Too often, our societal norms still set up a false choice

Michelle Wu, a leader who has walked the demanding path of both public service and motherhood, once declared: “Too often, our societal norms still set up a false choice between parenting and professionalism.” In these words she uncovers a wound at the heart of modern life—the belief that one cannot be both a devoted parent and a dedicated professional, that one must sacrifice the hearth for the marketplace, or the calling of work for the call of children. Her wisdom reminds us that this division is not truth, but illusion, a construct that enslaves families and diminishes societies.

The false choice Wu speaks of is born from narrow vision. For centuries, cultures have treated the spheres of home and work as separate kingdoms, ruled by different laws. Yet life itself knows no such division. The strength a parent learns from nurturing their child—patience, empathy, endurance—are the very virtues that give power in the workplace. Likewise, the skills of discipline, planning, and perseverance gained in one’s profession enrich the raising of children. To force a choice between the two is to sever what was always meant to be united.

History gives us living testimony. Eleanor Roosevelt, though mocked and resisted in her day, chose not to abandon her duties as a mother when she stepped into the arena of public leadership. Instead, she drew from her experiences as a parent to guide her advocacy for human rights, education, and the vulnerable. She embodied the truth Wu proclaims: that parenting and professionalism are not enemies, but companions, each sharpening the other, each making the other more profound.

Wu’s words are also a cry of justice. Too often, it is women who have borne the heaviest weight of this false division, forced to justify their place in the workplace while silently condemned if they step away from it. Men, too, are bound by these chains, taught to value breadwinning over presence, and achievement over tenderness. In truth, the societal norms themselves are at fault, not the capacity of the human heart. For the heart can hold both duty and devotion, both career and care, if only the structures of society allow it.

The wisdom here is heroic: to refuse the lie of this false choice is to liberate not only oneself but future generations. When parents are encouraged to bring their whole selves—to boardroom and nursery alike—they create societies of balance and humanity. When professionals are honored for the richness of their family life as much as their labor, they pass on to their children the message that both spheres matter, and that wholeness is possible.

The lesson is thus: never accept the notion that you must be one thing only. Do not believe that to be a great parent you must abandon your craft, nor that to be a great professional you must deny your children. Instead, demand a world where both can thrive. Let workplaces honor family life with flexibility and compassion. Let families honor work with respect and support. For in doing so, we create not only stronger homes, but stronger communities and nations.

Therefore, let Michelle Wu’s words stand as a summons: dismantle the false choice. Build new norms, where the mother at her desk and the father at the cradle are not exceptions but examples. Teach the young that life is not a matter of dividing themselves into fragments, but of living whole, with work and family woven together like threads of the same cloth.

And so the teaching endures: parenting and professionalism are not two warring paths but two rivers flowing into the same sea. To honor both is to honor life itself, and to prepare a world where love and labor together sustain the generations to come.