This article caught my eye today. At the family reunion on Sunday, there was a lot of talk about balancing family and career. The parents in attendance had very strong opinions on the subject, and the non-parents tended to get judgmental, as if they knew better. Frankly, I think it’s a deeply personal choice, just like whether to have kids in the first place. It’s kind of amusing, however, to watch my mother’s generation freak out when women my age and younger announce that they don’t even want to try and balance the family/career thing:
“For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.”
As the daughter of a career woman who continued to work full time after having me and my brother, I can say that I’ll approach things differently if and when I have a family (yes, I’m 30 but my clock is not ringing off the hook).
“For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a major factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with their own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all, took several years off or worked only part time….Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without breaks, also cited their mothers as influences.”
It's totally true. Kindercare, you forever scarred me and I will commit hari kari before carting my progeny off to your torture cave. I hated the fact that my mom was never there when I got home from school. She couldn’t chaperone field trips and she didn’t have the energy to help plan costumes, cupcakes, or big projects. Part of it was that we couldn’t afford for her not to work, but she also wanted to stick with her career. Once I was old enough, I appreciated her example, her dedication. I saw the value in her choice. But I’ll still do it differently. I’ve watched my friends slowly go insane staying home with their kids full time, and watched other friends resent their job because it kept them from being present for their child’s formative months. If at all financially possible, I plan on working part time when I’m a mother. I’ll never forget how uncomfortable my mom was on the one field trip she came on (she had to take a vacation day to do it), and what it was like to go home with my friends after school and have their moms there to open the door.
1 comment:
very interesting post.
discussing this with my mother...from the perspective of a daycare provider, she said that the children who had at least one parent working part-time seemed to thrive the most - it provided the ultimate balance of parental and social time.
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