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The million dollar question of Gen Z seems to be: “To have babies or to climb the corporate ladder?” If there’s anything media in the past few years has taught us, it’s that women are shamed for staying at home, and women are shamed for being CEOs. Finally, in the workforce we are looking at who surrounds us in a boardroom, and it’s not all men. In medical schools, aspiring female doctors are outnumbering and outperforming their male counterparts — and they’re doing so with grace. The pendulum has swung in a way where women are finally feeling valued and that they have a place in the workforce.

However, the harsh reality is that the same female doctors we celebrate in medical school are looked down upon for pausing their careers or choosing a less demanding specialty to spend more time at home with their kids. The woman who steps out of the boardroom to pump is looked at funny — “why isn’t your kid just on formula, that would be so much easier?” The CEO who steps down because she was denied paid maternity leave is quickly replaced.

“Be the woman who leads with grace and strength”

“You can have it all.” You can be a wife, you can be a mother, you can be at the PTA meetings and the soccer games, you can climb the corporate ladder — all while maintaining a 10-step skin care routine and getting eight hours of sleep a night. You can hustle, you can make it, you can juggle — you can because you are a woman and you are invincible. This lie that previous generations have swallowed is no longer tolerated by Gen Z women.

“You can have it all” isn’t a complete lie. Let me elaborate…

I listened to women who decided to pursue kids instead of a family, women who climbed the corporate ladder then chose to step down, women who were proud mothers of multiple children and took great satisfaction in their title of “homeschool mom.” Women who were single and searching but were also building a career and making a name for themselves, and finally, women who were just like me — passionate about their careers but aspiring to be a wife and a mother. Women who are unsure if they will be stay-at-home moms once they have kids, but who know they want a career with balance. That soccer games and PTA meetings are a temporary season in a child’s life, but promotions and overtime will always be there.

The career vs. mom debate comes down to a simple phrase that has been on repeat lately. This phrase is TRUTH and it comes from women of all walks of life who are openly sharing their wisdom. “You can’t have it all, at the same time.” One of my favorite quotes from Heidi St. John is: “Women live their lives in seasons and cycles, and it’s your job to recognize what season you are in.” The idea that our life is a timeline, and that over that timeline trying to prioritize too many things at once can lead to catastrophe, isn’t a radical concept. After all, the shift from “priority” to “priorities” was not just cultural — it was a radical change in language. There was no word “priorities” in the original Latin; “priority” meant exactly that — one. It was believed that you cannot prioritize more than one thing at the same time because something will always be neglected.

“Find your balance early”

Emphasis on recognizing the season seems to be the key to success. For me, my current season is that of an unmarried woman, with no kids, fresh into my career and fresh into my growth. I am laying the foundation for my life. I am educating myself, I am taking jobs at companies with good retirement matches, and I am prioritizing learning. Somewhere around twenty-two I decided to make some intentional career choices to hopefully give me more flexibility a decade from now. I did not step away from my dreams, I did not drop out of school, I did not quit my job. But I did think long and hard about my grad school decision before committing.

Recently I entered a new season — a season I had been waiting on for quite some time. Waiting very impatiently, may I add. I finally found a romantic partner who I saw as worthy enough to carve out intentional time for. This new season required me to acknowledge that I cannot work two jobs, pursue ten hobbies, and get to know someone I hope will become my future husband. I busted out a spreadsheet, tightened my budget by dropping the random Amazon orders and weekly $8 coffees, and let go of my second job to carve out intentional time for my partner. Recognizing seasons.

Some will argue this “seasons” theory diminishes the capabilities of women — that it tells young women to diminish their dreams. I argue it does the exact opposite. It encourages women to be introspective and intentional about their lives, so that they can be 100% present in each season. I wrote a piece about a year ago titled The Quarter-Life Crisis. In it, I described a woman standing in a hat shop trying to decide which hat to wear. It was a big ol’ metaphor for the stress that comes from having multiple hats and attempting to wear them all at once — how wearing some on top of others can diminish their beauty, their impact, and the message they are meant to convey.

Identify your season, recognize your impact, and write down your priority. Your future self will thank you.