In this last General Conference, Neil L. Anderson quoted this blog post in his talk called "Children." I'm not in any rush to have kids, but this article gave me a different perspective on what it will mean to one day be a mom. I'm always so worried about what being a mom means giving up - but there is a beauty in sacrificing to bring children into this world and to raise them to be good people.

Public accounting as a career is a huge time commitment. It's not a family friendly job. You hardly ever work just 40 hours a week. Most of the people who come to BYU to recruit are men, or women who aren't married or who don't have children. All of the men who have children have wives who stay at home with the kids. Sometimes, this really frustrates me and I feel stifled, knowing that I will have to balance my career aspirations with my family aspirations. I can't work 60 hours a week and raise my children. I'm frustrated by men who don't understand this, and I'm even more frustrated by an accounting program that encourages more women to participate but doesn't acknowledge this inconsistency. The inconsistency of having men come as guest speakers who tell the class "Don't leave public accounting until you've been there for 5 years" or who try to acknowledge a place in the profession for working mothers, but admit that you probably won't be offered that flexibility until you've been working for 3 years. Sometimes I am really, really bothered by this, bothered that even at a school like BYU, they don't address this issue. Bothered that the focus at BYU says "Big 4 Accounting or failure." I get stuck in this mindset that in order to be successful and use my degree, I have to dedicate my life to public accounting - or else I threw my potential away.

But, when I take the time to really think about it, I remember the importance of family. Traditional family roles aren't what everyone wants, but they're what I want, and if that means I have to give up some career aspirations in order to be the kind of mom I want to be, then so be it. If the career I had my eye on gets in the way of me being a mom, it's time for me to look for something else.

(But seriously, read the article if you have time. Way good.)