There’s a sad dichotomy that currently exists for women.
You can either be a wife and mother, beloved by your husband and kids, with a clean house, home-cooked meals, and surrounded by a close-knit family that you helped create.
Or you can be a successful career woman — well-educated, making a lot of money, and well-regarded in your industry.
Women must choose. You can either be a mother or have a meaningful career. There is no in-between.
Perhaps it is no surprise that a young woman on a trendy podcast recently asked the question,
“Why be a mom when you could be a CEO?”
There are two assumptions that this question comes with.
One — why is being a mom the lesser of the two alternatives?
Many assume that motherhood is nothing special because almost “any woman can be a mom.” It was seen as the expected or “default” role for women up until the most recent century.
Of course, not every woman is supposed to be a mother in the biological sense. But is it fair to discourage women from being moms in exchange for pushing corporate success?
Second — why is it one or the other?
Why do women have to choose between having a meaningful career that contributes to society and having a family?
Is a woman’s only purpose within her community to have babies? Is she not allowed to have other talents, interests, skills, or hobbies?
Is there any possibility of doing both?
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Should we encourage people to put their careers above their personal lives?
There is a popular dichotomy for young people in the workforce. Either you’re the kind of person who “works to live” or who “lives to work.”
If you’re in the “work to live” camp, you work to get a steady paycheck that funds the activities you really want to do in life.
Or — you “live to work.” Your purpose is in your work. Without it, your life feels meaningless.
While each person is free to choose their own take on the matter, the “live to work” attitude disproportionately impacts young women.
No one is asking, “Why be a father when you could be a CEO?”
Successful men are expected to have it all. A beautiful wife, 2.5 kids, a big house in a nice neighborhood, a Golden Retriever, and a white picket fence.
Generally, CEOs are expected to have their home life as “put together” as their professional life.
Men are also afforded more time and leeway to “course correct.” A man in his late 30s or 40s can decide, after decades of pursuing personal goals and satisfaction, that he wants to settle down and start a family.
For women at that age, it just isn’t as easy.
I was recently speaking with a neighbor of mine about this very sentiment.
“I’m already 46,” she said sadly, “where did the time go?”
She lamented the challenges in her current relationship — with a man her age who already had a teenage son to care for. She spoke about her egg-freezing process and her dream of becoming a mother once she had lived her youth to its fullest. In her 20s, she had been a dancer who moved out to the city to “make it big” and chase her dreams.
It was fun while it lasted. But she didn’t think that doing so would come at such a great cost.
Her story is one of many.
I have met many women in similar predicaments.
And, I understand why.
When you’re young and beautiful, it’s easy to say you don’t want the responsibilities of marriage and family to weigh you down. You don’t want to give up your freedom and you have so much more to look forward to in life than becoming a wife and mother.
At 25, or even 35, this is probably true. If you take care of yourself, you’re likely able-bodied, free to travel the world, young and beautiful, sexually available, and not concerned with planning or worrying about the future.
But like all good things in life, those circumstances are fleeting.
Imagine being 53 years old, unmarried, with no children to call your own, and nobody but yourself to look after.
Heavenly, some might say.
But where do you spend your holidays? Who drives you to doctor’s appointments? When your parents pass away, who comes with you to the funeral? When most of your friends from your youth are caught up with their own families, who do you spend time with?
Maybe you go to work and have a social life there, but what happens when you get laid off or replaced by a younger person? What happens when you find yourself alone more often than not, and travel suddenly isn’t as fun or practical anymore?
Imagine realizing that you’ll never be as beautiful, as healthy, or as young as you once were. All those things that made life “worth living” are no longer as readily available to you.
Worse yet, imagine realizing you have no one to share your life with.
While there is no guarantee that any of these things will happen to you, there is no guarantee that things will go as you plan, either. When making decisions that may impact the rest of your life, it is important to consider the reality that you are only young once.
And those choices that you make in your youth — whether they involve marriage and family — will impact you in your old age.
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Final thoughts
So why be a mom when you could be a CEO?
For many, motherhood (or parenthood in general) brings so much meaning and fulfillment into people’s lives. It provides an opportunity for growth, sacrifice, and love.
At the end of a person’s life, what matters most isn’t their career, their accomplishments, or their awards. What matters is being able to look around the room and see loved ones — people who, without you, wouldn’t be there.
I’ll leave you with some food for thought.
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At the end of your life, what do you want your legacy to be?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: Olga Zabegina on Unsplash