"Having it All"

In the world-at-large, how fabulous is it the opportunities that women have?

Pretty fabulous. I'm not close enough to the subject to know whether all women are fairly compensated for similar positions held by their male counterparts. (I hear they're not.) I just know that successful women abound everywhere; they can do everything well and are paid amply enough that many are the head-of-household.

I think most women want to contribute, but I doubt all long to be the head of household, unless they are happily single. I know women such as the ones I described in the previous paragraph, and I see that they are where they want to be. They may (or may not) have had to fight their way to the top, but they worked hard, proved themselves and earned their positions. They are thrilled with their positions, and they don't just rightfully deserve their business moniker, they deserve all the feel-good benefits they can derive from it.

You go, girl. Getting what you want professionally is no small accomplishment. Being where you want to be is, as the now-old term goes--liberating. If you are where you want to be professionally AND personally, this has to be the biggest liberation of all.

But liberation has different meanings for different people. The most liberating thing I see is when women  want to work away from the home and they do, and if they want to stay home to raise the family they do. If they can do either or both on their own terms, that's liberating. To career or not to career, to marry and have a family or not--freedom to choose in whatever and to what degree is liberating.

It's when you have no choice, or feel that someone (or something) is calling the shots for you that freedom becomes "just another word," one that is sadly not a part of your life.

In 2012, I know a number of women who feel no freedom of choice in whether to work away from the home or stay home and raise the babies. Frankly, I know plenty of women (without young ones) who would like to just stay home and pick and choose how to fill their hours, an option unavailable to them also. Something or someone has decided that these women, younger or older, must go to work.

Being home for the kids, seeing them off to school in the morning and greeting them when they arrive back is something they really want to do. They'd like to be free NOT to have to wave the baby off at daycare and wonder all day about the actual care the facility will give. They'd like to be free NOT to hand over an amount of earnings that makes one's efforts to hold a job questionable.

Trying to prod these women towards a realization that they DO have choice is fairly futile, and often enough one can see why. A woman's employment might be the one in a partnership that holds the health insurance and retirement benefits. It likely would be problematic later to try to rejoin the workforce. There is always the reality of binding expenses to maintain a home that obliterate the option of making a decision based on personal choice. Especially in these times, a woman's work might be the ONLY employment carrying a household.

And why is it that taking care of a family, once managed by one income, now costs so much that two incomes do not seem to suffice? Is it a conspiracy that if women want to do well, we all have to pay well, for absolutely everything?

Of course there's a zillion answers. There's much more to covet these days, like homes that are much more spacious and feature-filled than the ones we grew up in, and technogadgets that serve us for both work and leisure. Things that our forebears never considered essential, like auto, homeowner's and health insurance are now practically rule of law for us, with good reason. And the truth is if two people (or more) are going to work in different directions and time frames, there is usually a need for each person to have a car--and all the related expenses. The list goes on and on.

"A chicken in every pot,"  a long-gone saying that once (circa1928, during a presidential campaign) insinuated if every family across America could enjoy a Sunday chicken dinner, that would be prosperity.

We've come a long way (Baby) from being satisfied with a chicken in every pot. It's hard to imagine a time that women (or men for that matter) could consider themselves wealthy or successful with so simple and small a status symbol.

Hmm....the conflicting meanings of "success." One woman has it in her career status that provides a good measure of what she considers to make a wholly meaningful life. For another woman, nothing would make her happier than to be home for the children--or just for herself.

The choice to do either, or at least to try to do either, is real liberation.  It's a funny world when something that was once considered a non-choice (a woman's right to work equitably) later becomes yet another kind of non-choice--the belief that she HAS to work.

***Comments? What do YOU feel about the workplace and the part it plays in your life? Does it make you feel valuable or more strongly do you feel it diminishes your personal choice? If you are a babyboomer (as I am) what do you see your sons and daughters preferring these days as to time split between home, family, and work? Are they doing exactly as they wish, or do they feel the times have limited their options? I would love to hear what others have to say......Darlene