Whether she chooses her career over family, or chooses to take her foot off the pedal for a couple of years while focusing on her family, each choice should be respected and supported as though it were as valid and admirable as the other. In doing so, we are more likely to retain more women in our organizations, thereby creating diverse pool of role models that young women can look up to. A young woman who can see “someone like her� succeeding in her organization, is more likely to keep striving to succeed, to remain committed to and engaged with her job, because she is reminded every day that women like her, with similar cultural values to her, with similar ideals to her, who have made similar choices to the choices that she intends to make one day, are succeeding, excelling and thriving in both their careers and their personal lives. It is not an easy path that we have chosen, to be working women (whether with children or without). Between the maternal walls, the glass labyrinths, the glass cliffs, the glass elevators and the glass ceilings, to name but a few, it’s a wonder that any of us have lived to tell the tale. But know this, you are not alone and more importantly you should not be alone in this struggle. We need to build our villages and fill them with residents who will, over time, tear down the maternal wall brick by brick and, who, until such time as it has fallen, will raise us up, over it.
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