Here are a few questions women (Mormon and otherwise, no?) are likely to ask themselves when deciding on a career:
–Will this career work when I’m married?
–Will this career be okay with my husband? (cringe)
–How will this career work when I have kids?
–What will happen to me and this job when I need to be on maternity leave?
–What will happen to me and this job if I decide to pull myself out for X number of years to stay home with the kids when they’re little? How hard will re-entering the workforce be?
–How flexible will this job be in terms of being able to be at home when kids get out of school or when I need to stay home with sick kids?
–Will I have to work late hours or weekends? What kind of impact will that have on my family life?
–Would it be better to have my kids first and then do the training/education associated with this job? Or would it better to do the training/education, get some work experience under my belt, and then have kids?
–Are there certain milestones associated with this career that would be complicated by children, like making partner or getting tenure, for instance?
–Will my spouse and I take turns going to school and working? Will I get my schooling “done” first, or will he? Or will we try to do it at the same time?
–Where do kids fit into this whole picture?
Honestly, I could go on writing questions like this forever. And, in my experience, women talk about this stuff all the time. Not even just Mormon women-all kinds of women. Even though I know plenty of not-Mormon women (and plenty of not-religious women) who tussle with these issues, Mormonism often complicates things. The Mormon belief that women’s primary role in life is to have children and nurture them (see here), and the assumption that this mandate comes not from society or from culture, but from God, add an additional layer of weight (and potential guilt) to the equation.
So let’s say one of my daughters (the oldest turns 16 next week) is wondering about some of these issues. So she goes to the only place she knows, the source of all wisdom-Google-and puts in search terms like “Mormon women and careers.” What will she find? Unfortunately, not much. There’s just not much out there, which strikes me as odd, considering how much energy women expend worrying about these important issues. I want my daughters (and my son!) to be able to read about other women’s struggles. How did they go about deciding what to do and when? Are they happy with their choices? Why/why not? What do they wish they had done differently? If they had it to do all over again, would they do things in the same order or in the same way? Why/why not?
I’ve written about my story here and here and here, but frankly, my kids don’t want to hear my story. I’m their mom, after all-what do I know?
So, friends, consider this my invitation to write a guest post about what your decision set looked like. How did you handle all this? I’m excited about the possibility of having a place to send my kids-and other people’s kids-when they ask about some of these enduring questions. Because right now, there’s really nowhere for them to go.
So until April 5 (or so), we’ll be publishing blog posts about what the authors’ education/job/career/parenting trajectory looks or looked like. I’d love to have posts from a wide range of people-Mormon/not Mormon, women/men, dads/moms, many kids/no kids, married/not married, gay/straight. Submissions should be sent to guestposts@dovesandserpents.org (please see our guest post guide).
Share your stories. I’m curious, and so are our readers.
–Unexpected Spiritual Exerpiences (Invitation, Archive)
–Teaching Sex (Invitation, Archive)
Heather,
Stay tuned there is something in the works to make that google search turn up something!
My mom (a working mormon mommy) pretty much shot down most of my dream careers as a child. “Mommy, I want to be a field biologist”. “How will that work with having kids? Does it have good benefits?”… to be fair, she gave up her dream job (pediatrician) to be a school physical therapist so that her schedule would line up better with child-raising.
Of course, my own plan was to be “just” a SAHM and let me husband bring home bacon. I majored in linguistics- hardly for a career breadwinner. Yet now I have a SAHD husband and make 2 or 3 times what he could, and watch him raise my kids with more patience and sanity than I could. I really REALLY wish I would have prepared myself mentally and academically for a career, because now I see my potential I see how close I was to wasting it all. And I wish he had prepared himself more to be a very active parent, because we would have lost out on his potential there.
I wish that there were more allowance in society for a man or boy to state without fear of being mocked or made fun of that all he wants to do is be a SAHD!!! I think my husband would have had less stress as a young man AND for all the years he has put into bringing home the bacon. I am not saying that men SHOULD stay at home and raise kids, just that any man should be able to wish out loud for that without causing others to constantly remind him of his DUTY to provide. My husband wanted a TON of kids. He likes kids. He can run a house just fine, PLUS love and nurture children. PLUS he listens to them. I like Jenn’s comment and I am SOOOO happy for her and her husband that they were able to do what they are doing even though they were not raised to think that way.
There is an extensive conversation about this topic happening all over. BYU actually held it’s first Mormon Women in Business conference last year (2011) and I was fortunate to present along with Prof E. Jeff Hill on these exact issues. There’s a video floating around somewhere of our presentations. We’ve also covered this in various forms over at the Mormon Women Project and my introduction to the MWP was my interview with them on this topic, specifically on encouraging LDS women to keep their skills up and maintain a seat at the table through their intense mothering years. (At a friend’s suggestion, I tried to post it here for some reason the comment won’t show up).
Heather – thank you for starting this topic. I think it’s a subject that has barely been scratched at and I can’t wait to hear these real stories.
I’ve found my career trajectory spun and swung around several times since I decided what I was going to major in in college, and it continues to swing. It’s funny how our expectations change and we adapt and settle in and then we need to continue to make more and more adjustments. I think the one thing that’s remained constant in my career path is the need for flexibility and my need to have a life outside of the workplace.
It’s a good list of questions, but it’s a list men should consider, too, not just women. In our marriage, we’ve often had the discussion that you can have only 2 of 3 of the following things; great support and coordination for the kids’ stuff and two high powered successful careers. The best thing about having a working mom in the family is that our kids really are very independent and have social skills to fend for themselves in a variety of situations. We don’t have time or inclination to be helicopter parents. I truly never considered staying at home when they were little or now that they are older – not that there aren’t days I hate my job – but I don’t think they would see any reason for me to be home.
Now that their dad is a SAHP, I’m questioning whether there is any real need for anyone to stay at home with the kids. The kids are at school or following their own pursuits. They are figuring out what they want to do with their lives. I’m not totally sure what the SAHP does, aside from domestic logistics, that can’t be done by two working parents. In our case, my travel schedule in my current job is very heavy (about 70%-80%, all international trips) so having a parent home to pick up sick kids from school or remember whether it’s a uniform day or free dress day helps. I asked my kids once if they wished I would have stayed home, and they looked at me like I had 3 heads. They said that’s up to me, but seriously, what would I do all day?
Ang, I agree that the questions should be asked by men as well. I’m so focused on the mom/female aspect of it–and have thought so much about it myself–that you can very easily see that that is my lens.
But then at the end of the guest post call, I said we wanted to hear from dads, too. Ha ha. And people with no kids.
So yeah, I should’ve done a better job of making the call for guest posts more inclusive.