Stay at Home, Misogynist!

When I was young, I read a childrens book about a girl named Erica who had the perfect life: a perfect little family, complete with a doting mother who baked her cookies, asked questions about school, and read her bedtime stories every night.

But then Ericas mom started to work. Goodbye to the chocolate chip cookies and home-cooked dinners, goodbye clean clothes and supportive chats, goodbye bedtime story. Ericas perfect life was shattered.

Finally, Ericas family had a conference, and everyone agreed to help with the household chores. Once everyone pitched in, Erica had her perfect life back once again.

Thats great for Ericas family, but unfortunately this childrens story is far from reality. An article in The New York Times last weekentitled Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Paths to Motherhoodpoints out that many women at the nations most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. A number of womenall students at Ivy League collegesare quoted discussing their plans to go on to law school or business school, quit to raise kids, and maybe work part-time later. The article discusses the new realism instilled in young women today who were raised by the first generation of working mothers and who know that you cant do both. So now, more and more women are coming to terms with reality and have decided to choose motherhood as their careers.

Dont get me wrong, I dont have a problem with motherhood as a career. But this articles skewed view of realityfar from liberating women by showing them that being a mother is a legitimate and popular career path for any womanis actually limiting their choices even more.

It seems like American society really hasnt progressed that much since the Victorian era. By maintaining this status quo of traditional male and female roles, we are not only limiting womens choices, but mens choices too. Who is to say that it has to be solely the mother raising the child? Many families split the responsibility between two parents, others have stay-at-home dads, and still others invite the retired grandparents to pitch in. Personally, my mother worked full-time after I was born, and I was raised mostly by my grandparents, and I think (I hope) I turned out okay. Honestly, I already felt smothered by my mom when she was calling me every hour from workif she was at home doing the same thing, I might have actually suffocated to death.

In the end, it is as if this article were saying, Well, we let women get jobs, and it didnt go so smoothly, so now the experiments over. Now we know the truth: women really do belong at home. It is this kind of sentiment in print and elsewhere that makes working-motherhood more difficult than it needs to be: our society still seems uncomfortable with the idea of the working mother, and thus isnt very supportive.

It doesnt have to be this way. The Scandinavian countries have excellent benefitsnot only for working mothers, but working fathers, tooincluding a longer paid maternity/paternity leave, in some cases, up to five years long. I know that the economists out there will point out that this is why European countries will run out of money to fund their extensive welfare system, but theres no reason why something on a more conservative scale couldnt be implemented in America.

But a system like that isnt in place yet, so in the meantime, what should young women do today? Ultimately, each has to make her own decision, but I hope people understand the reality: women dont have to choose. There is always a way to do both, and your children might even be better off because of it.

Jenny Tsai 07, a Crimson editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House.