As recently as a few generations ago, parents had pretty clearly defined roles with the dad generally being the breadwinner and the mom being the homemaker and stay-at-home mother in a large majority of families. Then, in 1848, the women’s rights movement in the United States began with a powerful second wave coming in the 1960s and 70s, empowering women in the workplace, ushering in the era of two working parents, and producing an entire generation of “latchkey kids.”

Now those Gen X latchkey kids are parenting Gen Z, with the pendulum of working motherhood having swung somewhat to the middle. We were raised to believe we could be anything we dreamed of being and that we didn’t have to choose between being a mom and having a career. Gen X also became mothers during the heyday of parenting self-help books that impressed upon us the importance of attachment and hands-on childrearing, as well as the era of super-scheduled kids, whose activities alone require a full-time manager.

As a result, those of us who are now in our 40s and 50s have raised our kids straddling two worlds: one where women can have all of the career success we desire and one where we can choose to be stay-at-home moms who run seemingly effortless households.

At first, we were told we could have it all, but when the impossibility of that became clear, we were told, “Well, you can have it all, just not at the same time.” But as many moms are finding as their kids start leaving the nest, even that isn’t the full truth.

One mom put it into words for all of us

In a Facebook post by Karen Johnson, aka The 21st Century SAHM (short for “stay-at-home mom”) nailed the reality many stay-at-home moms in their 40s are facing as they find themselves floundering with the glaring gap in their resumes.

“This is for all the moms in their 40s who put their careers on hold to do the SAHM thing because you knew you couldn’t do both, career you loved and motherhood, and do both WELL, so you picked, saying to yourself, ‘This is just for now and we’ll see,’” Johnson wrote. “But now it’s 15........

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