2.12.2008

An Edit

A few days ago, I began typing a blog entitled, The Future Freaks Me Out. That is the title of a song I like to rock out to. It is also descriptive of my life currently. I started writing about the turmoil in my mind because of the mixed messages I am told by various sources regarding women and careers. Sources such as the Church, "the world", and people who care about where my life heads. I'm working on sorting it out, as will soon be apparent.

On one hand, you have those YW lessons (which are severely in need of revision anyhow) that teach how Women are Mothers. Full stop. Don't put motherhood above a career. To do otherwise is to kick your divine calling in the face, etcetera. (See President Beck's talk on "Mothers Who Know"....
Home is where women have the most power and influence; therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world.”) 
!!!?!

And THEN- you have the world saying that women are equal and have the same right as men do to pursue a PhD, MD, or whatever your heart desires. Stay-at-home-moms are unambitious, bored, unfulfilled. Also etcetera.

Finally- you have the people in my life who encourage me to be ambitious and question how I will earn an income someday, and I feel if I were to say, "I just want to be a mom" it would be a disappointment, and if I were to say, "I've decided to go to med school", it would be followed with, "but when will you have children?"

It's just complicated, is all. Hypothetically, If I were to have children after attending medical school (& want to stay home with them rather than work), what would have been the purpose of the time, money, stress, and energy spent in school if I never spend much time working as a doctor? Education sure is important, but I feel as if it's a bad idea to attend school for nearly a decade just for the sake of knowledge. There's other means.

Thing is, 1.) I really think I would like to be a stay-at-home mother (SAHM!) who loves what she does and receives enough joy and fulfillment from staying at home to feel satisfied. 2.) However, I don't want to be a woman who goes through her entire life without having worked full time at a real job at least for a few years before kids and after kids. ('real job' meaning one that requires a degree, something ‘career’-ish?). The question is, where is the line? How much of each situation should I aim for? What if I never figure out who/what I should be?  What if it becomes too late? What if I regret not aiming higher...

Point is, trying to discuss this leads me in circles. I didn't say what I was going to say last week because I didn't want to blog a book. But this is at least a mere sampling of things I get confused about.

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In other news, the semester is halfway over and it has been the 2nd simplest of my entire college career, 2nd only to my first semester as a freshman. Simple, not easy- there's a difference. It's been refreshing not to stress and be all, "I NEED AN A" like I used to. How annoying was that.
I still think A's are a nice little present. But not the be-all, end-all thank heaven

It's time to go stir up some spiderman mac & cheese. Since I was little, I've been convinced cartoon character shapes taste better. Did you know kraft mac & cheese was the first thing I ever learned to cook using the stove? I was so proud too. I mean, learning about toast was cool because it came out looking different than when I put it in- but anyone could push the toaster lever. Precocious George made toast at age 3. The mac & cheese was real cooking, as far as I was concerned. And it still is!


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