About six years ago, as I emerged from the fog of having three children in four years, I found myself in an uncomfortable predicament. I had a master’s degree in Sociology and had always focused my academic interests in women’s issues, and before having my children I worked in the women’s health arena. Yet there I was, thirty-one years old with three children ages five, three and one, a stay-at-home mom with a total of four years of practical work experience behind me.

Upon the birth of my first child when I was twenty-six, and a year out of grad school, I’d decided to devote myself to fulltime motherhood. While my justifications were valid at the time (I didn’t earn much in my non-profit jobs, my husband traveled every week, and of course I wanted to be with my kids), something bugged me about the hypocrisy of not practicing what I preached.

A few years later, after my divorce, the reality of my situation manifested itself in ways that were far from theoretical. Career wise, I pretty much had to rebuild from the ground up. My mother, who rebuilt a successful career after her own divorce from my father, always told me, “I want you to have the education to support yourself.” I learned that education will only get you so far, if you don’t have the practical experience to back it up.

So, as I’ve maneuvered the changes in my life over the past few years, I’ve been talking to my children, particularly my ten and eight-year-old daughters. Without going into detail or disparaging their father, who is a friend, I’ve informed them that you need to have a plan. You need to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a scientist. Something concrete.

You need years of living for yourself before you get married. I’ve told them that once they do get married, there’s no need for them either of them to change their last name. Why should my girls, who will make their way in the world with the names their father and I bestowed on them, give up half their identity upon choosing a life partner?

Some people have poo-poo’ed me for letting my children know that it’s much harder for me to recover from the divorce than it is for their father. He’s carried on in his successful career, and the children really don’t have anything to worry about. So why not let them continue in their state of ignorance is bliss? Haven’t they already had enough trauma, getting through the divorce, as amicable as it’s been?

Sorry, no. My girls need to know. They will know. They see me analyzing our family budget and working insane hours and there are times when they know I’m too tired to string more than a few words together.

If we are to truly reach a point where women as doctors and lawyers and scientists are the norm, and there’s no need to clarify a mistake when someone automatically uses the pronoun “him” after hearing that someone is the room is a surgeon or a physicist, or a partner in a huge law firm, girls must formulate independence early. Independence can be scary sometimes.

A key component is the knowledge that no one is going to take care of you. It’s not an option to ride someone else’s coattails. We can talk about putting our children first till we’re blue in the face, but if mothers really want to put their daughters first, lead by example. Help your girls formulate a life view that will give them the best chance at independence. Show them that while you may struggle, you will reap the benefits of knowing your security isn’t in someone else’s hands.

I wouldn’t give up my years with my kids, but if I could do it again, I certainly would have advised my young (and let’s face it, naïve) self to spend years establishing myself before I dove into mommy hood. I probably would have kept working in some capacity, even when the children were young. No one can predict the future, and I would have been more prepared.

So, if in being gently honest with my girls about my struggles I instill in them the belief that they never want to be in my shoes, I will have succeeded.