Some women leaving the workforce to care for children or family is a choice.

For others, it is a necessity.

But Neha Roos doesn't think a career pause means putting aside your professional ambitions.

She founded Mother Untitled, a group dedicated to challenging conventional ideas about stay-at-home motherhood.

I recently spoke with Neha about what inspired her new book, The Power Pause,

How to Plan a Career Break After Kids and Come Back Stronger Than Ever. It was the height of the lean-in

movement, the height of the girl boss era, 2016, when I had my first son. And when I was rocking with

him in that rocking chair, I suddenly felt like I wanted more time with him.

And when I decided to pause and shift my career, I had every intention on returning.

And yet I started hearing from everyone in my corner, are you giving up?

Did you waste a spot at business school?

And I was meeting all these incredible women,

similar to myself, had clocked in a decade in their career, had really modern relationships

with their husband, who were making strategic choices to pause or shift. And all of them

were at the receiving end of unwelcome commentary like that. And I realized that we were all facing this

very outdated perception of the state-at-home mother. We never updated for the modern reality

of women having children older. So they've accrued education and work experience. They have

access to digital tools and technologies. So very few of them are shut in and stagnant like the

word implies. And really, they're keeping themselves connected and creative in so many interesting

ways. And so I started the platform back then, and it's grown since. And choosing to put your

career on pause in many cases means putting on pause other elements of your life,

you know, a space and time outside the home, things that are often intrinsic to a woman's

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