Glass ceilings broken: 0

By Sadhika on

A question to women: Can you stand in a group of four of your friends, other women of the same age and same urban background and freely be able to say that you increasingly suspect that your primary source of meaning will be marriage, familial responsibilities, managing a household, having children and taking care of them, feeding them, cleaning them, building them? 

Or will your own friends ridicule you for not being more open-minded, professionally ambitious, or “empowered” enough, and not devoting your time, thought and efforts instead to career advancement?


Will they consider you brainwashed by so-called patriarchal systems of thought and society, when in fact an entire generation of women have been raised with the notion that career will be the primary source of your meaning drilled into you from a young age? Are you indeed brainwashed if you have somehow jumped off that bandwagon, and begin to question in your late twenties, (very reluctantly and cautiously, and even with a little amount of guilt) if perhaps, you were lied to? Are you still narrow-minded if you are trying to find out your truths?


Some of your more good-natured friends might instead ask you why you need to choose one or the other at all. And perhaps you do not need to. If you are lucky, you may be able to achieve a delicate balance of professional activity and familial responsibility that works just right for you. The choice however does not exist because the system is unfair. The choice is presented to you because you are a human being with limited energy, time and availability, and you may be called upon to devote your finite resources either here or there. At times, it will not be possible to juggle both; most of us aren’t Superwoman. 


I must reiterate here: the choice will not have to be made once. It won’t be as simplistic as: You get to have a successful career in whichever field you want, OR you get to have a family system and your children will thrive the best they can. The choice will have to be made again and again. Every time your kid is sick and you decide to take leave from work. Every time you miss an important meeting because your kid had a temper tantrum. Or every weekend when you drop off your kid to a creche while you take a business class. The moments of choice will be plenty. You won’t be giving up one of the two in one fell swoop. 


You must also keep in mind that even though you are young now, you cannot make this choice as if you always will be young. At the age of 25 or 30, you may be young, energetic, relevant in your profession. Younger, more skilled, more relevant and more energetic people might come to replace you when you are at 40 in the same profession, and you may become obsolete. Will you derive as much meaning from it then?


We take this crucial choice in our late twenties in my country, for that is when the majority of urban women get married and at least contemplate the possibility (if not actually have) children. Maybe in the Western world, that choice is delayed by a few more years. But we all must contend with it sooner or later. And the consequences will stay with it for the rest of our lives, as well the opportunity costs.


If you choose professional ambitions: you may feel intense guilt every time you leave your kid with a babysitter, or you make up some excuse when your kid wants to play with you. You may be accused by your children of never being around, not being like other Mums, not feeding them home-cooked meals enough, etc. You may be looking at decade-long resentment that your kids might grow to harbour towards you.


If you choose family life/ motherhood: you may feel guilty about not being the kind of role-model your daughter might want. You may have been told by others or by yourself that you were meant for bigger (?) stuff, and you may be resentful that your family held you back from getting somewhere you could have been. You may stand out from other Mums of your kid’s friends. You may be called upon to justify your choices more. Even your confidence may take a hit.


There is no right or wrong answer in objective terms. The better option is the one that will leave you with fewer regrets. A generalised blunt question (we all can argue nuances and specifics endlessly) would be: If it should come to this, what would you rather fail (or underperform) at: career or family?


Image source: Madonna della Pietà by Michelangelo.

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