As I celebrated Mother's Day with the strongest, smartest, kindest woman I know (my mom, duh!) I was struck by just how many sacrifices she made throughout her life in order to become a wife, raise my siblings and I, all while continuing her career. It's not easy to maintain financial independence while raising a family, and she has done both extremely well for the past nineteen years.

I was struck by the realization that personally, I don't want any children of my own.

Maybe it's because I'm still young, but I haven't been hit with the intense desire to have children in the future. To me, playing with a baby for about an hour and handing it back to it's mother is one thing, but growing a child for nine months inside of me, somehow having to get it out, and then becoming responsible for the child's life for the next eighteen years sounds like my worst nightmare. I already have a huge family, and I'm not looking to create any more of them.

I'm not bashing mothers in any respect. In fact, I think that being a mother is the hardest job in the world, and I admire those that can handle it immensely. However, to suggest that all women should become mothers, or to imply that motherhood defines womanhood, is not something I agree with or encourage.

This common belief irks me for many reasons, first and foremost because of the obvious rebuttal: what about the women who physically can't have children? Does this make them unworthy of their sex? Pregnancy and motherhood is not a walk in the park. It requires a mentally and emotionally stable adult to guide a child in the right direction. If a woman feels in her soul that she can't do that, is that a red mark on her female wings? And, of course, the inevitable double standard: men can go their whole lives without marrying or having children without being questioned. But the moment a woman makes a move towards a single or childless life, the "but what if..." chorus starts to sing.

Times are changing, however. In my generation, more and more women are choosing to hold off on marriage, let alone children. Perhaps it's because they are still children themselves: many millennials in their early 20's still live with their parents, due to student loans or other forms of financial strain. Today, there is less societal pressure on younger women to have children during their prime child-bearing years, because more women are earning college degrees and entering the workforce, deciding to put off the thought of children until they are well past thirty.

However, the status quo still dictates that women should have children eventually. And those that don't face intense scrutiny, judgement, and confusion from those around them. Women that don't have children are often thought to be selfish, heartless ice-queens that have never known love and will never find it. In my hometown, I have yet to find a woman over thirty with no children who is successful in her career and her marriage. Even so, because of the internet, I know these women exist somewhere, and I know that they are happy with their decision to rebel against what they have been told their whole lives. They travel, they kill their careers, they may or may not have supportive partners and they love their friends and family, despite their childless reality. Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey and Chelsea Handler are just a few examples of women who have managed to find fulfillment in their lives without becoming mothers.

Motherhood doesn't define womanhood. And while I love my mother and hope to become like her in every aspect of my life, actually becoming a mother is not an aspiration of mine. To have the freedom to make that choice is something I am thankful for every day, and every woman should be able to choose between her life as an individual and a life as a mother.