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?

It's all very utilitarian though, in its radical form, isn't it? Greatest good for the greatest number.

But isn't that the best way to run a society? You don't have to follow the social norms if they don't work for your personal circumstances, but the social norms allow the greatest good for the greatest number? Where is the bad? It's not an advocacy of Stalinesque communism, or the cold, hard logic of the vulcans - its about increasing happiness, prosperity and equity for everyone.
What we have now is the greatest good for the few, the long hard slog for the many, and women with the shitty end of the stick. Thinking about how to alter a system that isn't allowing the greatest good for the greatest number is surely a good thing.

If everyone only looked out for their own little family unit none of us would pay any tax - we wouldn't have society at all.

It's not bad, but it's only going to work if everyone has the same end goal to the point of pretty significant self sacrifice in many cases. It's just not going to happen.

Once we have achieved this then you are perfectly free to choose to be a primary carer. I think this is what turns people off. That they shouldn't be allowed a choice in the meantime.

I'm not even sure I want the utopia of equal shares as the norm as to then step outside the norm would be awkward and difficult

Would it be anymore difficult than having to justify why your a sahm, or why you went back to work? whatever choices women make, they get questioned and judged for it.

It wouldn't need to be difficult to step outside the norm as young child free people starting their careers wouldn't be looking for part time work. So until you had a family you would be working as you do now. It would only be at the point of having children that you would need to implement all the parent friendly policies for yourself, and that would now be simple and easy to do, expected, even. But a quick chat to your boss about how, actually you wanted to continue on full time would be all it took to retain your previous hours. And everyone is free to leave a job whenever they want, so being a sahm wouldn't be hard to organise.

There's good reason to allow more part time workers, as research shows they tend to be more efficient - so productivity wouldn't go down, whereas 2 people sharing one job as standard over the age of 30 would have a huge impact on unemployment levels.

It's a complete change of system - not a tweaking of the one we have now and it could allow single people and families to create their own bespoke set up that worked best for them. I mean it won't ever happen, certainly not in our lifetime, but it isn't impossible. And when fighting the narrative of women have to choose between family or career (whilst men get both) its useful to have ideas about how things could be different and what we could be aiming for.

I think this is what turns people off.That they shouldn't be allowed a choice in the meantime.

People already have this choice! they already do this, it's common. Nobody is suggesting taking the choice away whilst we slave towards our glorious future!

I'm not saying we should smash the current system into smithereens, leave chaos and anarchy in its wake and then build things up from scratch - that would never work. I'm suggesting that we imagine what an ideal world would be like, think carefully about its practicalities and pitfalls, create a plan of how things need to change in order to achieve this and then create the legislation to bring it about.

The legislation is the easy part - it's the attitudes and minds of people who are deeply ingrained with the old system that would present the challenge. It would have to happen over a few generations, but eventually we would have a world where all children growing up, boys and girls, would grow up with the expectation that they would work full time until they had children and then they would flex/ compress/ go part time/ give up if that's what they wanted. You know, what girls already grow up thinking, but boys would think it too. It honestly isn't that radical a notion.

Nobody is suggesting taking the choice away whilst we slave towards our glorious future!

Then I completely misinterpreted what you were saying. Apologies.

I'm 34 with a 4 year old DS and another due in October. I applied for, and got, a hard earned promotion while pregnant. I was due to start in Sept and have just informed them that I will see them in Sept 2018. On the surface at least my company (typically patriarchal, men definitely outnumber women, especially in senior positions) were absolutely fine with this, and have bent over backwards to accommodate me during my difficult pregnancy.

At home, DH and I are very equal. He is more likely to remember medical apts than me, and is the one who books dentist apts etc. He certainly does his fair share of childcare, and although I will do the majority of housework while on maternity, he will not even question doing his fair share of night wake ups etc. I earn more than he does, and we have always said that if we struggle organising childcare when I go back to work, he will go part time as it makes no sense financially.

I am definitely an exception amongst my friends though.

Ive known a few now that have reversed roles. None of them have been very happy oddly.

The problem with having a norm, is that stepping outside the norm is always more challenging.
I wish people would be free to do as they wish without having to justify.

We have one reversed roles before and it was fine. I can't cook and am useless at household things, so do does that kind of thing. I don't mind tidying or hoovering.

Thanks everyone (OP here).

I don't yet have children, but think my views may be coloured by the fact I work for a big organisation with a proportionately very young, very female workforce. People go on mat leave all the time, come back, pick up where they left off, and carry on progressing (with flex arrangements in many cases). We have an all-female senior leadership team, most of whom are mums.

But perhaps not all organisations or industries are like that... I suspect other parts of my organisation might not even be like that. We have some excellent role models in our SM team who set the tone for that culture.

I think the article just annoyed me because I haven't had children yet, but it's because I just haven't fancied them yet. Yes I have a career, and I'm seeing where it takes me, but I'm also just enjoying being with my husband, travelling when we can, getting to know myself a bit more, deciding who I am and what's important to me, sitting on my bum watching Netflix. So the assumption that a woman hasn't had kids because she's "focusing on her career" riles me a bit - isn't it possible to just, well, not fancy them yet?

Totally disagree with hiphop. My own lovely dad came on his own to all school meetings, took us to doctors/dentist, plaited our hair etc. This was because Dm was poorly for sizeable parts of our childhood. He just stepped into the breech and took over. He was a wonderful caring and compassionate man who could cook a meal, change a nappy, mix a feed as well as any mum. This was in the fifties long before so called modern men! There are many dads bringing up families alone and we should acknowledge that. Also Dm and Dd were married for over 50 years and happy too!

Can you link to the article op?

Of course it's Ok not to want kids yet. As much as the media would like us to believe that every childfree woman is desperately listening to her biological clock run out plenty of women don't want to be mothers either right now or ever.
Women do not need children to complete them you are enough on your own.