Shout-out to all the women who feel as though being a mother is their purpose in life without society or a man telling them that’s how they should feel. You are not stuck in the past or brainwashed, I promise. You are entitled to wanting to be a mother as soon as possible just as much as you are to be the girl who values a stable career as a primary choice.

I read the article “To The Girl Who Dreams of Her Future Career More Than Her Future Children” and I thought it was absolutely wonderful! I’m sure it was definitely a much-needed message for the hundreds of women who feel as though society expects them to be a stay-at-home mom. But it did make me think. Shouldn’t we be empowering one another to pursue whichever path that we as individuals feel is best suited for us, even if that doesn’t include a career at first?

My last article outlined my desire to be a teacher, but I would give up that profession any day of the week if I was financially capable of being a stay-at-home mom. That doesn’t make me lazy, it doesn’t make me a gold-digger, it doesn’t even make me selfish. In fact, I think most women would argue that being a mom is a full-time job, with or without a career in the picture.

When I take a glimpse into the future, the first thing I picture isn’t the classroom I’m working in, it’s a little boy with wild curls running up to me with a painting grasped in his tiny fist, his sticky feet padding against the tile floor. I see a mini-me with the eyes of my husband looking up at me from her crib, loose pigtails tied on the sides of her head.

“But don’t you want to experience life first? Travel the world? Explore?” Why can’t I do that with kids? Maybe experiencing life is something I find in my kids rather than before them. In my eyes, life doesn’t stop when you have kids, it begins.

This is in no way a dig at the amazing women who work their paid jobs from 9-5 and come home to their kids in the evening—that’s how my mom raised me.

My mother is, without a doubt, the most influential person in my life who has always encouraged me to pursue whatever my heart desires. She did that with a career and I give her mad props for everything she has done, and continues to do, for me and my dad.

She had me, her only child, when the was 40 years old so my time with her is much more limited than most of my peers. In addition to everything else, my desire to have children as soon as I am able to is also so that they can know her in the capacity that I had the pleasure of. I want my kids to learn from my mom and I want her to experience them as they grow, before their only memory of her is a picture.

Envisioning a family in your future before you picture a job is okay. Seeing a job in your future before you even think about kids is okay. As women and as people, we should work to empower one another to pursue and work towards whatever we want in our lives. Whether that be a homemaker or an entrepreneur, you keep rocking you.