I did not appreciate my mom’s career when I was little. It didn’t matter to me that she was a powerful lawyer—I wanted her to spend time doing my hair every day, packing my backpack for me, and making delicious homemade meals. I wanted a mom who was like most of my friends’—a mom whose only job was her children. I lined up every day beside other kids in elementary school and envied them their elaborately packed lunches and ironed uniforms.

My perspective started to change when I transferred to a small, non-sectarian prep school in seventh grade. I was a few days away from 12 on the first day of school, which is when I met my friend Jessa. Jessa’s mother was a doctor who performed laser eye surgery. My friend Lily came to the new school with me. Her mother had once stayed at home but had recently gotten her Ph.D. and would eventually become a teacher at the school. Other friends had mothers who were teachers, business owners, and all other varieties of working women. I became less self-conscious about the fact that both of my parents worked. Suddenly, I was no longer the only one with parents who ran late because of meetings or who forgot to buy bread for lunch once in a while or who let me go to school in too-small jeans. I met other kids whose parents led their own lives, and it made me understand and appreciate my mother’s accomplishments. The older I became, the more I understood my mother’s dedication to her job. My mom and I developed a close relationship based on trust. Because my parents weren’t around to monitor me all of the time, they assumed that I would know do the right thing and that I would be responsible even while hanging out with my friends. That trust meant a great deal to me, and I think I became a better person—and a better daughter—as a result.

Now that I am in college, I have come to admire my mother more than anyone I know. I think of how hard she fought, as a child of uneducated immigrants, to attend an Ivy League college. I think of all the challenges she faced as a woman in the workplace in the 80s, from creepy male co-workers to peers who chose not to work to long, grueling hours spent giving her job her all. I am incredibly proud to be the daughter of a strong woman. It has shaped who I am in the best ways and has ultimately made me a dedicated, more hardworking person. Being a working mother still isn’t easy in today’s society, given how mothers are often expected to sacrifice everything they have for their children. I want to say that having a working mother has inspired me to become an inspired and brave individual who felt like she could do anything—and who felt like her mother would support her no matter what. In the end, the time my mother spent developing her professional career was time spent turning me into an independent and thoughtful young woman.

My childhood was not perfect, and having two parents who worked full-time was not easy. Like all other great things in the world, though, it was worth it—and my experiences have led me to the success I have found today.