<p>Are your daughters taking these issues into account when preparing for the future or are they planning to cross that bridge (with their partner) when they come to it? </p>
<p>How are their thoughts and plans related to their experience of their own childhood? I have a career that allows me tremendous flexibility and therefore few conflicts with childrearing; I think it’s been a good role model because I have shown how important that balance is to me, but not so good because hard to replicate. I do think that there are more varied work arrangements today than when I was starting out, but the computer seems to have both made work more flexible and turned it, for many, into a 24/7 proposition.</p>
<p>You are absolutely right about the flexibility the computer has given to working folks. So true. But you know, the computer has put a lot of people out of work, too.</p>
<p>My daughter decided on a career with the intension of combining work and family. Although her plans are to stay home until her chidren are in school, being a schoolteacher offered an excellent opportunity to be there for your school age children.
Daughter is happy to be pregnant at 23 and will stay home with the baby. Of course there are rough spots for young families.So they have to walk to the playground or go to the library instead of buying books from Barnes and Noble.She learned from her mother how to be creative and use resources available.She will do like was done for her- take the kids to a small stream, make a picnic and spend the day wading there, chasing frogs and baby ducks. She can spend an afternoon on a playground or at a library. Families happen. There are many of them on every block of our community. Everybody makes do in whatever way the can. I remember a young woman saying to me once, how could I do it? How could I be a mother in a one room apartment in the city? Well, you become resourceful, that’s how you do it. You can be the happiest little family anywhere by learning how to make the best of your situation. </p>
<p>I would never encourage my daughter to delay having a marriage and family.You don’t have to shower them with money. You just have to guide them in the right directions to be resourceful and clever. </p>
<p>But of course, others have another perspective as well. To each his own.</p>
<p>I don’t think my answer was very specific. No daughter never worried. She was having a blast. The marriage and baby thing happened quickly. But she always knew it was doable.Everything is doable.</p>
<p>If my college sophomore is worried, she hasn’t told me about it. She doesn’t have “family” on her radar screen at the moment, or even a significant relationship. She’s busy trying to balance her current college life with classes, socializing, volunteering, and working, and that seems to fill her plate right now.</p>
<p>My husband and I were married at her age. When I mention this, she looks at me and shakes her head in disbelief.</p>
<p>neither of my daughters are planning to have children, they realize that may change some day- but are not planning education/career with that in mind.
I realize work is getting much more flexible, particulary for white collar workers, I know several people both men and women who work from home several days a week, my H job as a sheetmetal worker however would be very difficult to do from home.</p>
<p>My girls want to be doctors. My niece will be graduating from medical school this June, my daughter hopefully will get into med school next year. Both are engaged to doctors. There are so many people they have met (double doctors) that I don’t think they are that concerned about it. My niece wants to be a surgeon, and has gotten comment about how long it will be before she will have time to start a family, something she is aware of, as she does not want to be trying to juggle a baby while doing an internship. She knows she will be an older mother. My daughter does not intend to have such a long residency as she will be a family doctor. But they are very comfortable with their decisions.</p>
<p>I want to add that my son and nephew both advocate this combination of work and family life on the part of women. They say they are waiting to find a wife that is well entrenched in a lucrative career and could help support them. THAT gets a rise out of my D and niece.</p>
<p>;)
I see their point though jamimom
why should women expect their husband to bear the brunt of providing for the family just because they want to stay home with kids?
I think men deserve a break- and perhaps with more emphasis that is demanded by parents who put family first over ambition/high salary, the workplace will become more family friendly for everyone</p>
<p>Interesting to note is the increasing necessity for middle class women to work given the decline of many middle class salaries and the increasing price of homes in this Country. So people with middle class expectations-a home, 2 cars, decent school district-ncreasingly don’t have a choice.</p>
<p>The total irony is that those with the choice are more and more just the very highly educated women who are well paid professionals and married same!</p>
<p>it is true that most families need to downsize expectations, it isn’t like when my parents were raising a family. My father was able to purchase a really nice home in a brand new suburb with all the amenities, my mother didn’t go back to work until the youngest was in 4th grade, and my father had expectation that he would be able to work at same company until he retired or chose to move on.
Workers can no longer expect to stay at same job, in our urban county- home of Microsoft/Starbucks and Amazon, more people are moving out than in, and lack of jobs that pay a living wage and affordable housing is the reason why.</p>
<p>“Interesting to note is the increasing necessity for middle class women to work given the decline of many middle class salaries and the increasing price of homes in this Country.”
And the decline of jobs for the middle and working class. Homes are reasonable in many parts of the country - it’s just that there are so few jobs in those places.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago (I think), D stated that she wasn’t interested in having biological children but that she would consider adopting because there were kids who deserve families. Also, she claims that she has a tough time around babies. On the other hand, S is looking forward to settling down some day and raising a family. Both are definitely focused on careers. We’ll see . . .</p>
<p>All 3 of my girls talk about having children someday and are open to adoption. Though I can’t say they “worry” about combining family and career, they know it will take effort, ingenuity, and flexibility to make it work. All 3 have said they’d like to be home for the first 2 years or so with each child. Since they respectively want careers in academia, law, and film - well, we’ll see.</p>
<p>I was happily home with them for many years, though I’m now happily in the work force. Something we’ve discussed is the fact that 35 is not the best age to decide it’s time to think about a baby - if they are very serious about childbearing, they need to be aware of decreasing fertility in a woman’s early 30’s.</p>
<p>Emeralkity, your question about women “getting to stay home with kids” is kinda antifeminist, if you ask me. Feminism was, in the last generation, defined as “being men” and turning backs on the nature-designated job. I consider myself a true feminist who defends the absolute birthright of a woman to nurture her young, like any mammal. Women breastfeed, men do not. Breastfeeding is not comparable to bottlefeeding. If womens’ goal to to do the best for their young, they cannot, by that simple FACT, be absent 15 hours a day. Ugly, but true. The last generation certainly didn’t solve it the work/family thing and I doubt we will. I just thank god my dad supported my multi-degree mom when it came to turning HER back on her business career demands. She says she shakes at the thought of having not done what she did. Just FYI. We are not small men.</p>
<p>I consider myself a true feminist who defends the absolute birthright of a woman to nurture her young, like any mammal. Women breastfeed, men do not. Breastfeeding is not comparable to bottlefeeding.
Actually men have nursed before( most notably during the occupation of Poland enough to sustain life) as well as women who have not given birth.</p>
<p>Being biologically able to breastfeed has little to do with being a competent parent, just as being able to concieve and deliver a child has little to do with the quality of parenting.
I agree that breast milk is preferable to formula in most cases, however milk can be expressed, my oldest was fed solely by(expressed milk) bottles for her first 6 months ( & gavage) she was too small too nurse.(She came home from hospital at 2 months before she weighed 4lbs) Breast milk is food and is good food, but parents who chose to use alternate sources of food are not abdicating their role as parents.</p>
<p>I am also wondering where you applied for work, that it required you to be there 15 hours a day? That place really needs a union!</p>
<p>Jamimom
I am so supportive of your girls. They might not realize it now, but their MD will be useful all around the country. With my PhD, I have to take new licensing exams when I move states. Also, the MD can always find work, and their part-time positions pay more than most earn full time. I think that degree is a golden key.
I am also supporter of 2 profession couples</p>
<p>jamimom, FYI for your girls-- one of my best friends is a doctor (pediatrician) and she said it was a great career for compatability with motherhood. When her kids were babies, she became the nighttime on-call doctor for a very prestigious pediatrics practice. This way when she was “working” her H was home. She did not have nightly emergencies, though it did of course involve sleep interruption/deprivation…</p>
<p>cruncha22 Hear, hear.</p>
<p>Final note: I think we moms were the first generation of women who were socialized to become our fathers. I am making an attemot with my D not to do what my mom did-- “darling you can do anything!” because I do not think “anything” is compatable with children & family. I say, “you can do anything-- but if you want kids, you have to think about the hours, the autonomy, the flexibility, etc.”</p>
<p>There are good careers out there that suit families & women. But not all do.</p>
<p>To bookworm and SBmom, your statement support what I see in my community, i.e., women physicians who work part-time, love what they are doing, and are high earners. However, if you go to the <a href=“http://www.mommd.com%5B/url%5D”>www.mommd.com</a> website, you will see that the women physicians there are pretty negative about their profession as a way of life. I’m trying to figure out why. Could be all the happy Mom MDs are not going on that website. Any thoughts, anyone?</p>