I took an 11-year career break to raise my son. At 41, I took an internship and landed a senior role after 3 months.

"When I had my son in 2009 at age 30, I'd been working in IT at Oracle India for close to seven years. Two weeks into returning to work after five months of maternity leave, I couldn't stop calling my husband to check in on my son. I was fearful of missing out on milestones in his life - his first words, crawling, and walking. Instead of leaving our son in daycare, my husband and I decided he would work, and I'd take a year-long career break to look after him. My break ended up lasting 11 years. In 2021, I accepted an internship offer, which helped me get back into work, even though I had to compete with younger people and work tremendously hard to upskill myself."

"I missed my financial independence when I stopped working During my seven years at Oracle, I worked my way up from a software developer to a project leader. People were reporting to me, and things were going well with my career. I resigned from my job and started looking after my son full-time in early 2010. My husband had to go to the office for work, so he wasn't available during the day to help. At first, I was fine with taking a break from work, but by the end of the year, I felt sad about it. I missed having financial independence. Because I was relying on my husband's income, I felt I should ask him before I spent money, even though he didn't require me to get his permission. With only one person's income, we had to make lifestyle changes. We both loved traveling, but we had to cut back on foreign trips and luxury travel."

Sripriya Balasubramaniam left a growing IT career at Oracle to take a planned one-year break to raise her son, which extended to 11 years. She missed financial independence and adjusted family spending when relying on a single income. Her husband continued working during weekdays while she provided full-time childcare. In 2021 she accepted an internship to refresh technical skills and re-enter the industry, competing with younger candidates and putting in significant effort to upskill. She considers the career pause worthwhile for the time spent with her son despite the professional and financial trade-offs.

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