Women have babies or careers

[moutonfou]

Just read this in a Guardian article (written by a man):

'Women are now as likely to be childless as to have three children. As social norms shift, a childfree lifestyle has become increasingly attractive, with career taking centre-stage for many thirtysomethings.'

AIBU to be so frustrated that this narrative is still hanging around like bad breath: i.e. that there are only two forms of existence for women, 'having kids' or 'focusing on career'?

It feels so reductive. Things like happiness/fulfilment, self-exploration, hobbies and goals, travel/discovery, relationships, and personal preferences all seem to get forgotten. Women are apparently only ever either a) maintaining an iron grip on the corporate ladder whilst panicking about their ticking clock or b) raising kids, having thus achieved their main purpose and having no remaining goals in life (sarcasm alert)

AIBU to think we are so much more than this?

Well evidently if women ARE making the choice between kids and careers, it's still an issue and not just a narrative based on outdated concepts.

Sure, we're more, but the statistics are not reflecting your argument here. They're showing that women do feel the need to choose whether to have children or to advance their careers. Priorities and all that.

I don't have time for both. It is not possible to invest what it takes to progress as far as I potentially could within my career, without neglecting what I feel my children deserve from me.

Ugh, it's just another stick to beat women up with. If we have babies young we're feckless and jeopardising our future careers. If we wait til we're in a good relationship and have an established career then we're still feckless and gambling with our fertility. It's shit

If someone posts a thread about being single and childless even if not by choice they are swamped by 'envious' MNetters all jealous that they can travel and have a career.

Bonkers really but the point is it is a way of deciding on a purpose for women snd it is the narrow ones of children or career.

Sounds like the usual stereotypical tropes not backed up by any statistics or examples to me. How does the journalist know that women are having no or fewer children because "careers are taking centre-stage"? It could be just as likely down to the economic squeeze, decline of the traditional family, later marriage, a decline in male and female fertility (hormones in the water?) or something entirely different.

YANBU.

Never see articles like this about men do we? 'Be a dad or have a career'

That might be because men don't have wombs tho

It assumes women don't have DC because they choose not to, when often this is not the case, eg infertility, not finding a suitable partner, partner not wanting DC "yet" or at allx

"That might be because men don't have wombs tho""

It has nothing to do with who out of the couple gives birth. It's the "Wife Work" that is expected from Women and the lack of parenting that men get away with.

It is the same for Women who choose to be single. On every thread on here a single friend is sited as having the freedom to travel/have a career/hobbies, be out every night. It is as though our lives have to be validated.

Women can't just be living their lives doing no harm to society, we have to be justifying our existence and filling it with worthy pastimes or caring for others.

There as as many, if not more, Women who have jobs as there are careers, who are always overlooked but I suppose articles such as these appeal to Guardian readers.

Hmmm I have to agree. These things are never about men, because men don't have the babies. It's not rocket science.

Women's lives will ALWAYS be affected waaay more than mens when a baby comes into their lives. Right from the onset, men can piss off to the pub an hour after the birth, women can't.

And that never stops. It's always the mum who will be called out of work if the kid is ill or hurt, it's always the mum who will be expected to use her leave from work to spend time with the kids, and it's always mum who will be expected to go with the kids to medical appointments and school appointments and so on.

Always.

So yes, womens careers ARE affected by having children. Quite drastically I'm afraid. Unless you are OK with a nanny raising your child/children, your career will be taking second place to your role as a mother.

YANBU - it's very annoying but the fact is that it does remain a choice that many women have to make. Sadly.

I don't mean to try and make this about me rather than all women but just by way of illuatration - I'm 31 and my DH is keen for us to start a family. I like children but I'm much more reluctant because I KNOW it will mean the end of my career. No point in debating that - it's just the way it is, what with the attitude to mothers in my industry, the availability and cost of childcare, the time pressures of commuting and demands of my job. And that makes me so very sad. I've worked so hard for my career throughout my 20s - I don't want it to be over. But my DH thinks I'm being unreasonable - he just doesn't appreciate that it will mean the end of everything I've worked for.

I think you can have both. But not easy to have them at the same time.
Would like to see more acceptance of part time work to keep that track alive and more returners schemes.

One parent or a childcare system/nanny is going to be needed as it's a matter of time that needs to be put in, in raising a kid in the first 8 years or so. My (now p/t) career is on back burner, my partner's has flourished. This is a bit crap but I made a choice.
Additionally I have got a certain amount of passive angry stuff over the years from other mothers who work f/t.

I believe it's an impossible situation but one where owning one's choices certainly helps. The environment (I'm in anyhow) seems to give space to working mother's guilt but not to p/t or non working mother's frustrations.

Until shared parental leave is the norm women will always face this

IIRC there are now a higher percentage of women without children than there used to be. But isn't this as much about people being less likely to have 3+ children nowadays as anything else? Actually I'm surprised the two groups are only equal.

I guess there's also a point in here about how for women with careers, one or two children is ok, but a 3rd ML is often seen as taking the piss?

It needs to be normal for women and dads to work part time to raise a family if they want to and for dads to take a truly equal share in child rearing.
We need to stop thinking that men are superheroes if they do the odd school pick up and make a packed lunch here and there and start expecting 50/50 childcare from our partners.

Who is the writer? Do you have a link?

Pigface, don't let your h pressure you into something you don't want. It's not him who will be pg and give birth!

If he was my h I would be asking him, in total seriousness, whether he is willing to commit to scaling back on work, being a sahd, doing all the night feeds, vac appts etc. If he baulks at the notion, then say a definite no to having a baby and don't feel a moment's guilt about it.

Easy for him to want one, when it wouldn't be him doing the work.

YANBU. I get so fed up with this narrative.

Yes, having a family means making compromises but BOTH parents can make those compromises. In reality it is more often the woman, because of this cultural expectation (reinforced constantly by the media) that it should be the woman.

When my DD was born, my DH and I both went part time/compressed hours, he does all the pick ups and I do all the drop offs, we've taken an equal number of days of emergency leave to cover sick days etc. Its really not that big a deal.

This is an issue very close to my heart, i work in a very competitive industry that is notoriously hard to break into. I worked damn hard to break through and work in the industry, having a child break could seriously damage your career as the industry moves on without you while you look after babies.

I had to make a calculated descision when to attempt pregnancy, i luckily fell pregnant quickly and fit dd around my work easier than some other mums doing my job manage.
We are planning number two in the same vain.

Its shit but it definitely effects my career.

I agree. Women can't have it all. It's just a fact of life. Unless you are a millionaire and have help then you will need to make choices in life. I have chosen to focus on my career. Having kids would render it impossible for me to get the goals I aim to get.

Agreed, it's a supremely annoying narrative!

Personally, I'm the careerist type - not entirely out of choice, though. I've yet to meet a man who was happy to accept that I do, in fact, love my career and that it is important to me. IME, even before children, men are threatened by women caring about professional success and potentially or actually, GASP!, out-earning them.

I'm aware of one extremely successful woman in my firm who's also a mother. She has three children, but her family set-up is unusual: her OH is essentially a SAHD (with a part-time, low-earning job on the side). She also outsmarts him by several light years. The latter factor is something that IME only very few intelligent, professional women (including myself) would be happy with. She also had her children comparatively late (1st at age 38) and had thus already built her career when she became a mum.

FWIW, I would love children - just not at the expense of giving up everything that I love doing and that inspires me, and not at the cost of having to play second fiddle to a partner who may not be any more capable than I am but may still be regarding me as primary parent and himself as primary earner. It's sad, really.

Yes, having a family means making compromises but BOTH parents can make those compromises. In reality it is more often the woman, because of this cultural expectation (reinforced constantly by the media) that it should be the woman.

^^ This. Both men and women should be equally responsible for bringing up the child they have brought into the world and make the same sacrifices.

I think that it is a more complex decision that either babies OR a career. Women are beginning to realise that actually having children are not the be all and end all of their existence and that they can have a perfectly happy life without them. That doesn't mean that they want to concentrate on their career, or travel, or have exotic holidays or do all the worthy things that women with children often think that childless women must do in order to be acceptable to society. They just don't want to be a parent.

You do have to understand though, that lots of women don't view sah as a sacrifice.
It is a financial risk, but not everyone has a career (lots of people just have jobs) and lots of women prefer sah regardless.

Bossy how do you know your colleague outsmarts her dh? Genuine question - am being nosy