It sounds funny to say that one of the most pivotal moments in my adult life occurred after reading a magazine article, but it did. It occurred several years ago – 8 to be exact – when I read an article in Working Mother magazine titled, “Why We Work.” I’ve always remembered that article and I keep a copy or two in my desk at the office. The article resonated with me like nothing else I had read since I had become a mother two years prior, reading everything I could get my hands on about raising children and work-life balance. For the first time I had found a voice to explain my life as a working mother, dedicated to both family and career. I wasn’t greedy, driven, or neglectful of my duties as a mother, I had simply found the strength and courage to fulfill my potential as a human being – that’s right, just like men had always done without shame or guilt. The article is no less relevant to me today than it was back then, now that I have two children and what I can proudly say is a well established career and a doctorate in Organizational Leadership to boot. That article is the inspiration for this blog.

Let me admit from the outset: I believe that we can “have it all.” I once read a fridge magnet that said, “If you want something done, ask a busy woman.” That’s right, we’re efficient, organized, exhausted, to be sure, but also—here’s the biggie—FULFILLED. That is not to say that mothers who don’t work aren’t fulfilled or that being a mother alone isn’t fulfilling; indeed, I believe that raising children is the most important profession of all. But it’s not all we are or all we have, or all we can be. To those who would call working mothers “selfish” for pursuing their own career ambitions and indeed, their own lives, separate from their children’s, I respond: what could be a greater gift to our children than to be their role model of what it means to fulfill our potential, to answer a calling, to be a true and equal partner in a marriage, and a contributing member of society?

Let us not forget that the American feminist movement of the late 1960s was essentially a bourgeois movement of middle and upper-middle class women who discovered a desire for the fulfillment of career and home that men had enjoyed for so long. Women in lower income families have always worked.

And now, as I finish this blog, I’ll go kiss my sleeping children and get myself in bed, for tomorrow I’ve taken the day off work to take my four year old daughter to the aquarium, but not until after we stop by my office on the way, so that I can proudly show her where I work.