IF YOU HAD ASKED ME AT MY GRADUATION  from the Business School what I would be doing six years later, I would not have said that I would be at home with two young children.

I came to the GSB from the corporate finance side of J.P. Morgan, via a stop at the Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit serving children in New York City. In 1993, I left Stanford hoping to combine the best of those two worlds with my education. My hopes were met: Since graduation I have been part of the leadership of several entrepreneurial nonprofits focused on building stronger communities. In my two jobs, first as publisher of Who Cares and then as a senior manager of Share Our Strength, I felt that my work was well aligned with my own training, experience, values, and goals; I felt valued and valuable. I was using my MBA, energy, and compassion in ways that could help to build better organizations and, as a result, stronger communities. In the years just after graduation, life seemed in order.

And then four years ago, my husband and MBA classmate James Dodwell and I welcomed our daughter, Emma. Until she was 3, I balanced first full-time and then part-time work with parenting. Just before our son, Harry, was born last year, I decided to stay home. I realized that staying home was one way of fulfilling the same goals that led me to my work in the nonprofit sector. Finally, I saw that the choice was mine.

At business school we read an article in Organizational Behavior by Robert Cialdini about the simple but powerful principle of commitment and consistency. Once you make a commitment in one direction, rational thought urges you to continue to take action consistent with the first step, to avoid the unpleasantness of cognitive dissonance. I had been fighting a commitment and consistency battle since my daughter was born. Once I had made the commitment to work that I liked and that used my hard-earned MBA skills, forces in me, in the Stanford community, and in my professional community urged me to work more, work better, give more.

On the other hand, what bigger commitment is there than the one a parent must make to a child? Not only was my intellect telling me to make decisions consistent with my unquestionable commitment to Emma, but my heart weighed in uncompromisingly as well. I found I wanted to invest more and more time in Emma. My commitment to my family overshadowed, in the end, my deep commitment to my work. I realized that I no longer wanted to manage the two races simultaneously. Balancing did not work for me.

While this race between work and child was running, my world view was changing. My children have brought to me a greater awareness of the urgency of our communities' problems. What had been mostly professional cares — hunger, poverty, violence — suddenly seemed intensely personal. My own sense of my family's vulnerability increased, and my need to help my children grow into strong, well-grounded, compassionate adults who could fight the good fight seemed overwhelming.

I have tried to make my personal framework for setting priorities that of highest and best use — where can I make the most difference? We know that the best social service programs for children encourage close relationships with caring adults. I had worked on raising funds to support such programs at Share Our Strength. It seemed the right time to narrow my sphere of activity from Share Our Strength's area of influence right down to my living room, where I personally could replicate effective one-to-one service-delivery programs for young children — that is, be a mom. This was an epiphany: Taking time out of a paid career to stay home did not reflect a fundamental shift in my life goals, but rather another clear expression of them.

A year before my second child was born, I had a miscarriage. In grieving for the loss of this child, I realized I was also grieving for something else I thought I had lost — my ticket home. Somehow it seemed more socially acceptable to stay home with two children, perhaps because the rational economics said that after taxes my salary would barely cover day care. This experience caught me up short. Why did I have to postpone this next change even though there wouldn't be another baby in the house?

I tried to put aside the expectations that every year of my education and career had helped me set. At the GSB, the few stories I heard from alumni/ae regarding families and work were about "balancing" the two, not "trading" one for the other. Last May I finally made the decision that it was time to make the leap. Bracing for a fall, I was startled by how soft the landing was.

I am happy. Going "over to the other side" was exhilarating, emotionally and mentally. I am satisfied that I am having as great an impact as I can on my children's growth and what they are learning in these critical childhood years. I also see more choices for my life than I ever have before, not fewer. I have resigned three board positions that I had held for the past three years, but have accepted a board role at my daughter's school. I can make time for the occasional short-term consulting project. I can also spend time thinking about business plans for community-wealth enterprises I will start when the time is right. I know that my next paid work will be richer, more focused, and more relevant to me and my community thanks to this time of intensive parenting. I also know that my next job will probably not be based in an office. My MBA, combined with what I have learned about working in new ways, will give me the power to build a career that suits my family. This is a satisfying, enabling discovery.

This decision has not been without cost, however. This is more tiring work than I have ever experienced. There are no latte breaks or solo trips to the bathroom during the work day. I'm on call round the clock. My husband is an entrepreneur who works long hours; so do I.

Initially I felt the loss of my professional network. I was lonely, wondering where the other professional women making similar choices could be. But I have spent the last year finding and creating my new network of friends and family from whom I can draw strength and wisdom. This new community is spread out all over the world instead of focused around my office desk. It feels life-sustaining instead of just work-sustaining.

The financial impact of staying home is undeniable. The opportunity cost of losing my part-time, nonprofit salary is lower than it might be for most MBA women. Even so, my husband's income and certainly his overall support are what make this choice possible. We are postponing buying things another salary might bring us; the trade-off is worth it.

Sometimes it's still challenging to escape the stereotype of what an MBA lifestyle should be. When we hear stories of successful IPOs and million-dollar homes, I feel thrilled for our classmates, but I don't feel the need to get back to work. Reading about an intriguing social entrepreneurship project or receiving a phone call with a great job offer are more apt to make me sit down and re-examine my decision. So far it's been easy to stick with it. My values and professional path have led me to this stage in my career, at home. I've made an authentic choice; it feels right.

When I was at the GSB, I held on to a stereotype about professional women who left work to stay home — that they weren't as bright, or as ambitious, as women who chose to balance work and family. I know now how absolutely wrong I was. I hope that this article adds a story to GSB lore of a successful MBA who loved her career and still chose a path that led home.