Irene Mwende (left), Fannis Mwende and Josephine Ogot.
After getting married in 2021, Josephine Ogot waited with bated breath to fall pregnant. She had longed to be a mother. Months went by, and the positive test she yearned for seemed elusive.
“Every negative pregnancy test felt like heartbreak in 60 seconds.”
She decided to distract herself with school and enrolled for a postgraduate degree in Commerce at Strathmore University in early 2023.
“I was excited. I felt like I was finally stepping into the ambitious version of myself I had always imagined.”
Just when she was settling in, she discovered she was pregnant. A few weeks into her classes, the pregnancy symptoms kicked in and took quite a toll on her body.
“I was put on bed rest, but I was determined to continue with my classes. I genuinely believed I could power through pregnancy, school, and life on sheer stubbornness and vibes,” she says with a laugh.
Josephine managed to complete the first semester, surviving on what she describes as “fumes and tangerine peels.”
A few months down the line, she delivered her first child.
“I knew that it wasn’t going to be the same. This wasn’t just about getting through pregnancy. There was now a whole tiny human who needed me in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated.”
Josephine Ogot, 29, a mother of two girls paused her Master's degree at Strathmore in 2023 to take care of her child.
Josephine remembers attempting to return to school when her baby was only a few months old. While on the bus, she received multiple missed calls from her husband. When she called back, she could hear her baby crying uncontrollably in the background.
“That was it for me. I got off the bus immediately and went back home. That moment was probably the clearest sign that I wasn’t ready to leave her yet,” she says.
Josephine knew that she wanted to be at home with her child, but she couldn’t help but worry if it was the right move. How would she survive without income? What if life changed, as it often did, what would she do about money? These questions weighed on her mind as she kept busy taking care of her family.
In 2025, Josephine was home-schooling her child and had a routine set. Then she found out she was pregnant.
“People talk about invisible labour, but when I got my second child, I finally understood just how much goes into running a home and raising children intentionally.”
Josephine recalls moments when she would resent how unstructured her life had become.
“I felt a loss of independence…Even basic things like uninterrupted bathroom breaks felt luxurious,” shares the 29-year-old mum of two.
Although Josephine got a lot of support from her husband, not everyone understood her decision to pause her career and stay at home with the children.
“There’s often this unspoken assumption that if you step away from your career, you’re wasting your potential. But my husband was consistently reassuring, practical, and aligned with me in our parenting decisions. That gave me the confidence to make choices that worked for our family, even if they didn’t make sense to everyone else.”
During this time, Josephine developed a strong interest in early childhood education and Montessori-style learning. Determined to give her children a solid foundation, she created a small classroom setup at home, bought curriculum books, and researched activities, teaching largely through play.
“I’m proud to say it paid off,” she says. Her daughter adapted well when she eventually joined formal school and has shown a strong eagerness to learn.
Reflecting on her earlier months as a stay-at-home mum, Josephine says that the mental load was one of her biggest challenges.
“Being physically present is one thing, but being emotionally, mentally, and developmentally engaged all day is a whole different thing. Your world can become very small very quickly, confined to the walls of your home.”
Over time, she found small ways to re-invent herself and keep from being consumed by motherhood . During nap times, she would build websites, write, watch a film, or simply sit in silence. “By evening, I was usually counting down the minutes until my husband got off work so I could have an adult conversation after a full day of toddler negotiations.”
As she home-schooled the children, Josephine was picking up some valuable life-lessons as well.
“That season taught me the importance of choosing a supportive partner, and that cannot be overstated. I learnt the need to hold on to something personal; a hobby, a creative outlet, or a passion project.
She also learned patience and intentionality. “Children don’t operate on deadlines or logic most days. Learning to slow down and meet them where they are stretched me in ways I didn’t expect.”
Josephine discovered her love for event styling and décor during those nap-breaks. Within no time, she turned that into a business, Lenrie Luxe Events.
“I’m starting to accept that my dream career might not look like clocking into an eight-hour corporate job. I’m returning to my dreams, just not in the same way I left them,” she says.
While Josephine still values meaningful work and financial independence, she now places equal importance on flexibility, presence, and autonomy.
“So now I find myself not only asking, ‘What do I want to achieve?’ But also ‘How do I want my life to feel while achieving it?’”
Josephine is the first to admit that staying home with the children was not an easy decision to make.
Also, comments like “A woman should always have her own money” or “Never put your future in someone else’s hands” did little to wade off the doubts she had. Yet, she believes it was unnecessary to internalise that societal pressure.
“Children are only little for a short while, and that season deserves to be experienced fully if that is the path you choose.”
Fannis Mwende, 36, a mother of three, has been homeschooling her children for the past 8 years before returning to her dream career as a print editor.
Fannis Mwende, a mother of three, always knew the kind of life she wanted to build, and she planned for it long before her children arrived.
Growing up, she was struck by a noticeable difference in the pastors’ children in her church. “It was not just about discipline or behaviour; there was something intentional in how they were raised,” she says
When it came time to choose a career path, many expected her to pursue electronic media, given her personality and voice. Instead, she chose print media. “I wanted a career that would offer flexibility, one that would allow me to balance both professional ambition and family life.”
After completing her undergraduate studies in 2013, she took up a six-month role at an NGO that made her write off working in the corporate space. By 2014, she began freelancing and stayed at it for 12 years as she raised her children and home-schooled them.
“I did not want to outsource my children’s values or their curiosity,” says the 36-year-old. “There is a limited window, up to around 12 years, where you are the primary influence in their lives.”
Fannis had her first child in 2017. “I started talking to my daughter while she was still in the womb; by the time she arrived, our communication was already established.”
Her resolve to pause career ambitions and focus on her children wasn’t without challenges. Around the four-year mark, Fannis recalls feeling as though she had disappeared. While her peers were moving forward in their careers, she was explaining vowels to her toddlers for the hundredth time.
“I had to constantly remind myself that my life was not on pause; it was an investment. I had to learn the hard lesson of separating my self-worth from a paycheck,” she says.
Some people in her circles applauded Fannis’s decision, but others questioned her choices, especially on home-schooling.
Over time, her circle became smaller but more understanding, including other home-schooling mothers and a few close friends who did not require explanations for the state of her home or her exhaustion.
Fannis’s days settled into a rhythm that was equal parts structure and unpredictability: breakfast, lessons in phonics and math, household chores, nature walks, and time spent nurturing her little ‘aspiring master chefs.’
Her own ambitions were pushed to late evenings, often between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., though fatigue frequently won.
“You never leave the office, and there is no commute to decompress. There are no performance reviews or annual bonuses, just the slow, quiet growth of your children,” Fannis says.
But then, a stranger would ask, "Where do they go to school?" Or "Who is their English teacher?" Hearing compliments about their behaviour, sense of independence, and their intelligence reminded her she was doing something right. That foundation became even more evident to their teachers when they eventually transitioned into mainstream school.
Through it all, Fannis says she came to redefine what productivity meant. “It is not just about output. It is about presence.”
The question she learned to ask herself was simple: What will this look like in 10 years?
She also focused on teaching her children how to relate to one another. “We listen to each other so that nobody gets hurt,” she would tell them, a lesson she now sees reflected in how they resolve conflicts.
At one point, she worried that stepping away from formal employment might make it difficult to return or that opportunities would pass her by. But when she eventually re-entered the workforce, her experience was the very reason her current employer hired her.
“The skills I built managing a home and raising children showed up immediately in my work,” she says.
Motherhood, she adds, did not diminish her ambitions; it reshaped them.
“I do not just want to succeed. I want to do work that matters, while staying connected to the family culture we built.”
Still, there were financial pressures along the way, as well as the quiet weight of social expectations. But over time, she learned to let go of the need for approval.
“You cannot win that game,” she says.
Her advice to any mother negotiating? It is not a ‘no’; it is a ‘not now.’ The world will always be there to take your labour, but your children only have one childhood. If you choose to be present, do it with your whole heart and keep a small corner of your soul alive for yourself.”
Irene Mwende, 26, a mother of one says her child is her source of motivation and is currently finalising her Master’s in Human Resource Management at Kenyatta University.
In September 2022, Irene Mwende, 26, had just welcomed her baby. At the time, she was in the middle of pursuing her Certified Human Resource Professional (CHRP) studies while also growing her career in Human Resource at the College of Human Resource Management.
It didn’t take long for her to realise that the baby needed her more than her career.
“I remember sitting one day in the evening, shortly after I decided to pause school and work. I was feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, but deeply grateful. I was at peace with not doing it all and focusing on my baby,” she recalls.
Irene got support from close friends, classmates, and colleagues within the HR field, especially those who understood the realities of motherhood. Professionally, however, not everyone understood her decision. Some advised her to rethink her choices as they would cause her to lag behind.
“That experience taught me that not everyone will understand your season, and that’s okay,” she says. “What mattered most was that I was aligned with my priorities and values.”
Irene’s days revolved around feeding the baby, soothing, adjusting to new routines, and learning something new every day as a mother. “There was no clear structure like before, just a constant flow of care and presence. In between, I would try to create small moments for myself, whether it was reading or simply resting.”
What she had not fully anticipated was the emotional and mental load. The pressure, both internal and external, to still “be productive,” even when she was exhausted to the bone.
“It taught me patience in a way nothing else could,” she says.
Irene says that taking care of her child full-time made her more empathetic, more adaptable, and more grounded, qualities that now shape how she shows up as a professional.
In 2023, Irene resumed her studies after deferring for almost a year. She completed her CHRP and then proceeded to pursue a Master’s in Human Resource Management at Kenyatta University, which she is currently finalising.
“I became more intentional about the kind of career I wanted. Not just success, but something aligned with the life I wanted to build for both myself and my child.”
Her child has since become a strong source of motivation and purpose.
Like Josephine and Fannis, Irene admits that she did feel judged at times, often an unspoken expectation for women to ‘do it all.’
“But I learned to silence the noise and trust my timing. Every woman’s journey is different. There is no one-size-fits-all path,” she says. Her parting shot?
“You are not falling behind. If you need to pause, do it without guilt. And when you return, you won’t be the same; you will be stronger and more purposeful.”
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