This quote from Elder Henry B. Eyring’s classic BYU Devotional has helped me think about the importance of children to a mother more deeply:

“Men and women working outside the home deal mostly with early crops and with the law of diminishing returns. In the home, they spend far more on late crops and the law of increasing returns. It’s important to remember that. It could help a woman understand why arguments for a career and little time spent rearing children are so tempting. And it might help a man understand why a child trampling on the teachings of the home may tear at his wife even more than at him. His paycheck comes often. Hers may come a few times in her life. And now perhaps, because of the choice of a child, one check may not come at all.”