Teenage girls should be prepared not to expect it all

[BecauseImWorthIt]

here

This has made me really angry.

Where is the education for boys? Why are our future citizens (female only) being told that babies/childcare are their responsibility only, whereas their male counterparts can, clearly, expect to have it all?

that is madness!!!

Children need PARENTS not just mothers!

I think she speaks sense, especially this:

She warned teenage girls to choose their partners carefully.

"If you choose someone who undervalues you, you won't be able to have the support you might need," she said.

I know alot of women who are now totally changing their career field as it doesnt fit in with family life, perhaps if they had been warned at school they could have made more informed choices?

I'll probably get flamed for this but it is women that have babies and whilst some women do go back to work full time to very demanding jobs just a few weeks after having a baby most of us don't. Generally we take time away from work.

You have to make choices in life and i don't really think anyone has it all: you give on the one hand and take on the other. For example i recently turned down a job i was offered as i wasn't able to work less than full time and with a pre-school child i was prepared to give up so much time with him (my choice i know). I can look for another job when's he's older. DH on the other hand works full time, does over time but doesn't get to spend as much time with DS. Neither of us has it all, we both compromise.

'While clever girls should aim high, there is nothing wrong with them working part-time or not at all when they have children, she will say.'

Absolutely not. But the same should be taught to boys perhaps?

absolutely nothing wrong with telling girls that, I mean

She is speaking to the Girls Schools Association not the HMC so her talk is about girls not boys. I think it is sensible for girls (and boys) to be told to consider the impact of families on careers. It is also sensible for young people to consider that their career isn't necessarily a straight path to the top but may stop/change/divert as circumstances change.

women can't have it all...it's true..

who wants to kill themselves trying to juggle a full-time job and a couple of kids...?

So long as society and the workplace treats childcare as more the woman's responsibility then we might as well prepare girls for that rather than sending them off naively thinking it's all going to be a breeze.

She's not saying a woman's place is in the home and a man's isn't - that would be mad, she's the head of a very academic girls school!

I see what she's trying to say but she doesn't express it particularly well. I went to the sort of school where we were expected to have it all - I know that's not going to make me happy but it took me a couple of years to realise I wasn't a failure for not wanting that.

"There is nothing wrong with them saying 'I need to work part-time' or 'I need support in order to enable me to do my career and have children'."

THAT is spot on.

"Women can feel very guilty, whatever path they choose. It is as if they have somehow compromised their principles. What we can do as teachers is prepare them to have aspirations, but not aim for perfection. We can help them recognise that life is about balance."

Also very true.

"Priorities shift, but that doesn't mean you're selling out ? you are facing reality and trying to be realistic about what you can achieve and you should stop beating yourself up about it," she said."

And so is this.

I think there is way too much pressure on girls to go and have a career as well as children and cope with them both. My mother practically had a seizure when I told her I didn't want a high-flying career and that my current aspiration was to get married and have children. I can work part time and build up a career later. This article is talking about one thing that we need to tell girls. She's not in any way saying girls shouldn't work, that boys can't take over childcare or that we should all be going and having babies. She's saying it's a valid option for girls to want as is wanting to work and 'have it all'. But you're not a failure if you don't. We do need to be realistic about this and bear in mind it's the president of the Girls School Association talking, of course she's not commenting that boys need to be taught these things - she's focusing on what girls need to know, which is that being the perfect wife/mother/business dynamo isn't all it's cracked up to be and that's not the only way. I totallly agree that men need to be taught they need to bear more responsiblity for children/childcare but if she'd aired that then it would have been construed as women attacking men. She does come close to saying it though:

"If you choose someone who undervalues you, you won't be able to have the support you might need," she said."

Unforunately at the end of the day it's women who have the babies, women who take the maternity leave, women who BF if that's what they choose to do and women who miss out but being realistic about the fact that might happen isn't the same as saying it's right.

Littleducks, I thought 'She warned teenage girls to choose their partners carefully' was one of the most bits. Girls need to choose carefully but boys don't? What's that got to do with careers/motherhood anyway? It's seems bloody obvious that people should choose their partners carefully.

Also 'Berry, who does not have children...'

Girls SHOULD be warned that when they have kids their feelings about their careers might change, but we need to make boys think they are part of the childcare equation too. Why can't a woman be a high-flyer and have a DH at home with the kids?

I think a parent should stay home with LOs if possible but not necessarily the mum.

However, I do have lots of friends who thought they would go back to work FT after having a baby (and took on mortgages accordingly) but when the baby arrived they realised they did not want to work FT. That's common and understandable and would be better if more people realised that before the mortgage etc.

Precisely, ShutUp... We should be telling all our young people that they should be prepared to work flexibly in order to facilitate family life. Men should not just support women in the choices they make; the choices should be made jointly for the good of the whole family.

Teenage girls should not, in my view, be told to adjust their ambitions [downwards] in order to facilitate them taking time off later. If anyone told my dds this I'd be .

I agree with choufleur that you can't 'have it all'... that's a myth. But what I object to is the idea that women's career options should be conditioned by their biology.

Oops, loads of posts while I was typing that.

daftpunk: "who wants to kill themselves trying to juggle a full-time job and a couple of kids...?"

Well, me for one. I work bloody hard, but I don't feel I'm 'killing myself'. I love my kids and the time I have with them; I love my job and the time I spend doing that. I am very lucky. I don't get enough time for sleep, but all things considered I count my blessings. I wouldn't want to give up one or the other.

But i don't think she is telling them to adjust their ambitions downwards just that they shouldn't place unrealistic expectations on themselves.

As others have said she was speaking as head of Girls School Association. It would be weird if she had talked about what boys should be doing.

I think it's fine to tell girls that part time work is okay to combine with a family, if that's what they want.

To Daft Punk - I 'juggle full-time work with a couple of kids' and have done since they were just a couple of months old. I've not killed myself yet! Dp on the other hand works part-time, so spends more time with the girls but also more time on housework than I do. You have to find the compromise that works best for you and I think that's what she's trying to say.

I don't know why people are going on about telling boys the same things - she is speaking to the association of GIRLS' schools - so of course it's about girls! But yes - boys need to hear similar messages too.

So people do give up one (work - or some of it) for the other (children) though. It's down to individual choice and circumstances. I don't want to be made to feel a failure though because i didn't progress further up the career ladder because i couldn't get more senior posts because i was unwilling to work full time, long hours, not have enough sleep.

Have to say regarding the reference to maternity leave, and having experience of US workplaces, employers are very begrudging of even the 12 weeks unpaid leave that is offered there. Women should be absolutely militant about their right to both work and take care of families. The more we compromise or apologise on this the worse we will be treated.

What puzzles me about the speech quoted in the article is the complete acceptance of the status quo by the speaker. Someone who represents girls' schools should, imo, be far more willing to identify issues that make combining work and family responsibilities so difficult for women, and demand change for the good of everyone. She is right that perfection and running ourselves ragged trying to excel at everything is not much of a goal to aim for, but she is wrong not to suggest that there are huge barriers to achieving balance in the form of meaningful part time work options and good pro family policies, for both men and women alike.

To aim remarks of this sort at girls is a pity -- it reinforces the idea that 'family' concerns only girls and women, whereas boys and men are off the hook. You never hear the representatives of boys' schools making remarks of this sort.

totallyunheardof;

can't remember where i read it, but something like 85% of working women would give up if they could....they were working purely for financial reasons and felt constantly tired and stressed...

plus, women even when they work full-time will still do the majority of the house-work....

feminism has killed women.....we are working twice as hard as we were 50 years ago....

But isn't it true that IF you want to be able to take time off later you may have to adjust your ambitions (not necessarily downwards, but maybe sideways)? Whether you're male or female, that's equally true - don't go naively thinking it'll be easy to turn any career into a part-time one tailored to a work-life balance it had never occurred to you at 18 that you would want.

It's not doing girls any favours not to draw that to their attention. I say this as someone who went the academic route and would again and would want my daughters to have that chance too, but who would also tell them not to fall for the idea that it will all work out without a lot of effort - the dice are heavily loaded against the mother in any family where both parents want to work.

ah - only skim-read and didn't notice it was to GSA - would be weird if she was talking about boys

I wonder whether anyone would ever say this to boys though? or perhaps people feel that boys aren't encouraged to be ambitious enough? not sure

The only thing I was horrified by was that The Guardian see Cheryl Cole as a role model.

it's silly, some expect it all and get it all, some expect nothing but get it all.

can't generalise how someone's life will go

As head of the GSA, she should be telling girls to expect their future husbands to take an equal role in deciding on childcare issues.

If a girl has big ambitions for her career, it is right that she is made aware that many women find their career ambitions change after children - many women want to look after their own DCs - but she should also be told that if she does want a high-flying career there is nothing wrong with expecting DH to be SAHD.

But she is talking as if it a given that girls' careers will take a back seat after children.

I suppose she's very much focused on the message she gives to girls as they leave school, and at that specific moment it's all about expectations for their life rather than 'here's how to fix the world'. But I agree that a lot of those things ought to be changed rather than just accepted.

daftpunk - yes, I do realise that I very very lucky to have (a) a job that I would [almost] do for the love of it even if I wasn't paid and (b) a dh who works flexibly - though also full-time, isn't averse to a bit of housework and cooking. So I will admit that my views are conditioned by the fact that I do have a set-up that works for me with my own ambitions (career and family). I certainly do compromise, but I'm happy with the choices I have made.

I'm absolutely clear that choices do have to be made and that each family [NB family, not woman] has to make the one that works for them. But what I'd want would be for society to change in order to make it easier for all citizens to be as fulfilled as possible, through careers, child-rearing or whatever.

[TUHO moves to Cloud Cuckoo Land adjusting rose-coloured specs... ]

sounds like you have a wonderful set-up TUHO.....

the reality for alot of women is more like this;.. dropping dc off at nursery at 7.30 am...working in a job they can't stand, rushing home to pick dc up...getting home at 7.00....cooking, sorting the dc out... then falling into bed exhausted....

some life....