Having it all
From Buttafly :: Intelligent Procrastination:
Liberals and conservatives alike fill up endless pages with words of advice to women about how they can try to “have it all,” meaning have both a family and a career. Liberals suggest having fathers stay home more and government programs to help mothers keep working after their children are born; conservatives usually recommend that women postpone a career until their children are in school full time. Such advice usually comes with the doleful caveat that, alas, it is perhaps impossible for women to have it all and they will inevitably have to make career sacrifices.
Wait a minute. “Having it all” requires having a job? When did we forget that work sucks?
Women seem to think that if they don’t work they’re doomed to a life of fretting about burnt cookies and ring-around-the-collar. It’s a sad state of affairs if people think that life degenerates into a lackluster, unimportant existence if they’re not being told what to do by a boss. Besides, what if being a housewife did mean your worries revolved around cooking and keeping the house in order? Is that any less noble than your worries revolving around total quality initiatives and process optimization so that the company you work for can make a little bit more money?
I don’t want it all, as much as the ability to choose to have it all. As for choosing to be swamped by my boss’ demands rather than my child’s demands…it’s not that clear cut either. It’s about actually enjoying my work, enjoying the perks, enjoying the money that comes with it, and isn’t having a happy mommy better than having a mommy at home who is frustrated? Some women do well at home and I applaud them for that. I just know that at this time, we couldn’t do it. I’d end up staying at home, working part-time at a store at the mall, just so we can ‘get by’. Nothing about this debate is black or white. No one size answer.
I am pregnant with my first child, a girl. While I agree with most of your comments, I personally like to work. Now, this may totally change when my little girl comes. I have a college degree and a husband who does not, therefore I am the primary wage earner in our home. He will stay home with our daughter and I will know that at the end of the day, I will have accomplished something at work that fulfills me. It’s the reason I went to college. The bottom line for me is that I work to make life better for my daughter and for me. I agree with Roni, there is no one answer.
I think the article’s author makes some good points, altho I disagree with her labeling “feminists” as the ones who denigrate being at home.
I think that conservatives have swallowed the idea of an individual being valued by the wage s/he earns.
I also think that people evaluate others according to their own lives. And that most journalists and commentators about this issue are writing from the comfort of a middle/upper class income, and from a satisfying job situation.
Being laid off or having one’s employer hit bankruptcy, or similar hard times, causes a mother to revaluate the rewards of being at home. In my experience, being an at home mother is just simply my life, but without the hassle of going to work, TOO.
Whatever happened to the concept that work was not a necessary evil, but rather an integral part of life that builds community and character, and in which one can find meaning and a sense of being needed?
This will probably offend the political correctoids who read this blog, but there’s a reason that people from ethnic cultures that value work and thrift for their own sakes (Jews, Chinese, Scandinavians, etc.) do better financially in any country they live in than do people from cultures that denigrate work and prefer just to “live for the moment.”
Too bad parents don’t read “The Ant and the Grasshopper” to their kids anymore.