Women's Lib Slaps Back
Beginning school with a 2 year old and a 3 month old is definitely a bit of a challenge. I need to be in classes all day long, and when we first began discussing it, we discussed the option of putting the kids in day care. I was not really comfortable leaving my kids in day care all day. I guess I am the type who wants it all. I want to have my career, but don't want to do it at the expense of my kids. Anyway, after a little while I came up with a plan. I told my husband that he could stay home with the kids while I was in school. This way, we wouldn't have to worry about who was taking care of the kids while we were gone. He agreed reluctantly agreed, so now, he works a few nights a week and stays home with the kids while I am at school all day. I guess I didn't really realize what I was in for. Some days I come home and all of them are still in there pjs at 4:00pm and he is bragging that he has gotten the dishes done and put away while I was at school for 8 hours.
Well, quite honestly, I do know that my kids are being well cared for, but somehow when I was thinking about him staying home with the kids this is not exactly what I had in mind. Although, I am truly grateful for the support of my husband, I know that I am lucky to have a man who supports my efforts and loves his children enough to break tradition and stay home to care for them. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I were a single parent trying to get this much done. The demands of school and family pull a person in two different directions. Some nights after we get done with dinner and baths and bedtime, I have to sit down and do school work until midnight. Then I am up at 6:00am getting ready and out to school. The days are long and the nights too short.
I really think that all though I am very lucky to be able to have it all, perhaps things would be much easier if the women's liberation movement had never taken place. If you think about it since women have earned the equality to be able to work, go to school, and have a family, the woman's salary has become an essential part of a family's financial structure. In most households, women don't have the freedom to choose work or staying home, but instead must work outside the home and work in the home and balance both like some type of circus clown. In addition to having to manage a work and household schedule, with the divorce rate being as high as it is, many women are having to do it all alone.
I don't think that when women's lib came about, that this was the intent. The intent was the right for a woman to choose, not be force into both roles. Now as women, more so than at any other time in history, we are burdened to choose between raising our children or allowing them to eat. What kind of choice is that?
