Whose choice is it?

I just posted on DotMoms about The New York Times article "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood." It's a bit of a diatribe and long (but long overdue). Let me know what you think. I also wrote a more personal elaboration of these issues and my experience with them.

Comments

[Janine]

I've come a bit late to this party...

"If education is the new inheritance, my income helps ensure my son's."
You are flippin' brilliant. I loved that article for its confidence and lack of ambivalence.

[Nicole]

I recently read a commentary on the article you address that discussed similar studies from the 1980's stating that those predictions haven't panned out. Statically only 25% of women in America can currently afford to stay home. My belief is that with the rising cost of insurance, and other expenditures like the rising cost of petrol, that number will increase. My personal feeling is that studies like this, that start with a premise and then find evidence to support it, serve only to fuel misunderstandings between mothers who work out of the home and mothers who don't. Neither is right, neither is wrong.

Let's remember that at every given moment we are ALL doing the very BEST we can. If that means staying home because that works for your family, great. If that means working out of the home, that's great too. I believe the real debate should focus around supporting all families and mothers in doing the best job they can. Too many American women are limited in their choices. A round of applause to ALL WOMEN who get out there and make it in the world everyday.

[Cassandra Floden]

Well i have staid home and i am a reasonbly intelligent woman. And I find nothing boring in being a stay at home mother. Especially now that my daughter is in school. Schools are desparate for parent invovlment and volunteers to help with all sorts of things from field trips to class activites. And really most people can live on one income if they are willing to give up the expensive nice looking cars, the name brand clothes and the dinners out all the time. People just think they can't because in the eighties we were all taught you need these things, that they are more than just wants. Who really needs a six bedroom house, abercrombie clothes and an suv?

[Cathy]

Julie, I thought you might be interested - I'm just getting around to reading the June issue of Parenting magazine and in it, there's a poll by the magazine that said 47% of working moms felt pressure to become a SAHM.

[Teri Stoddard]

It is the women who initiate divorce, about 80% of the time. Then they, or a judge, decide the father isn't capable of rearing the children half the time so they get a measly 14% of the children's time. Many divorced and single fathers want desperately to care for their children half the time. This would free up the mothers' time, making a career a lot easier to deal with. If you want to help moms, help me help dads. Teri
Feminist4Fathers
http://feminist4fathers.blogspot.com/

[Zwiedawurzn]

well, just because a 20ish Yale graduate says she will be a stay at home mom in her 30s, doesn't mean she is going to do it. life changes us all, particularly having kids changes us.

i am also thinking most moms will not have a choice in the matter. just look at the price of decent property and cost of living across the popular places to live in (incidentally also the best places to raise a family). it takes a household income of 2 combined incomes to accomplish all of that. sure, there are many families choosing to simplify, living on one income in beautiful rural settings, with one parent doing some freelancing on the side. while this is a nice trend, i am convinced that only a small portion of families can afford to do this.

and statistics are all about interpretation, they don't really mean anything out of the proper context. so, while i greatly admire women who actually follow through on staying home, i still think most of them can't even afford to think about it. a few women giving up their careers to raise children, does not represent the majority. also, who is to say that these women won't get bored once their kids start going to school and get back to work? highly educated and successful women will always think of something new to do, it doesn't have to be the standard job in the corporate world. women will NEVER leave the workforce en masse. women are way too independent for that. yes, women will find creative ways to manage work and family, i believe that. but they won't be staying at home in the same way our mothers and grandmothers were staying at home, humbly giving it all up to raise their kids. besides, have you noticed that big kids these days have so much activity that they are hardly at home?

i am a single mom, i HAVE to work for a living. but i'll be honest, i don't think i would have stayed home more than 1-2 years after my daughter was born, even if I did have the choice. i need my work, which i like, to make me feel useful, to get me to be creative, to challenge me. my identity is not only in my being a mom, i am an independent person, a woman, before i am a mom. but i have also found a way to reconcile career and fammily demands, and for now i am happy with the outcome. and that's what it's all about for women of our days, i think. we read every day about all kinds of different life arrangements with the help of blogs and such. i would like to see them get all that into their statistics. sorry for the long comment :).