can’t imagine. Now, I can see myself working another five to 10 years, with just vacations here and there.

Getting back into the workforce was easier than I expected

About five months into my sabbatical, I started to interview and was looking for the same type of role I previously had. I knew I wanted a fully remote job.

I know the perception is that it might be hard to get back into work, but I was pleasantly surprised that wasn’t the case for me. After six weeks of interviewing, I got an offer from a fintech startup — making about the same as I was before, with more equity opportunities.

I was very transparent about my career break on LinkedIn and in interviews. The interviewers were positive about it and totally understood. I shared exactly why I was taking a break, which seemed to resonate with them. It seemed like everybody knew what I was talking about because they also felt burned out at some point in their careers.

If you’re financially able to and have reached a point in your career where you just need a break, I would absolutely recommend a sabbatical. I feel like that’s why some companies offer an official sabbatical.

I’m so grateful I could get that break and refresh myself before ending up with the dream job that I was looking for.