If you ask people who know me what my best quality is, they will tell you it’s my work ethic. Many people refer to me as “the hardest working girl” they know.
To me, working was as natural to me as breathing. I always felt the need either to be working hard or working toward something.
Yet, I never knew where this undeniable independence and drive came from, until now.
A Harvard Business school study was recently released stating women with working mothers may have a better chance at success later in life.
Going over this study, everything suddenly began to make sense.
In the neighborhood I grew up in, not many of my friends’ parents were divorced.
They had parents who still lived together, slept in the same bed together and sat around the dinner table asking about their days at school, together.
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For me, life wasn’t always the picture-perfect, 50s, nuclear family kind of scene. My dad wasn’t the one at work, and my mom wasn’t the one cooking at home.
At 5 years old, my mom went back to working full-time hours when my father fell ill and eventually passed away.
Her job included long days and even longer weeks. She supported me and my two sisters on her own as a full-time mom and dad.
My mother is, hands down, the hardest working person I know. To this day, she still works full-time. Through it all, she has never given up hope or faith on us or herself.
The Harvard study stated:
“[These girls are] more likely to be employed, more likely to have ‘supervisory’ responsibilities at their job, tend to work more hours, and tend to spend less time on housework at home.”
My mother has taught me so many things growing up: how to love, how to cook, how to be a good person and how to give back to others. But, the biggest lesson she has imparted to me is her work ethic.
As the study suggests:
“If you’re a boy and you see your dad chipping in a lot at home when mom’s at work, you’ll quickly get a sense that that’s what ‘boys’ ‘do.’ Likewise, if you’re a girl and see your mom succeeding at work, you’ll be all the more driven to seek out that success yourself.”
When you grow up with a mother who works hard, it inspires you. It teaches you to lead by example. It teaches you a fundamental life lesson: You don’t need anybody else.
According to CNN Money:
“All over the world, children of working mothers are less likely to stick to traditional roles of male breadwinners and female homemakers.”
My hard-working supermom has taught me you can achieve anything you want. If you set your mind to it and dedicate the hours, you don’t need a man to get it.
At 15, I got my first part-time job. From there, I took on three more. As I got older, I realized the beauty of independence and the outrageously amazing feeling I had when I got myself things and didn’t have to ask other people for them.
As it turns out, there’s a scientific reason for my thriftiness. According to Rare:
“For the daughters of working moms, it is in the workplace that they thrive, earning more and being more likely to hold supervisory roles.”
By watching my mother work as hard as she did, I developed the ultimate work ethic, and eventually, I ended up putting myself through four years of college on my own. I received a full-time job offer before I even received my diploma.
Thank you, Mom, for giving me so much love and support over the years. Thank you for working so, so outrageously hard to give us all a life worth living and for giving me the greatest role model to look up to.