My daughter is a well-settled toddler turning two soon.

And in these two years, I have been constantly inspired yet too awestruck and tired to put anything down in writing.

I hope to one day write about all the wonders and blunders that are motherhood, and the long, difficult road it took me to get here. But now is not the time for big revelations.

As they say: live a lot, write a little. Two years is not enough moments to capture epiphanies from, so that will have to wait.

What can’t wait is my message to young mothers (or even fathers), as this piece of writing comes from a place of temporary trade-offs.

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s about the career crisis many of us go through.

It’s about entering pregnancy with a sure plan of what the future will look like and slowly, over time, letting go of the rush and drive of an exciting professional path.

I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed my professional life before I got pregnant. Rather, I enjoyed the process: the travel, the interesting projects, the office drama, and the friendships. But I often find myself zoning out during my current job, closing my eyes to feel that alive again while working in front of a laptop.

I use the word job, and not some fancy term, because for me it is just a job—a trade-off I have made to be working from home and raising my daughter because she deserves the best of her parents. My husband has also made trade-offs professionally, like traveling less and not switching jobs because stability is needed now, for sometime at least.

But I feel my trade-off is intense in a way that I have lost the independence and autonomy that came with my professional life. Working a job just for the salary sounds practical, yet it can also get tiresome.

Off and on, I find myself feeling trapped. Then I look at my daughter and realise she has always had her parents with her, every day of her life. And even when my husband travels, she has the stability of me being there.

We feel blessed we have the opportunity to do this. And I understand that not many can avail themselves of this privilege because of circumstances—not because they love their child any less.

For me, as a mother, and for us as parents, we wanted to raise our daughter on our own, and in a perfect world there would be no trade-offs.

But if you find yourself struggling with this situation as a parent, I want to remind you that it is a noble act to give up something for now so you can give your child the best of you.

Watching my daughter be free and secure in her formative years is worth it. Knowing she never has to go without her parents, that one of us will be there to see her dance on a random Tuesday afternoon or cuddle her when she falls down on her evening walk. That we will be there to make her lunch and sway with her until she naps.

That all her mundane moments are priceless.

I’m sure I will have the opportunity to get back to some version of my professional life, to feel alive again when I work. But if all I have right now is a paycheck, that’s fine with me.

Because no amount of fancy titles can give me her childhood.

And that is not a trade-off—that is a blessing.

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