As women, we are expected to plan out our lives like this: Get married in your 20s, have a kid by your early 30s, and raise them well into your 50s while you wait for your grandchildren. Somewhere in there you might have a job, but that will inevitably take a backseat once you bear children. And anything that deviates from this particular narrative is questioned or, even worse, looked down upon. But what if you don't even want children? What if you're focused on building your career right now? What if you want to keep your job while raising three kids? The lesson here is that there is no set plan. No matter how you slice it, having kids is not an easy job. Yes, it can be incredibly rewarding, but here at Refinery29, we believe that motherhood should be a choice, not an expectation.