The idea of my mum, who worked full-time as a pharmacist when I was growing up, giving up her career to tend to my baby’s every need didn’t exactly line up with the way she raised me. My mother was a career woman in the era of “having it all” and the “mommy wars.” She was among the first generation of women to disrupt the workforce en masse. My younger brother, Martin, and I were raised in part by an eclectic mix of babysitters, after-school teachers, summer camp councillors, neighbours, and a beloved bachelor uncle. And while this wasn’t a complete novelty in the upper middle class neighbourhood in Cincinnati where I was raised, it certainly wasn’t the norm. To this day, some of my favourite stories to tell about my mother are the times she forgot to pick me up at the roller rink after school, or the time she sent me back to class and made me take the bus home after I threw up on the first day of 7th grade. For years I told these stories to paint a picture of myself as the neglected daughter of two hard-working, ambitious, professional parents. This, I believe to this day, gave me grit.