When I look back at my childhood, my mom, first generation Bachelors degree in tow, worked four days a week. And ‘ran’ the evenings on her own at home while my dad was dairy farming. When she looks back, her mother ran the household and picked up shifts waitressing when the farm wasn’t making ends meet. And before that, working outside the home wasn’t something my great grandmother would have dreamed of.

It is on the backs of everyday women like my mother, and the likes of Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, among others, that I was able to enter the workforce without a single thought of my gender having an impact on my professional life. While at the same time, knowing I had a real choice of whether to be a stay at home mom, full time employee or somewhere in between.