Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Super Mommy

A back lash if you will, Women can't do it all. We can't be the best mom in the world, the number one producer at work, the super wife to our husband’s every need... A new article in Newsweek, which I have linked here, is pretty clear.

Those of us girls raised between the 70s and 80s never thought we couldn't do anything the boys could do. I was in shop, agriculture, and drama and humanities class. Not to mention German, English, Newspaper. I could and did do anything I wanted. In college, the same, I had tons of interests and was able to pursue them all. I went to law school. I became a lawyer; I am now an "international lawyer" with a fortune 500 company.

"We saw ourselves as winners. We'd been bred, from the earliest age, for competition. Our schools had given us co-ed gym and wood-working shop, and had told us never to let the boys drown out our voices in class. Often enough, we'd done better than they had in school. Even in science and math. And our passage into adulthood was marked by growing numbers of women in the professions. We believed that we could climb as high as we wanted to go, and would grow into the adults we dreamed we could be. Other outcomes—like the chance that children wouldn't quite fit into this picture—never even entered our minds." Mommy Madness What went wrong? Why does this article resonate with me?

"Life happened. We became mothers. And found, when we set out to "balance" our lives—and in particular to balance some semblance of the girls and women we had been against the mothers we'd become—that there was no way to make this most basic of "balancing acts" work. Life was hard. It was stressful. It was expensive. Jobs—and children—were demanding. And the ambitious form of motherhood most of us wanted to practice was utterly incompatible with any kind of outside work, or friendship, or life, generally."

Living in Singapore has given me much more support for the rearing of my children. I have full time care provided in my home for less than 250 a month. I have a daycare/preschool that my son goes to 4 days a week for 3 hours a day. Gives him great opportunities to play and socialize, again, less than 200 a month. Moving home to the States seems scary. The thought of paying 1000 a month or more for less than half of the support I have now.

Great set of articles on the Newsweek site. I will go down and purchase the magazine, and the book. I urge you all to read them.

No comments:

 
Who links to me?