Recently a woman from my office quit her job to become a stay-at-home mom. Her going away party was near my desk and I overheard her colleagues talking about what an invaluable employee she was.
Eavesdropping, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with emotion. My girlfriends and I often talk about how women have to choose between career and family, but there I was witnessing it in the flesh.
For months I had watched this woman with admiration. She was tough. But it didn’t matter. She still had to make The Choice: At what point do you make having a family your first priority in life?
It’s a tough question–arguably one of the most difficult decisions you’ll ever make.
It seems like lots of people would simply rather avoid the question by delaying marriage. The U.S. Census Bureau last week released a survey which found that people are waiting longer to get married. In 1970, only 36 percent of women between 20 and 24 had never been hitched. Last year it was 75 percent. Men in this age group also delayed marriage, with 86 percent of them choosing bachelorhood in 2003 compared to 55 percent in 1970.
I guess that’s not a shocking statistic when you think about all the factors people have to consider before deciding to settle down.
Lincoln Park-based counselor Robert J. Bania, who does marriage counseling, said there are several reasons people might be more hesitant to start their family lives these days. He thinks high living costs have led people to wait for more financial stability. He also noted that many people grew up with divorced parents, which makes them fear commitment.
The divorce rate was at an all-time high of 5.3 per 1,000 people when many of us were young kids in 1982, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. In 1990, when we were teenagers, it was 4.7 per 1,000 people.
Bania said fear of repeating parents’ mistakes might cause people to take more time choosing the right partner, which could explain why the divorce rate decreased in 2003 to 3.8 per 1,000 people.
But the main reason people are waiting to marry, according to Bania, is that today’s women are more career-oriented.
In an effort to achieve that have-it-all life, we start our careers first and then try to have a family once we’ve established ourselves at the office.
I see so many women doing that–from my co-workers to Julia Roberts, who just had her kids at age 37.
But I also know a bunch of stressed, overextended women.
It’s because The Choice is so hard, and you don’t want to screw it up. Especially when you think about the women who sacrificed so much for you to be successful.
If you’re about my age, 24, you probably have an adorable grandmother who got married at age 18 and pursued family life from the start (who would also love for you to get married any day now!). She’s probably an awesome, unselfish woman who loved her husband and her kids and always put them first.
Your mother is probably a women’s lib pioneer. She’s part of the first generation of women who were brainwashed with the lie that you can have it all–and she tried. She got married young and still tried to have a career, which meant you probably went to day care. And you probably never understood the sacrifice she made at work to come to your game or chaperone a class field trip.
Then there’s you. You recently saw the “Bridget Jones” sequel and understood exactly what she was up against. You know you cannot avoid The Choice forever, and that one day everything you’ve worked for may come down to a cake beside your cubicle with co-workers telling stories about what a go-getter you were.
At least, if that’s what it comes down to, you were one–and it doesn’t mean you can’t be one again.
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