My husband and I are visiting our college-aged daughter for a wintry few days. Last night we took out six students--five young women and a man-- for a long, relaxed dinner. Three of the students attend a business college; three of them attend a women's college. These kids aren't slackers.
Much to my daughter's dismay, I like to ask big questions and then listen intently to the answers. "What would be your absolutely ideal job, the thing you really want to do?"
Their answers were surprising.
Two of the young women said they wanted to balance their careers with having families. One favored business, the other was still unsure, vacillating between math and French. We joked that it sounded like she wanted to become Marie Curie, the only person to get a Nobel Prize in two categories: chemistry and physics.
An answer to this question that included balance would have been improbable just a generation ago. We didn't think in those terms. We thought in terms of having it all. Some of us were wildly disappointed, others made compromises, others abandoned, because neither the workplace nor the family structure considered a woman's needs in a two-career family.
And balance was made a bit more feasible this week when President Obama signed the Equal Pay Act, assuring women the opportunity to litigate compensation disparities when they are not paid equally with men. Thank you, Lilly Ledbetter. Thank you, Mr. President, for making the Equal Pay Act your first legislative act.
Perhaps my generation made this so much an issue because as the first women entered professional suites, our children felt our absences or our disappointments. With Michelle Obama as the First Lady, this discussion is hot and detailed, and goes beyond fluff by examining the policies that prevent women from balancing, like not being paid equally. Check out the New York Times continuing pieces on the Balancing Act. Click through it for some interesting contributions by policy advocates.
Back to the answers to my question: Another young woman wanted a job like her mother's who is a vice president in a health care company. "I loved going to work with her," she explained. "She has a great job." I suspect she also has a mother who enjoys her work.
Another young woman aspired to becoming a physician although she is worried that it has gotten so difficult to get into medical school, that she might have to go for a PhD. first, to get the research and science down.
Our daughter wants to be Secretary of State! She was raised by a mother who was a professor, then a nonprofit executive, so I managed to have it all, mostly because I gave up some of my ambition to become a mother. I surrounded her with a menagerie of women: all sorts so that she could find herself among them.
Today's New York Times Magazine focuses on college-educated women who chose to become mothers without men and without romance in their lives. It's a read.
And the young man wants to start a company around an invention of his own, but he doesn't want to be CEO! After a freshman course in entrepreneurism, he understands his limitations.
Are these kids realistic way beyond their years, or verging on burned out already?
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1 comment:
I worry about them, but I also have hope that they'll find their own happiness - if not sooner, than later. Like some of us did
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