If you are a working mum, let me begin by asking, what kind of week have you had? Did you get laid off? Did your nanny quit or call in sick? Did the commute - the traffic jams, the cost of petrol - finally get to you? Are you reading this thanking God it's Saturday and you don't have to leave home for another 45 hours?

For many working mums, chucking it in seems more and more attractive but, in the current economic climate, less and less attainable. Many believe that leaving work to stay at home with their families means they will never work again.

If that's you, take heart. If you worry that you won't find meaningful work later or that you'll be unable to resume or reinvent your career, cheer up. I'm not suggesting that you rush off and hand in your notice on Monday morning. But I do know, having spent the past four years talking to women who left their careers, spent several years as full-time mothers, and then returned to work again, that this kind of serial combination of work and family is entirely possible. I've done it myself.

I stopped being a journalist for seven years when my first daughter was born. I hadn't planned it but I didn't want to travel and leave her so I just turned down commissions until they stopped coming in. I had no idea how to go back to work when my younger one was going off to pre-school so, as they say in publishing, I wrote the book I wanted to read (The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again).

Dispelling the myths

I am going to share some of what I learnt talking to women for the book and dispel some myths. First, the biggest misconception about leaving the workforce is that it is only for the wealthy. You'll notice that I did not use the phrase “opting out”. This is because not everyone opts to leave. Some of the mothers I talked to were forced out, such as the doctor who asked to drop her hours down to part-time and was subsequently let go by her department. Some sacrifice their careers when they move with a relocated husband, such as the teacher who found it impossible to get a teaching job in her new town. Some mothers “choose” to stay at home when a child has chronic health issues, which is far more common than I had imagined. And some stay at home because they are married to workaholic men and feel that their children need at least one attentive on-site parent.

Focus groups that I have attended show that more and more women are beginning to budget for years at home, planning this period in their lives. However, many mothers never dream they will stop working and yet somehow they find themselves at home.

This new identity of full-time mother somehow feels old - more dated than you expected, and there are times when you panic; really panic that this is it for ever. You dread the “What do you do?” question and you're uncomfortable about not having your own money to spend.During this period of transition, it helps if you live with someone enlightened enough to realise that your time at home benefits him as well as the kids. Call the incoming salary “family money” because that's what it is. I know many women who out-earned their husbands either before or after spending years at home.

A number of wives used their career-savvy and contacts to propel their husbands forward while they spent their days surrounded by Play-Doh and dolls. Have the confidence to know that you will make money again. Many women say that if they describe their parenting years as a sabbatical from their careers, they don't feel the same despair that they'll never come back.

Once women get through the uncomfortable transition and realise that - goodness me! - it has been three years since they last got paid, two things happen. The first is that they appreciate that they actually like not being at work. There are things they do that fit in with their new domestic selves that they might be slightly embarrassed to admit, flower arranging, for example, or baking or keeping scrapbooks. Again, I speak from my own experience. I took flower-arranging classes once a week for three months while I was at home in a group with about 30 other mothers. We loved our hours together and took great pride in our creations.

In the same way, women who volunteer part of their days at school or church or for a charitable cause, get to leave home and re-create some of the companionship they had in a professional environment. Focus groups of full-time mothers are showing that they are out of the house for hours and hours. They are just as busy as professional counterparts, yet they don't feel what they do is valued because they aren't getting paid.

The paradox is that the more entrenched mothers get at home, the harder it becomes to imagine leaving, and feeling undervalued is a contributing factor. But you might be encouraged to know that every woman I talked to who returned to work described an “aha” moment where she suddenly felt that she'd had enough. Once a mother reaches that point, her confidence returns. She starts planning, contacting anyone who might help - former colleagues, neighbours, book-club members. She talks to family and friends to get ideas of how and when she can come back.

Many are less driven but more demanding

At this point you might feel some ambivalence about what you want to do. Some women want to start their own businesses, some want an extra degree or a diploma to set them in a different direction. A few want to do what they've done before but in a slightly different way. Few lawyers wanted to return to law, but women in more creative industries - photography, design or media - longed to return. The overwhelming majority want to try something new or change the parameters. Coming back means less going back than moving forward.

Being at home changes you so, of course, you'd like the next stage to reflect an enhanced identity. You might be more patient, or nurturing. It's common to feel less driven but more demanding. You'll want to work on your terms - which might mean that you won't want to run a company unless it's your own.

Don't think your first job back will be your last. If you want to return and you think it will be impossible for you to find anything to do in a recession, you should know that the appalling inequity in pay between men and women will work to your advantage. Returning mothers are desirable because they are cheap. Women who are insecure about their years out of the workforce undercut the (male) competition when negotiating a return. When the time is right they leave that job and make much more money at their second position. Every woman in my book is making more money than before she had children. None came back to the same salary or the same hours. As their experience and their children grew, so did their pay.

Finally, keep a sense of perspective. Women are now living into their nineties. You have so much time, while technology means you can work from a parked car or your kitchen table, so you have more control over what you do and when you do it. Whatever age or stage you're at, it won't last for ever. One day your children will leave home. You'll move on ... and on and on.

The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again by Emma Gilbey Keller is available at £17.09 from Times Books First. Phone 0870 1608080; www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

Should you quit?

If you agree with any of the following statements, it might be time to hand in your resignation

1. At 4pm every day, you feel guilty because you are not at the school gate.

2. Your salary is the same as your childcare costs.

3. You'd turn down a promotion to a position with more money, but longer hours.

4. You resent the time it takes you to commute.

5. You feel your stress levels would improve if only you were able to spend some time at home.

"The return to full-time work came as a complete surprise”

Anne Spackman worked part-time from home for nine years to be with her two small children. Here's how she found going back to work full-time...

“Unlike Roald Dahl's Enormous Crocodile, I had no secret plan or clever trick. There wasn't time even to think about one as I was working full-time with two small children. Instead, in the summer before my oldest son started school, I felt an overwhelming need to be there to pick him up. This was a feeling over and above the inevitable crises of confidence caused by child-care and sickness dramas. It would be possible only if I swapped my full-time editing job for part-time, flexible work.

“With sons aged 4 and 2, I began an enormously happy nine years working from home as a property writer. I loved the school-gate chat, the potter home with optional detour through the park, the friends coming to play, the bedtime stories. Once both boys were making their own way to school I realised the days were getting longer. There were invitations to play tennis at 11am on Thursdays, but I wasn't ready to go gently into that good life. Even so, the return to full-time work came as a complete surprise.

“When my boss from the part-time years, newly elevated to the position of Editor of The Times, called me up, I thought he wanted advice on where to buy a house. He wanted me to become his Property Editor. Two years later I became Managing Editor; two years after that I became Editor-in-chief of Times Online. Last week, I started a new job as Comment Editor. Nobody is more surprised by all this than me.

“People say kindly that the skills you learn as a parent at home are useful in the office. I'm sure I used to tell people that, mainly to give them confidence, rather than because I thought it was true. But it is. You learn to set priorities, to suppress your tantrums and handle other people's. My wardrobe and grooming needed a bit of work when I returned to work. But not much. In fact, one of the surprises on returning to work was the sight of visible underwear on my younger female colleagues.

“When I worked full-time and had tiny children I cursed every red traffic light on the way home. So part-time work suited me then. But all women are different; some are happy working every hour of the day and others like being home full-time. Who knows what will suit you?

The only question I'm consistently asked by younger female colleagues is, how come you've had the chance to work full time and from home? Luck is a big part of the answer.

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