Posted on 11/05/2005 7:45:30 AM PST by kalee
Full-Time Motherhood? How Selfish November 5, 2005 BY JULIE SHILLER
Across the nation, privileged young women are seeking to be competitive candidates to gain admittance to prestigious universities. Impressive SAT scores, awards, grades and extracurricular activities are of the utmost importance for college-bound high school students and their families.
The priorities of many of today's elite young women, however, are surprisingly conventional, according to one survey. The most fortunate and educated women say they will conform to traditional gender roles after completing their Ivy League degrees. They are choosing careers as full-time mothers and expect to be supported financially by their successful spouses. Such expectations are utterly selfish and a dishonor to the struggles that the Second Wave feminists (those who came of age in the '60s and '70s) endured for my generation.
ADVERTISEMENT Today, many white women who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families are taking their limitless opportunities for granted. In a recent article in The New York Times, "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," Louise Story examines this issue. More than 60 percent of Yale women surveyed concluded that when they become mothers, they plan on working only part time or not at all. Although feminism promotes the right for these elite women to choose, they are unappreciative of their economic privilege. Story claims that they "are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers."
As a Third Wave feminist, I am embarrassed that Story could make such an assertion. Do these women feel a sense of entitlement to be entirely supported by their husbands? Although all women should be permitted to be full-time mothers, most do not have the freedom to stop working outside the home. It is not an equal choice when less wealthy and marginalized women are not granted the option. Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy.
Females in the Victorian era were silenced and forced into restrictive feminine roles. Hartford's Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1892 during a time when even well-off women were forced into domestic roles that did not challenge their intellectual abilities. The protagonist, a privileged white woman, was labeled a "hysteric" by a male-dominated scientific community that desperately sought a way to repress her for questioning her forced submission. In reality, she was merely responding to being suppressed by her husband and the controlling patriarchy. Now young women are choosing to return to the silence.
Today's liberated, Ivy-League-educated women are willing to sacrifice their privilege and their opportunities to become independent leaders of the 21st century. They are eschewing the opportunities that Gilman's protagonist and other oppressed women of the time yearned for. Ivy League women are not taking advantage of the ability they have to make incredible strides in the fight for gender equality that would benefit women from all backgrounds. Instead, they are choosing to use their power for their own selfish desires.
In the Victorian era, women were forced by men to adhere to submissive, weak and emotional roles as a way for males to maintain ultimate control and status. Now young, dominant women are in a commanding position to enhance the civil liberties granted to disadvantaged women and other minority groups. Unfortunately, the future of our nation has been placed in the hands of elite young women who have chosen to thoughtlessly improve their own lives while jeopardizing the future of those that they had the power to assist.
Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.
I thought this was a joke at first, and then I realized the writer was serious. (Sigh) Another delusional, mindless twit who manages to insult on many levels. I thought "feminism" was all about creating a society which encouraged women to make their own choices for themselves and their families?? Also, detected a little bit of rich versus poor class warfare thrown in there too. The writer infers that it's not fair for wealthy educated women to have the right to not work outside the home and raise children when their poor sisters do not have the same opportunity.
So, is there a "feminist manual" that outlines the correct choices for women or what??
You too? :)
I should send this author my "impressive" SAT scores. I proudly use my intelligence, opportunity and education to raise my child. I consider it quite selfish if you have the financial ability, to NOT stay home with your children if you are going to bring them into the world. In the interest of disclosure, being a stay-at-home mom was thrust upon me by MS, but I feel quite lucky for the opportunity. Glass full view :)
Ma'am,
My wife would run her over, and then back up to make sure. She respectfully likes the doors opened for her...
Some women have fulfilling careers and juggle that with raising children.
Some women, like single-moms, often have to work, and others choose
part-time careers or take breaks. All of the above are fine, and it is a
personal choice.
Some women also work full-time to have nicer homes, fancier
cars, and a more material-focused lifestyle. That's their choice too.
But the reality is that many women work boring, unfulfilling desk jobs, and
to claim that this is preferable to watching and helping your children grow and develop to their full potential is complete lunacy. It seems people are
less willing to make personal sacrifices (like having one car) in order to
be able to stay home with children.
Personally, when I have kids, I may choose to work part-time after they
reach school-age, or I may not. And if, financially, my family was in trouble,
or something happened to my husband, I would take a job.
But, children and family will be the priority. Unfortunately, too many women
choose the full-time job, kids, and husband, and it can become too much
to bear. The marriage ends in divorce, and then the woman, ironically, is
forced to work and is a at financial disadvantage. We can see from the
statistics that trying to "have it all" all at once doesn't work out well for
a lot of families.
I may not be Ivy League educated, but I do have an engineering degree from a top university. I also have 10 years experience working.
I gave it all up to be a full-time mom, and I have never regretted my choice. I'm also teaching my kids the importance of raising their children.
I don't think it is wrong to place kids in daycare. Some people have to. We did with my youngest son. I was pregnant with twins and placed on complete, total bedrest (a week in the hospital). After the twins were born, they were very sick and almost died.
My son went to daycare, and I was very thankful for it. He loved it. It was a small, loving daycare.
It was not as good as being at home with me taking care of him, but it was a good option.
Immoral? What about the people who have to put their kids in daycare because they have to work?
I think many young women who work would stay at home with their children, but they fear that if the marriage dissolves they will be economically devestated. Alimony is rarely given these days, and many women who have been out of the workforce for several years find that their job skills are stale and thus it may take several years to make close to the salary they made prior to having children.
I would love to stay home with my kids once I get married and start a family, but that would be in the back of my mind.
Also, another great option is to have a dad at home. My brothe was a stay at home dad. It was great for their family. His wife had a great job, and my brother struggled with cancer. When he wasn't sick, he was a Boy Scout Leader, baseball and basketball coach, and a great dad.
He died last year and his old Boy Scout Troop and Little League Team both talk about him at his funeral.
He left a bigger impression on kids by being a stay at home dad.
2. Its editorial board consists of "lifestyle leftist" 1970s Yalie buttoned-down revolutionaries. Skipper: "Che Guevara and Margaret Sanger Forever!!!!" Muffie: "Oh, good one, Skip!" 4. Butch? Lipstick? Hysteric? America wants to know! Then again, maybe we don't want to know.
I knew there was something about you I always liked, we are birds of a feather! ;)
My husband's mom worked and he used to tell her he was going to marry a woman who would stay home with his family and do "traditional" stuff. She would loudly say "You just want a slave, you'll never find it!" Funny, I don't feel like a slave, I always wanted to stay home and raise my family and financially we can afford it. My children are the biggest argument as to if they are better off. We are complimented on them regularly! They are sweeties!
1. Hartford Courant is a leftist rag unfit to line birdcages.
2. Its editorial board consists of "lifestyle leftist" 1970s Yalie buttoned-down revolutionaries. Skipper: "Che Guevara and Margaret Sanger Forever!!!!" Muffie: "Oh, good one, Skip!"
3. Note that author Julie Schiller is a 20 year-old SOCIOLOGY major. Need we say more? Yes we do. She is planning a career of taking advantage of whatever ability she may have (not a great worry) to make "incredible strides in the fight for gender equality" whatever that may mean (probably some gender-based form of Marxist atheism) while looking down her nose at motherhood and rejecting that role for herself. (Just as well, when you think of it, since no children of hers will exist to be indoctrinated by this feminist windtunnel/sociologist wannabe).
4. Butch? Lipstick? Hysteric? America wants to know! Then again, maybe we don't want to know.
I pray this hag never procreates with such an abysmal ignorance of what it takes to rear children successfully.
Congratulations!
(You've chosen the harder job: I wish being a full-time mother (and wife) were as easy as that most have as "corporate employee")
Sociology and Gender Studies have to be two of the most worthless Batchelor of Arts programs in today's universities.
What an incredibly muddled thought.
I've got two graduate degrees, I've had a career (and still manage to keep my hand in by teaching a course or two at night), but it's on hold while I take care of my priorities -- MY CHILDREN.
Why does this equal "going back to the repression and silence" to some of these hags?
When my oldest daughter was 12 she asked me why I was wasting my life staying home with children. (Horrors! I had five!)
Now that she is 21, graduating from college with an "impressive SAT scores, awards, grades" etc., she is getting married this coming summer. And plans on staying home with babies when they arrive.
According to this enlightend author, she is "relinquishing her power and independence to patriarchy." According to my daughter, she couldn't be happier.
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