On my 17th birthday I realised Id not had a period for two, maybe three months.

Having just won a coveted place at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London, I was facing the possibility of an entirely different future from the one I had planned. I needed to decide whether to start this study or to continue the pregnancy, against my parents wishes. Their resistance galvanised my decision.

I gave birth to my son later that year and set out on a path many said would ruin my life.

The moment I decided to become a young mother I knew that this label would follow me around, and while I love being a mother, I didnt want my whole identity to be defined by having children.

There were times maintaining a separate identity became a struggle. By the time I was 22, I was the mother of four sons. The mother label enveloped me.

I gestated, breastfed, knitted, baked, breastfed while pregnant, went to mother and baby groups, moved country, birthed, decorated homes, breastfed, created a group for isolated mothers, breastfed and planned university study.

But I was determined. With a small brood of noisy boys in tow, I built a shortlist of universities to approach and came away armed with interview dates to study social policy.

Id been told by career advisors to apply to lower league institutions because I was a mother, and this would be my primary role in life.

The assumption that Id tinker around the edges of my truest purpose being a mother was pervasive.

It felt like being a mother overrode being a person in my own right. Its like theres a motherhood contract with strict terms: Mothers must serve others needs, agendas and interests before their own.

I resisted all this advice including the suggestion that I defer my degree for a decade to get the children to their teens and applied to top league institutions. I wasnt about to derail my own ambitions because that is what others expected of me.

And I am so glad I did, because I graduated with a good degree and went on to postgraduate degrees and academia. Yet the stigma surrounding working mothers didnt stop there; I remember in a PhD scholarship interview being asked whether I intended to have children and how this would affect my ability to be a senior academic.

Except I was a mother of five already.

I am not prepared to be defined as a mother first and foremost, but its something that is embedded deeply in our culture.

We can see it in workplaces, the pay gap, the impact career breaks have on womens career prospects, the cost of childcare, advertising, and the ways our friends and families treat us.

Talking about myself, my potential and my desires outside of my family does not reduce my love for my children.

This might seem like a ridiculous thing to clarify, but mothers get used to prefacing any conversation we have about our hopes, dreams and plans with: Of course I love my children

Mothers feel the need to say this because were often vilified for the choices we make for ourselves beyond our children. Then we spend time defending ourselves by confirming the love we have for those children.

Ive gone from being a career academic when I was a mother of six, to building a consultancy firm that advises boards and C suite teams on strategic decision making having four more children along the way, including triplets who are now aged six.

People always assume Im childfree because of my drive and ambition, but its really their assumptions about what a mother is supposed to be that prevent them from seeing what we are really capable of.

Being a working mother of 10 is a balancing act between selflessness and making the most of my potential.

How do we stop having stupid conversations about women having it all? By not defining women solely in relation to motherhood.

This will allow women to be central participants throughout our whole lives rather than only before we become mothers.

Labels is an exclusive series that hears from individuals who have been labelled whether that be by society, a job title, or a diagnosis. Throughout the project, writers will share how having these words ascribed to them shaped their identity positively or negatively and what the label means to them.

If you would like to get involved please email jess.austin@metro.co.uk

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My Label and Me: I have 10 children, but motherhood doesn't define me - Metro.co.uk